Anyone HEARD the qol 'signal completion' device?

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.

Less is more. Enough said.

I heard the QOL device today while visiting with Dave Weinhart; of Weinhart Design in Los Angels; he had it after his EAR pre; and hooked up to EAR tubed amps; driving Magico M5's; source was Sooloos server running thru Star-tech dac, and I brought my own familiar music; and engaged the QOL on and off at my request.
I was an initial skeptic; but now I'm a convert; with this uber system; the sonic depth; detail, staging, decay, and 'meat on bones' improvement was not subtle. I plan on placing an order; that's how certain that what I was experiencing was real; and would help me enjoy the music in my own home system even more. While on one hand it does strike people as 'snake oil', or simply pressing the loudness button of an old stereo; it does make a significant sonic improvement; without causing harm; at least to my ears. I guess I echo the glowing endorsements of folks who have actually heard one. It would be nice if the price of admission went down; but I am now a believer.

It's not snake oil, but it's not something revolutionary either. From the paucity of info available from the manufacturer it appears to be a mid/side processor. Read this article for an understanding of the M/S process. I believe Alan Blumlein described this in the 1930s.

A summary of M/S is that it breaks down a left/right stereo signal into a mono mid channel and 2 side channels. The stereo image size can be increased or decreased by how the side stereo signals are mixed back into the mono mid signal.

The Manley Backbone is a mastering studio preamp that has built in M/S processing. The Rupert Neve Field Editor is an outboard M/S processor that offers extensive control in manipulating the stereo width and depth.

Being that M/S processing has been extensively used by mastering engineers for decades and is also readily available as DSP plug-ins in most recording/mixing software, I don't see why high end, audiophile oriented manufacturers would want to incorporate the QOL process into their products.

I hooked mine up today. Put it between a Cary preamp and Cary amp. Very impressed. I did not need a lot of time with it to tell if it was doing something positive or not. I used a sound meter to make sure I was playing the tracks at the roughly the same volume to compensate for the 2 db in gain with it activated. Just more detail, air, 3Dness. Sounds good even out of the sweet spot. One big plus is I can listen at a lower volume levels because everything is there. Before the QOL, I found myself turning up the volume to hear details better in a lot of tracks. Now, everything seems more fleshed out, and no need to turn up the volume, which is good because I want save my ears. Great addition to my system, I'm keeping mine.