Mark,
So how did the marathon go? I look forward to comparing your notes with ours.
Note: I am a Dealer of the Qol product here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
If you have time, details on type of music auditioned and how the Qol product effected these types of music would be much appreciated. As well, if you can make a comment about the music depth, I would love to hear your impressions. |
Hawk28,
Have a read of the BSGT.com website for additional info.
Peterayer,
Ummm....which one? :) An example of one of my personal systems would be Cary tube gear , USHER BE speakers, and MIT cables.
oh..and mostly Fender CS guitars, basses, and equipment. |
Marc,
I concur with your findings. I no longer do sound test but rather just run Qol during listening sessions. The way I see it, it is like going to stereo...once listeners got over the paradigm shift, it just become the completion of the music and how it should be heard.
Once very nice extra feature is that the room acoustics now play less of a role. This is great for problem and odd shaped rooms. |
Ozzy, thanks for the review and impressions. I am glad you are enjoying your Qol. Thanks to all who are also posting.
To address the cable and room treatment comments, I will give my experience as a dealer and from my personal experimentation.
Good cables will always help save the purity of the signal path and reduce noise in a "busy" system so use good discretion and set a budget for these items.
We have played with room treatments with and without Qol in the system. As always first order reflection issues should always be addressed, if possible. This may simply be for good measure or imperative for very difficult rooms. Without Qol, with and without these treatments, the difference is very noticeable. I am not telling anyone on this high end forum anything new there. With Qol, we have found that these treatments become much, much less of a consideration. In many cases, they made little to no improvement so they were simply removed from the room.
In difficult rooms, Qol has also made a nice improvement. Be it an asymmetrical room, odd construction, or dealing with the Wife's firm position on how much real estate she will give up for your crazy science lab, Qol has helped to improve these setups. By taking much of the room out of the equation, these difficult scenarios have become less of a headache.
If any of you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like to audition in our shop or in your home, please feel free to give us a call. We would be happy to give you a taste of Qol. setonav.com 510-279-2600 Or, if you are in other areas and would like to simply speak about the technology, we would love to hear from you. |
Yes...we have experimented both ways and actually run it both ways on different sets up we have.
For our setups...again, this is for our specific setups. We run Qol behind the preamp in our higher end room with Cary FE211s tube amps and in front of the preamp in our more affordable setup with a Cary 200.2 solid state amp.
There are many reasons as to why one may feel it sounds better in one position or the other. Some reasoning may be scientific, some may be physiological, and others mental but the reason an audiophile should place it in one place or another should be governed by what makes your ears happy...."Listen to your Ears!" |
Peterayer,
To my ears, here is what happens.
1) Stage open up to a more natural size and shape. Without Qol, the stage sounds like a typical reproduced stage that we have been trying to make better every year.
2) Depth of the music becomes much more present. It sounds more three dimensional and layered.
3) The rooms seems to go away and the music becomes in the room rather than directly from the speakers.
You should do yourself a favor and have a listen to one. I think you will be pleasantly surprised as to how much better things sound or at least how much of a change the product makes to your listening experience.
In the end, it is what makes your ears happy that you should consider. If Qol does not then you should not get one. If it does, $4k is not much money, relatively speaking, in this wonderful hobby of ours. Heck, the alternative of upgrading your speakers or amp or preamp or cables or any component may cost you that much or more and not give even close to the difference you will hear in the musical improvements from Qol.
Let's face it,this is a huge jump in sonic happiness for us Audiophiles and HiFi junkies. We are not normally used to such giant leaps. We are used to paying $500 for this tweak or $1000 for that treatment that at best we say, "yeah...it helped things a bit". Often, many tweaks really don't do much to the end product...how the music makes you feel. With Qol, it is just so large of a change that our kind is having a hard time swallowing the improvement without over analyzing it or throwing up the snake oil flag. I mean, how could we go so many hears with such small expensive improvements and now find a giant leap for "hifi-kind"? :)
Sure the price tag may seem a bit high for an add on but when you consider the amount of money we spend on tweaks, cables, and treatments, the ratio of listening/toe tapping pressure per dollar is far superior in a Qol Signal Completion Stage.
Again, have a listen to one and simply "Listen to your Ears". They will guide you to your final decision as to if Qol is right for you.
For me, as a musician, audiophile, HiFi junky, and audio dealer, it was absolutely right for me the first time I heard it. The first thing I thought was, "How did they get those Vandi 2s to sound so good in this small hotel room?" After listening for a few minutes to the speakers that I know very well and becoming envious as to how much better they sound, I was 100% ready to buy and become a dealer.
My two pennies... hope this helps. |
Peterayer,
I agree with Ozzy, this would be in addition to the tweaking you already did but to a much larger scale as what you did is not correcting phase.
There surely is a noticeable volume increase when Qol is engaged but it does not sound like when you hit the "Loud" button on your car stereo nor turn up the volume but rather it sounds like you are listening to more information. I would compare it to only playing one channel of your system,(Qol off). When you turn on the second channel, (Qol on), the rest of the music is now delivered and the signal and music is complete. Did you turn up the volume? NO...you simple delivered the rest of the music that is on the track.
