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What Does Holographic Sound Like?

And how do you get there? This is an interesting question. I have finally arrived at a very satisfying level of holography in my system. But it has taken a lot of time, effort and money to get there. I wish there had been a faster, easier and less expensive way to get there. But I never found one.

Can you get to a high level of holography in your system with one pair of interconnects and one pair of speaker wires? I don't believe so. I run cables in series. I never found one pair of interconnects and speaker wires that would achieve what has taken a heck of a lot of wires and "tweaks" to achieve. Let alone all the power cords that I run in series. Although I have found one special cable that has enabled the system to reach a very high level of holography -- HiDiamond -- I still need to run cables in series for the sound to be at its holographic best.

There are many levels of holography. Each level is built incrementally with the addition of one more wire and one more "tweak". I have a lot of wires and "tweaks" in my system. Each cable and each "tweak" has added another level to the holography. Just when I thought things could not get any better -- which has happened many times -- the addition of one more cable or "tweak" enabled the system to reach a higher level yet.

Will one "loom" do the job. I never found that special "loom". To achieve the best effects I have combined cables from Synergistic Research, Bybee, ASI Liveline, Cardas, Supra and HiDiamond -- with "tweaks" too numerous to mention but featuring Bybee products and a variety of other products, many of which have the word "quantum" in their description.

The effort to arrive at this point with my system has been two-fold. Firstly, finding the right cables and "tweaks" for the system. Secondly, finding where to place them in the system for the best effects -- a process of trial and error. A lot of cables and "tweaks" had to be sold off in the process. I put "tweaks" in quotation marks because the best "tweaks" in my system have had as profound effect as the components on the sound. The same for the best of the cables, as well. For me, cables and "tweaks" are components.

Have I finally "arrived"? I have just about arrived at the best level that I can expect within my budget -- there are a couple of items on the way. In any case, I assume there are many levels beyond what my system has arrived at. But since I'll never get there I am sitting back and enjoying the music in the blissful recognition that I don't know what I am missing.

I should mention that there are many elements that are as important as holography for the sound to be satisfying, IMO. They include detail, transparency, coherence, tonality, and dynamics, among others. My system has all of these elements in good measure.

Have you had success with holographic sound in your system? If so, how did you get there?
sabai
sabai OP
2,027 posts
 
Gbmcleod,
It is obvious you have a lot of experience with this. I find that everything matters. But once the system gets to a high level then room treatment is where to concentrate to take things to higher levels.

My room is about 15 x 14 feet. I have done a lot with it and have made great progress using:

Shakti Holographs
Synergistic Research ART
QRT Symphony Pros
SteinMusic Harmonizers
Schumann resonance devices

There is not much else I can do with the room at this point because of space restrictions and irregular shape. I will eventually have a rectangular shaped room 20 x 30 feet to work with. We'll see how things sound when I move my system to the new room.

Regarding using cables in series, I am aware that few audiophiles understand this approach and fewer yet have experience with "multiple runs of wiring". There are a few people daisy-chaining their front end as I do. They have posted about this on other sites. Daisy chaining the front end means a longer signal path which flies in the face of the "shorter-the-signal-path-the-better-the-sound" school. There is no question that daisy chaining has created an amazing improvement in SQ in my system:

isolation transformer > power conditioner > power regenerator

Three additional levels of power cords are required here -- hardly a short signal path. I use Bybee AC purifiers sandwiched between PCs, one of which I DIY with my own proprietary mod. This greatly enhances the SQ as well. Unconventional -- yes. An improvement? Very much so.
gbmcleod
396 posts
 
Sabai:
I'm going to, for the sake if argument, suggest that room treatment is the FIRST place to start, even before the components. (And let me tell you, I myself never started out that way: it took many years for me to realize the room counted so much, but then, I had good-sized rooms in all my apartments in San Francisco. Everything opened up into a larger space. If I knew then what I know now...wow, I coulda been in LOVE a lot earlier.)

So, lets say you have a component that is weak in, say, the lower midrange, and you have a room that ALSO sucks out the power range (100-400Hz), the logical step would be to buy a component that emphasizes the lower midrange. However, in this case, you are COMPENSATING with a component that is not neutral. Then, when you buy something that IS neutral, the problem re-materializes.
It is far better to do a room sweep before putting anything in the room. Add components, place the speakers where you think they should be, then do another room sweep. At this point, you have not purchased anything other than the components. The sweep will tell you where your problems are, but again, the bigger the room, the fewer the problems. This is not my personal knowledge: Alton Everest, in his "Master Handbook of Acoustics," states that "volumes smaller than 1500 cubic feet are so prone to sound coloration that they are impractical." I guess he would know, right?
But I do agree with you that room treatment, second only to room size (with caveats: asymmetrical walls, porous floors, etc.) are highly important. Trust me, I'm disappointed in the 13x20 room, in contrast to the 23 x 40'ish basement in the house. In the smaller room, the system sounds "great." In the basement (unfinished, or I'd be LIVING in that space: but it has no heat), the sound is completely different, bordering on an "aliveness" it never has upstairs. I reviewed the Genesis 6.1s in both rooms. Even with initial placement in the basement, the Gennies were so much clearer, it was disturbing. Room treatments can certainly help, but they cannot overcome the laws of physics. I find sidewalls more problematic than rear walls, since sound is omnidirectional at lower frequencies.
I, too, have used Shakti Hallographs, and they improve the sonics, but my basement, tons of boxes all over the place and all? Can't be beat for 3-D imaging. I will say dipolars work better in a smaller room than boxes, though.
sabai OP
2,027 posts
 
Gbmcleod,
You make some very good points. But, in my opinion, you cannot treat a room that has no components in it. There is no sound to treat. I think the room treatments I use could be applied in most high end rooms but their implementation will vary according to the needs of each system and the idiosyncrasies of each room. At the moment I am limited by the size of my room and its irregular features. God willing, one day I will have a bigger room and will be able to experiment with room treatment in a way that is impossible at the moment.
gbmcleod
396 posts
 
Sabai:
I'd have to disagree with your statement. A room has nodes because of its dimensions. "Equipment" does not affect room nodes: the room itself has this, as water, in a container, has different weight, texture and movement than does milk, or wine or orange juice or any other liquid.
I understand the idea that components affect the sonics, but a suckout in the lower midrange is there regardless whether or not there is equipment in it. You can't HEAR it until you put components in it, but this is a bit like, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" (Of course it does: it has mass and density and coming into contact with something else with mass and density produces a result: sound. Whether or not someone is there to hear the sound does not change the reality, similar to if you clap your hands together and you're deaf, is there a sound? Obviously, but you cannot hear it because you lack the ability to hear sound. The sound is still there. So are the room nodes, but they don't come into play until someone steps into the room. Some of us forget that if we walk into a room and talk, the room nodes are activated. Components not needed, just sound waves. And you CAN treat a room for speech.An acoustic engineeer designs a hall without ever having an orchestra playing in it. The orchestra comes later. The room has the same nodes and can then be MODIFIED to sound better, but the room can be treated (sonically enhanced) long before a performance is given.
sabai OP
2,027 posts
 
Gbmcleod,
Yes -- while you can treat the room before you put the components in the room the real work will come when are faced with the problem of treating the room with the components (and wiring) in place. You will need to move things around a lot to fine tune everything to the specific needs of your system.
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