Viber,
Your musical expertise is unlikely to hold a candle to mine.
This is the epitome of arrogance. You have no idea what my knowledge base is on the subject material here.
This thread is not about "musical expertise" but about experience and lessons learned to assemble a musical system, WC's system, which has slowly become nearly the state of the art of home systems in the last 2 or so years.
My comments were not disrespectful at all. You repeatedly comment here on subjects, e.g., strengths/weaknesses of specific components, how they compare with other components and within a system, etc., that you have zero experience. A number of other members here have stated the same about your comments.
Whatever equipment I haven't heard, I gain insight from WC's accurate descriptions, so my comments have validity. Euphonics as described by WC are the opposite of accuracy, which you may not value, but WC certainly honestly states the difference.
Yes he does, honestly indeed, and as he states, in the context of his system in his home, with his music and his listening biases. I too gain some insights from what he shares. But his comments do not validate anything beyond all those criteria. WC has become highly respected here, but as a number of readers have stated, they have some different experiences with some of the same gear.
My system too would likely be described as euphonic by some. But I don't need to be a symphony orchestra member to know the accurate sound of an instrument nor the human voice. I can go upstairs and hit keys on the piano and then go back downstairs and compare/evaluate any two components in my current system and know which implementation more closely matches the overall character of what I heard upstairs.
There is a delicate balancing act to achieve tonal accuracy, low-level information retrieval, dynamics and the 3-dimensionality. That last element is the attribute that again and again is lacking in so many systems I have heard in homes, dealers and shows. Long ago I chose to initially focus on that. And since then, I have slowly worked to address the other attributes to refine my system. If I did not value accuracy, I would not have spent a good part of my income over the last 42 years to chase the experience to achieve a hint of the real performance in my home. My college Marantz 2325 receiver, BIC 980 TT and Pioneer HPM 100 speakers would likely still be in use today.
Let's be honest about euphonics. It was Audio Research almost single handily that responded to the sudden sterility of sound coming from the "modernization" of audio equipment based on solid state devices. The SP3,6,8,10, all were incredibly inaccurate and yet they brought the listener back to the enjoyment of the music. As an owner of the SP-10 long ago for 8 years, I was very aware of its flaws but at that time, it was outstanding compared to its competition. I followed it with ARC line/phono stages 4 or so ARC generations later, and then ultimately moved on through 3 other product lines to achieve what I have today. The SP-10 experience has much to do with my system's performance today and it was not the detail, it was the 3D. This IS EXACTLY what WC is experiencing today. He is now working to retain this magic with some system refinements. I applaud what he has done and to not let others push him to do what he does not want to do!
