An old saying goes, "better lucky than good." A little serendipity took place at my man cave this afternoon. I was reinserting my Herron M150s after living with a DK Designs MKII for about a month. I like to switch gear around what can I say. I've got six integrated amps, two transports, two DACs, five sets of speakers, two CDPs, innumerable cables--geez I got it bad.
The only piece of gear I ever regretted acquiring was a pair of electrostatic speakers from Lightning Sound. I traded a beautiful Juicy Music Blueberry for them, figuring I'd never owned a pair of stats before--they retailed with upgrades at over 7000 bucks, so why not have some fun. Well, nothing I had on hand could drive them adequately, so I tucked them into the corners of my audio haven, smarting and feeling a bit angry at myself. I really wish I had that Blueberry.
Anyhoo, I'm retrieving some interconnects from the crawl space where I store my cables. In order to accomplish said mission I've got to slide one of the Lightning Sounds out of the way. I slip it a foot from the outside of my right Sp Tech speaker and pull it back another foot. I grab the interconnects hook everything up and anxiously await an afternoon of Bubble Puppy and Lee Morgan--a strange pair, but I've got a mighty hankering.
I fire it up and it sounds oh so good. Too good. Wait a minute. The soundstage has never quite snapped into focus the way it's doing it now. Could it be? No it couldn't. I'm an avid non-tweaker. Except for some cable lifters I never bought into snake oil claims. Get good equipment, find the synergy, and bingo--grand music! But this is noticeable. So I take the other Lightning sound and apply it to the other Sp Tech. Even better. So how do I know I'm not just going crazy. The bass has lost most of it's bloat---holy sheet, a miracle.
My wife comes home and she's standing behind me listening, and gradually an angry look comes over her face. "Okay Daniel, what did you buy this time? I can tell if you're lying. Come clean, now." I felt really guilty, sheepish even.
"Really, honey--nothing. I haven't spent a dime--see." And I proceed to show her what happened. We fool around with placement for the next hour, and it's turning us both into tweaker-converts.
Later on she apologizes. "The whole thing never sounded that good; I just figured you went into the kids' college fund again. I'm sorry. I love you." And she gives me a big smack. Lucky, lucky, lucky indeed!
