0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. Read 48828 times.
Sin away! I'm getting farther and farther out there away from mediocrity headed toward nirvana. Slowly, but getting there.
Well, it's a new year. When do you tell the story about your experience with the components that you were having issues with?
If I do it will be in a different thread. Not sure I will though.
Okay, installed my new TotalDac USB cable which just arrived via FedEx from France. One of those: what the hell is that, oh wow, ooh didn't know that was there, interesting, is that more separation, not sure, maybe some more hours are needed,.....hopeful.It is always a shock to your body to hear so much change from a single cable. When I updated to Acoustic Zen cables I heard a nice improvement, but not a shock.I didn't know a digital cable could make such a change to the bass. Now I have only just plugged it in and have one whole hour on it but immediately I thought the top end was extinguished for the worse. No edgy attack. Way more laid back. Soft even. The bass came alive and instead of breaking up on deep notes they held up with even more power.The more I listened the more moments of quiet I heard between notes and the more real some things sounded - electric guitars, female vocals, saxophone.Maybe Vincent is really onto something with his filter network. I need more time because it feels like much of the top end is smoothed out but maybe that is hash. I might need to up the volume one more click to compensate.
Lack of remote control is wearing on me, but the damn preamp is so awesome. I am considering many options including a Bent or perhaps a dac that acts like a preamp (although many who do this miss the preamp in the chain). But I'll tell you what, it sounds mighty fine. Now if I can swing some High Fidelity cables to try....
Added power conditioning:Most recently I had the Walker Velocitor - had an interesting effect, was way overpriced for the technology inside, and at the end of the day was a major ripoff to anyone who might have bought one brand new. What I learned was that the QRT technology was very effective and I moved in that direction.Tried a small Silver Circle Audio power block that was not equipped any more inside than the Felix. It was very damaging to the sound, but did help the noise.I started experimenting with Audio Magic Gen ZX's and PEA's to great effect. I ended up hard wiring a Gen ZX into each monoblock, placed a small PEA over the circuit breaker (highly recommended), and then eventually put a medium PEA over each monoblock's grates as well.The Kemp QRT's also work very well and are adjustable. The cheapest QRT technology you can buy.I still have a Running Springs Duke I used on the amps to great effect. I have not tried it in combination with my latest XXX unit from Audio Magic yet.One thing for sure is that sibilance is completely gone with AM gear and the noise level is significantly reduced. Not 100% gone but way better than prior setups. Here are some recent photos:
A P.E.A. is:http://www.audio-magic.com/Prod-PEA.htmlIt is similar to QRT (Quantum Resonance Theory) but not exactly the same. PEAs are often referred to as Spintronics, but I am not sure that is accurate from my readings on Spintronics (still trying to wrap my head around this). Aligning electroncs so they are all going in the same direction and therefore do not make "noise" by being chaotic is what I believe a PEA is supposed to do. Something like that. Whatever it is, it seems to clean up the sound and in my application does not impede any flow of music. Quite the opposite, it seems to "free up" the sound and provide more detail.
Well thanks for the explanation and the link. I had not heard of this before. If you place a PEA over a breaker and it aligns your electrons at that location, how does it prevent those same electrons from becoming un-aligned by the time they reach your components?