I do see this technology moving its way not only into other hifi preamps and processors but also into the consumer market using the lesser digital algorithm of the technology. I think Larry Kay (Audiophile and HIFI enthusiast) will keep the highest quality analog version in the high end market. From a business sense, the hifi market is likely the low profit side while the licencing the digital algorithm to the consumer market is where that company will really prosper. |
In response to Onhwy61,
Every recording engineer deals with the objective of creating an appropriate middle and side for stereo imaging. And, the range of subjectivity used in choosing this mix varies greatly from one individual to another. Stereo imaging is essential in the "placement" of instruments, vocals, etc. However, there is another critical element associated with the reproduction of sound, and that is the mix of direct and reverberant sound, the timbre quality of the room and instruments. Qol addresses this essential part of the recorded signals, to open them in the acoustic space as required to convey information buried in the signal otherwise.
The inventor of the intermittent wiper fought tremendous legal battles over the novelty of his patent. Comparing the Qol technology to an M/S processor is like comparing the words "it," "best," "worst," "time," "of," and "the" to the sentence: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Identifying components is far simpler than assembling them into art. |
Agreed Marc777,
Seems like some are trying to find reasons not to embrace a new technology and show how they can try to skin a cat cheaper.
I find this a bit odd because most embrace the slight, if any, improvements we get from all the little tweaks we constantly purchase. Be it enhancement in sound stage, texture, room issues, or whatever, they are all benefits you get from correcting for phase and is what Qol is all about.
Health foods are often more expensive than fast food. This is because healthy foods complete the human needs...not just try to solve the short term issue of hunger for the next few hours. Qol completes the signal and is not designed to solve a specific issue with a track, system, or room. |
Ozzy,
I hear you with "Qol" fidelity. So does Robert Harley and everyone who has purchase a Qol or is eagerly waiting theirs to arrive. It has impressed so many critical and now "wowed" ears that BSGT is sold out of units.
Dealers are being told it will be a few more weeks before the US factory can catch up with the overwhelming demand and hopefully keep up with the growing number of orders.
You are one of the many fortunate customers to be enjoying this wonderful addition to your system and its completion of your music and listening experience.
Don't be too hard on yourself about the emotional writing. Music and how Qol brings it to you touches your soul and emotions the way the artist intended. It is understandable that you were and are on the emotional high that others customers are on.
Enjoy and remember to "Listen to your ears!" |
Madfloyd,
If I tell you, or better yet post on a forum, that I build computers and can make your laptop perform as good as a multi-processor server can, are you going to believe me because I am a computer geek? I am sure that would be a firm NO, as it should be.
Your statements are claiming fact and seem to be based on what someone wrote on a forum rather than by practice and experience. I think we just went through a long discussion on how this is not what the thread is looking for. Experience with the product and technical preference is the topic I think we were on.
Looking forward to hearing others experiences with the product. |
Onlywy61... I have made it known...a few times.
Like I stated prior... After the first time I heard Qol, I was a believer. I then asked BSGT to allow me to become a dealer.
hifigeek1, you should have a listen to one...it may change your opinion as to how one may become passionate about a technology.
I have to say though...since most if not all Qol owners are "overly exuberant" about the product...that should really allow readers to draw a positive conclusion about the product.
disclaimer1: I am a very happy Qol user and proud dealer. |
Milpai,
Why too much? If one feels strongly about something, why not express it.
As an audiophile, hifi junky, and musician, I think Qol is great and now have a hard time listening to my system without it. Maybe that is the musician in me with Qol finally brings out what I always thought was missing in reproduced audio.
As a Silicon Valley MM, being a dealer is fun... simply fun and I love selling products that i feel are worth selling.
Hope this helps clear things up for you...
Kclone, thanks for the comment...you are spot on! |
Onhwy61,
I have not run across another product that has wowed me as much as Qol has. That said, I think this is the most enthused I have ever been by a product. High capacity music servers are another passion for us but that is to be expected as we are in the silicon valley. Oh, moving to SACD and higher sampling rates with digital music was pretty nice too...
Don't get me wrong, I have also been impressed with other product's value and performance but just not to this level.
|
Mihalis,
Great review...the thread appreciates your pennies.
But, I am with Ozzy on the build quality. It may not be as stout as a $4000 SS amp but it is much, much nicer than a $300 CD player that is usually made with a plastic face and other cheap parts. BSGT seemed to have picked very nice connectors and a heavy chassis. At a 25lb shipping weight, I would hardly call it a lightweight component. At this weight, it would compare to many of the Sonic Frontiers components that were often noted for being well built and stout.
As for price and internals, well... they are made in the USA and I am sure that is adding to the cost of production. My two pennies, I would rather see my money spent on American goods, made by American hands, stimulating the US economy, than save a few buck on product made offshore.
disclaimer: I am a Qol dealer. |
