Ivan, I possess two somewhat-vintage equalizers at my disposal, a Soundcraftsman 15 band per channel graphic (complete with noise generator and microphone metering), and a rare Sony Esprit 3 band per channel full parametric (which is built inside and out like comparably older pieces of Accuphase or Mark Levinson might be!), and they have been very useful and very educational to play around with in the past. But ever since I got my system up to and past a certain point of truthfulness, I find I don't use them much anymore, and then only for dubbing and diagnostic work, not for straight listening. The more complete - sonically speaking - my rig became, the less, I discovered, I needed to make any compensation for variable recordings to achieve listenability. In fact, this was one of the phenomena that really let me know I was on the worthwhile track with this madness. This experience, too, would seem to bolster the argument for not downgrading one's system to "match" the supposed source quality.
Is Your System Better Than the Music You Like?
I've recently come to the conclusion that the capabilities of my audio system exceeds the quality of my typical recordings. It's making me rethink any ideas I had involving future upgrades. Just wondering if anyone else has reached this point?
I have what most people would consider a very high quality system, but by no means is it a SOTA setup. The system is made up of components by JRDG, REL, Martin-Logan, MSB, Sony, TACT, RPM, Discovery, PS Audio and Benz. I have a decent room and while I won't say I'm obsessive about it, I've paid a reasonable amount of attention to setup issues. The overall sound quality is quite good. Still there's always room for upgrades. I could upgrade the DAC to a Plus, switch the subwoofer cables, add an Arcici stand, maybe go with an outboard tube phono preamp, etc. I could easily put another $10,000 into the system in worthwhile improvements without fundamentally changing the character or capabilities of the system.
Musically, I'm a basic old-school rocker. Anything from 50s New Orlean R&B, Motown, 60s psychedelia, 70s punk & funk to 80s rap. The 90s are less well represented, but there are smatterings. I'm a big Chicago style electric blues fans. I'm also a big classic jazz fan. I go for Ellington big-big-time, Billie Hoilday, Louis, 50s Blue Note and Miles. There's some classical as well as a couple of country artists (you can't go wrong with Dwight).
I have any number of audiophile quality pressings and recordings, but the majority of my music, particularly my favorite recordings, are down and dirty with no pretensions towards audiophilia. The 30s jazz that I so love is noisy, bandwidth limited and mono. The Chess blues recordings have a very nice aliveness to them, but they're mainly mono and without much deep bass. Most 60s to 70s rock is sonically undistinguished (obviously there are exceptions) and is more mid-fi than hi-fi. Rap is purposely lo-fi. Current recordings are extremely dynamically limited. My point is that you don't need a $150,000 system in a custom built room to properly reproduce these types of music. You still need a good system capable of low distortion, wide bandwidth, sharp imaging and all the other audiophile traits, but it doesn't have to be outrageously complex nor all that expensive.
I probably will continue to make relatively minor upgrades, but I can't imagine making any major changes. Maybe I'm no longer an audiophile and I've slipped down in the world of mid-fi, if so, I'd at least like to think that it's a quality mid-fi.
I have what most people would consider a very high quality system, but by no means is it a SOTA setup. The system is made up of components by JRDG, REL, Martin-Logan, MSB, Sony, TACT, RPM, Discovery, PS Audio and Benz. I have a decent room and while I won't say I'm obsessive about it, I've paid a reasonable amount of attention to setup issues. The overall sound quality is quite good. Still there's always room for upgrades. I could upgrade the DAC to a Plus, switch the subwoofer cables, add an Arcici stand, maybe go with an outboard tube phono preamp, etc. I could easily put another $10,000 into the system in worthwhile improvements without fundamentally changing the character or capabilities of the system.
Musically, I'm a basic old-school rocker. Anything from 50s New Orlean R&B, Motown, 60s psychedelia, 70s punk & funk to 80s rap. The 90s are less well represented, but there are smatterings. I'm a big Chicago style electric blues fans. I'm also a big classic jazz fan. I go for Ellington big-big-time, Billie Hoilday, Louis, 50s Blue Note and Miles. There's some classical as well as a couple of country artists (you can't go wrong with Dwight).
I have any number of audiophile quality pressings and recordings, but the majority of my music, particularly my favorite recordings, are down and dirty with no pretensions towards audiophilia. The 30s jazz that I so love is noisy, bandwidth limited and mono. The Chess blues recordings have a very nice aliveness to them, but they're mainly mono and without much deep bass. Most 60s to 70s rock is sonically undistinguished (obviously there are exceptions) and is more mid-fi than hi-fi. Rap is purposely lo-fi. Current recordings are extremely dynamically limited. My point is that you don't need a $150,000 system in a custom built room to properly reproduce these types of music. You still need a good system capable of low distortion, wide bandwidth, sharp imaging and all the other audiophile traits, but it doesn't have to be outrageously complex nor all that expensive.
I probably will continue to make relatively minor upgrades, but I can't imagine making any major changes. Maybe I'm no longer an audiophile and I've slipped down in the world of mid-fi, if so, I'd at least like to think that it's a quality mid-fi.
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- 14 posts total
- 14 posts total