Questions About Upgrading A Stereo System

Your system looks pretty well balanced...this hobby can make you lose the original plot.I'm guessing about 80% of your music sounds great....you need to be less critical of the prodution values of the other 20% and just enjoy it for what it is,great music with slightly less great sound quality .

 

This concept is new to me. What makes a system balanced?

 

Bright speakers with bright sources =bright system.By the same token dark speakers with dark source ect

 

Improve your digital source, you are just revealing its limitations. It's the problem with digital in general, try some R2R DACs especially if CDs are your main source.

 

Great to hear that the problem has been solved. This type of situation (you think you're upgrading a cable/interconnect only to find out later the piece is a mismatch in your system) has happened to me quite a few times.

 

Thanks, G B.

It's funny, the more I listened to the cheap wire that solved the problem, the more the sound opened up on top, to the point that today it sounded (tonally) a lot like the jumper it replaced. So, I swapped the Nordost jumper back in and immediately noticed more detail and clarity (this was my reason for getting the jumper, that and my speaker cable is also Nordost.) It is certainly a bit harder on the ears at louder volumes, but I did some Googling on that and found Nordost users of the cable used in my jumper reporting that the wire takes 300+ hours to burn in. Since I only have about half of that on mine, I'm going to give it more time before deciding if I want to keep them. I have 60 days from purchase (49 more days) to return for full refund.

Right now I am listening to Gord's Gold, an old compilation with varying sound quality. The guitars sound crisp and lifelike.

 

Gord’s Gold, good suggestion! One of the worst things that could happen is for Gordon Lightfoot not to sound good on your system!

 

If a system is really better, well it's better with all kinds of music. It's not so that the system knows it should only be better with some recordings.

 

Ready for a funny true story?
A story one hifi salesman would tell another hifi salesman?
Read on.
A new "kid" (35 years old guy) joined the old wheezers that sold super expensive high end stereo gear at "Harvey" the world's oldest stereo shop in Manhattan.
(I guess it's that old...but let me keep going with the story).
"After doing well in sales this last year I finally broke down and bought my own first real HIGH END stereo" said the new salesman. He mentioned it would be running the end of the week.
A couple weeks went by and we were all dying to know what the "new kid" though about owning GREAT music gear.
"My music sounds like **** on my new stereo," he replied in obvious disgust.
"Oh, maybe it needs break-in" said one older sales rep.
"Could be you need a sub or two to even out the floor bounce cancellation," offered another.
"No. No!" said the boy.
"My system is performing at levels I never dreamed of."
"My MUSIC is all a bunch of **** garbage and I can't stand listening to these jerks as they have no talent and it's all compressed," he explained.
He just never noticed how bad everything was before on his old stereo from Best Buy.
We laughed and loaned him our "Miles-Blue" and Coltrane CDs.
True story.
Happened just like I said.

 

Not sure about that. It sounds logical, but different systems have different strengths and weaknesses, and different genres of music put different demands on a system. The only way it will be better with all recordings is if the upgrade was an upgrade across the board. Some "upgrades" actually lead to downgrades in other areas. Acceptable perhaps if you value the upgrade more than whatever was downgraded.

 

Yea at a certain level, you’re more often then not reprioritizing compromises than what you would traditionally call an “upgrade”.

Tastes change over your audio journey, after a while a huge upgrade sometimes just means hearing something different

 

Try to decouple "analytical" from "shrill" You can have the detail in a recording all day long, that doesn't automatically equate it becoming a shrill presentation.

 

No that´s a contradiction. If a system is better it can´t, at the same time, be worse, if so it´s not better in the first place. A system is just trying in reproducing a bunch of sine-waves, if it does that better, it can´t be worse.

 

Depends on what you’re looking for. A person looking for more clarity might consider a panel speaker an huge upgrade. If someone is looking for more dynamics it could be a big downgrade.

“Better” and “worse” are too subjective at a certain point to have such a logical approach

 

But it´s a very reasonable approach. Which 'only some recordings sound better', isn´t. Even in this field there is room for logic, I like to think.

