Absolutely! Prepared foods in restaurants, or prefab meals from the grocery stores are notoriously salty. The amount of table salt I use at home is minuscule compared to that. I'm not even doing a "low salt" diet, I just went from high salt to recommended "normal" intake. There are two Italian restaurants in my town I won't go near due to their salty tomato sauce and salty pizza. The first week or two, food tastes bland, then after that if you go back to the high salt food you can't stand it.
I don’t even have the capabilities to stream through my system but I thought this was a great post. Well stated.
As for the OP, and unexpected sq improvements, when CDs came out most of my friends were sceptical. Square waveforms and this and that. At the same time we'd be collecting CDs before we even had players, simply because we couldn't afford the hardware! So we really didn't know what to think. I'll tell you what though, soon as I heard the oboe solo in Brahm's 2nd I was sold! Then when the White album came out and I could actually hear Harrison's "Long, Long, Long"...wow. That's not to say that I haven't heard amazing turntable based systems, they just weren't mine. All the hassles you talk about were hurdles I just couldn't seem to get past. Now the idea of finding an album on the shelf, pulling it out, cleaning it...I still listen to whole albums though. At the same time having the ability to pick individual tracks at will is hard to beat. Another major change was discovering step attenuators. I knew that the channel balance at low volumes was going to be superior to a pot, what I didn't expect was how solid the sound would be at extremely low listening levels (I do a lot of midnight listening), it's truly amazing. I've come to believe that the importance initial volume control can't be underestimated.
This for vinyl: Diskeeper Tonearm Headshell Level 1.5 GRAMS I just picked one up and discovered both my Pro-Ject Carbon Classic and Technics SL-1210GR was slightly off from the factory. I made the adjustments and wow. Definitely recommend it. I have zero affiliation with them. I held off on getting one for years and decided to pick one up to just to see.
Edensound brass feet placed under my streaming DAC. It even blew away my wife who hears no improvement no matter what it's been.
My biggest surprise in sound improvement was replacing my Siemens gold pin E88cc in my ARC SP9 to a Valvo E88cc gold pin. It was literally WTF! Cheers, Doug
In the past 2 weeks, decided I'd try new speaker cables to my Sierra 2EX Monitors (had 36 year old Monster Cable Professional that sounded great). I ordered new Sonic Welded BJC Canare 4S11 Star Quad cables from Amazon. I was somewhat dejected upon their arrival, as they are a stiffer and larger diameter speaker cable than what I'm use to, but wait, where in the heck did my S-2EX Go???????????? I'm immediately hearing background nuisances, inner details and venue sounds that weren't in my recordings before. Soundstage depth and height has grown even larger with 3D space and air around vocalist and instrumentalist. A veil, one I never felt existed, has been lifted and Clarity, Resolution and Realism has taken a quantum leap into the ultra High Fidelity Realm! In my music library, cymbals, clapping, string bowing and many other micro details have appeared more real than I've previously experienced. Vocals, as an emotional and diverse instrument, have taken on a new reality, with articulation and inflections that are crystal clear and natural. Bass attacks, punch, timbre and tonality has become Superb and grown exponentially (just thought I had great bass before). Both micro and macro dynamics have expanded in impact, adding realism to the softest and loudest musical passages. Come now, where did my 2EX go??????! No kidding, these new BJC Canare 4S11 speaker cables have made my Sierra 2EX Monitors sound like they were given a hefty dose of Steroids, All in a Great Way!!! I've been BLOWN AWAY by the performance (and low cost) of the Blue Jeans CANARE 4S11 Star Quad 11Ga speaker cables…has transformed my overall sound presentation so much, seems like I have New $$$$+ 3-way speakers (I don’t, just Great 2-way monitors+sub)!! Possibly, I've lucked out with a better Synergistic match with the BJC Canare 11Ga speaker wire between my power amp and my 2EX Monitors. Either way, with the genre of acoustical non-amplified music I enjoy listening to, I feel I'm missing Absolutely Nothing in the bottom end...or for that matter, anywhere in the mid to top end!! Ted
I've had a lot of free time around the house lately (covid lockdown) so took my small Yamaha Studio Monitor Speakers from my recording (needle drop) room's system and hooked them up to my Lounge room system which uses Yamaha 12" PA Speakers (DXR12) which have a THRU connection (XLR) enabling me to run multiple speakers at the one time. Each speaker has a separate Vol. control at the rear... when each speakers' vol. control is to my liking I control all 4 speakers using the master vol. fader on my Mixer (XLR's to speakers). As I was hoping, I'm getting a bit more of the highs detail from the studio monitors (placed at head height) blended with the rich bass from the PA Spkrs. I play (thru this system) either CD's.. or lossless digital files (ex needle drops) from my laptop via ext DAC to Mixer.
Once I went to a system with double C core transformers with silver wire, copper foil capacitors, internal silver wire, silver interconnects, single ended with no feedback amps, ultra low output MC cartridge wired with silver over Alnico magnets, all silver SUT, and bi-wired speakers that are 98db efficient with silver voice coils and external crossovers filled with copper foil caps and silver inductors......everything improved. Weird.
A 3/4 ounce egg sinker in the rear of my Sony pau-7 tonearm. The additional "sub-weight" that was made to stick in the end is a huge PITA to locate. This sinker weight is within .08 oz of the orignal one and I put small dabs of blue tak around the edge of the weight where it loosely slid in the arm extension. Made a huge difference in the sound to have the counterweight much closer to pivot. Just an overall cleaner sound with more detail and smoothness.
Can't say if it's an improvement or not, but I've noticed that the perceived tonal balance of my speakers varies depending on the angle of my head/ears to the speaker axes. Specifically, if I look downwards somewhat (rather than straight ahead) I perceive more HF detail. I have no idea why but perhaps the pinnae are more efficient at capturing the HF that way. Very strange...
I'm guessing that we all could improve some aspect of our systems by throwing money at it. However, the most surprising thing for me is the huge difference good speaker placement brings. I've personally gone from a "my system sucks" feeling to a "wow, now that's something" just by moving speakers around. Second to this is preparing the room overall, but sadly I don't have an ideal space in my property, so that's always going to be a compromise. Speaker placement costs you nothing but time, although I will say, I've sometimes been totally frustrated. Even the smallest movement can have radical ramifications when it comes to soundstage, etc. Too often I've placed speakers where it's convenient for them to be, leaving overall performance "on the table" as it were. I'll try never to do that again.
There have been a lot of surprises over the years. I would say tubes. The more tubes I added the more I liked it. That shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as every guitar amp that I've liked was tubes.
iFi sells anDC blocker and has some info what it does. DC Blocker by iFi audio | Reduces noisy transformer hum caused by DC on your mains.
Speaker diffraction rings. Well, in my case strips of felt stuck in a square pattern around the tweeters, on the front of the speaker cabinets. Couldn't believe how well they dampened down glare/brightness.
Mine is from Holton DC Blocker One R3 - AC Mains Conditioner I got it as the last ditch attempt to reduce the mechanical (transformer) buzz from 2 Schiit Vidars. While the hum was almost gone (barely audible from my listening position). Unexpectedly. It made an even more profound impact to the sound in terms of increased clarity, dynamics and depth. Regards
Unexpected moment was just recently... For the last year or so I was not 100% thrilled with a pair of KEFs I saved and renewed. Something was missing or not right although overall Very good still. Came close to pulling the trigger on a Double Impact with options or a set of Cornwalls for $$ :-/ (im an audiophiliac) and finding a new home for the KEFs. This model has a reputation for wanting a BIG room and being fussy with placement and I tried a Hundred and one things. Then I bought a new Listening Chair which is kind of Low to the ground. The speakers are tall with the coaxial Highs and Mids come from the very top (54" tall speaker) They Always fired over my head but with the new chair it was just too high! I sit about 12 feet from them and they sit about 3-4 feet from the front wall. I Dramatically tilted the speakers downward. Made them nearly perpendicular to my face when looking at each speaker while sitting in the chair. Its like they are a different speaker model of KEF I never heard. That dramatic. Soundstage grew even more. Detail and transparency in more abundance. Somewhat brighter but in a nice way. Tighter through the entire range. Vocals more forward where they were somewhat mostly recessed before. Spent nights ripping through different material and im just Blown Away how much of a difference that excessive Tilt made and just how much impact and loss of timing and coherency from these 4-way speakers I was experiencing before. These speakers are made for LARGE rooms with High Ceilings powered by 400 watt McIntoshes. But After this week im not interested in any other speakers. It like when the girlfriend you've had a while does something unexpected (and talented) you like and your all over her again LOL