 

It's just not always reality though. Someone may go to the Harbeth P3ESR because they value tone and imaging above all else. And for most of the music that person listens to it may be just the ticket. But that speaker will not excel at presenting scale and bass impact - music that demands this will not be as great as it might be on other speakers. But those speakers won't have the tone of the Harbeths.

There are tons of other examples. It's not always black and white, better or worse. Sometimes certain aspects will improve with an upgrade while others will become worse. Your approach, where you want everything to improve, is obviously ideal. But that might cost a lot of money (e.g. going up the Harbeth line, and even then do those speakers have quite the strengths the P3ESR does?) or get complicated (e.g. adding a sub to provide what the P3ESR is missing - some people don't want a sub).

Depends on a person's priorities. I think I'm kind of like you, to a certain point I want an all-rouderer that does most things really well, because music has many aspects to it. But if I wanted true excellence in one or two areas I might have to compromise a bit in other areas, unless I'm willing to spend a ton.

 

Hello All,

I have done a lot of audio forum reading but have never posted. I wanted to share the system I put together over the last few years. This system was influenced by all the posts + reviews I have read. I was actually able to demo this complete system + numerous variations. It just goes to show, with a little research + leg work, a damn good system can be put together at a reasonable price point. The system also passed the wife test on the aesthetic front, she is a designer.

1. Rogue Audio Sphinx 2
2. Sota Comet + Nagaoka MP-150 cartridge
3. Buchardt S400's

In addition, the below components are integrated into the above system.
1. Brennan B2
2. Sonos connect + a few Sonos Play:1's scattered throughout the house.

Love to hear some feedback.

 

Hi,

I recommend starting a new thread, as this one is about upgrading your system and it appears your post is on a different topic.

 

I have many of those. What works for me everytime is cranking the bass control a lot to attain good bass levels (provided you have tone controls and are not a purist). Sure, this throws other part of the spectrum out of phase, but tames the offending frequencies most times than not, warming the signal, resulting in a way more pleasant aural experience.

I used to have a set of Technics speakers, through which everything sounded dull (had to always crank the treble) but those foul recordings were tolerable.

Don't forget to turn off your sub while giving this a try.

 

I sometimes worry about the word “revealing”. What’s being revealed? Noise detail or musical detail?

If you listen to an acoustic guitar, are you hearing more of the noises made by the fingers on the strings or are you hearing more of the musical notes and chords?

My previous Monitor Audio GS60 speakers were very revealing in the first way, whereas my current Russell K Red 150s are also very revealing in the latter way.

Since I love music and not just rhythm and percussion, the Red 150s are far better at floating my boat. These speakers do the first type of detail but don’t shove it in my face.

I can still tell apart good and bad recordings and masterings, but the music that comes shining through makes such distinctions far less important to me.

The more balanced approach of the Red 150s in combination with their overall quality and “rightness” also allows emotion to shine through, which is fundamental to the music that I listen to. I’m less for admiring or analysing technique and more for the effect that the technique has on me.

This isn’t restricted to Russell K speakers, either, although they’re rather good. Even the lowly budget Q Acoustics 2020i speakers in my second system are able to communicate.

In the end, for me it really comes down to whether or not I “get” what the artist intended me to hear. If the speaker succeeds in allowing me to “get it” then it’s job done! That’s what an upgrade means to me.

 

I understand it to mean revealing differences between recordings and/or masterings.

 

Understood.

 

Yes indeed, one must suffer for one's pleasure. Hopefully, given enough money and time one can achieve a system that is so sophisticated, so revealing that there is only one out of this world recording that sounds absolutely stellar, heavenly, the angels sing. Everything else sounds like a POS. This is the ultimate audiophile nirvana.

 

Sarcastic, but not what the person you quoted meant, at all.

 

Or you could just relax and enjoy your music ...chances are if you're on this forum your system is at a point where improvements are gonna be incremental and subtle.