Synergy - how to get there

John, have recieved the AH preamp and it gave me just what I was looking for and got me thinking about synergy. See AH thread for mini review - terrific peice of equipment
ther definition of synergy might be when the whole is much more than the sum of the parts.Joe

My experiences tell me that you can achieve synergy, or lose it, with just a single cable change on one component. Focusing just on my CD Player, changing one thing at a time and letting it settle for a couple of weeks each time, I lost much of my musical enjoyment with a change in power cable, a change in wall outlet (yes broken in), and a change of interconnect.
And that is just for my CDP.

In my cable quests, I have resisted the urge to change amp, speakers or CD Player. Instead I have focused on maximizing the sound and musical enjoyment of the equipment I have.

Chris

Hello all, Gammmajo says: "It really takes time to hear the effects of change throughout your entire music collection and personal moods. Be attentive to room effects throughout the process. Big smiles of satisfaction even weeks after making a change are a good sign you are on track".

Yes that is very true. Due to this it is very difficult to extract all a system is capable of if things are changing all of the time. Here is my way of achieving synergy. One of the things that you have most control of is the volume control. This is what I do, I keep the volume control set at the same level for every LP (every LP is played at the same volume level, I never change the volume level for any recording), every time and any time I listen. Thats right when I start listening I adjust the volume control upwards slowly to warm the system up. This gives the tubes time to stabilise, the platter has time to spin freely, and the dynamic drivers time to warm up also. This takes about 45min to an hour and the system is at its best within 2 hours where it really does not improve after that.
What this does is manifold. One is the reference level of listening as I tune my system to 83db at 1000hz. This enables you to listen at a reasononabl level for all recordings and you soon realise which recording engineer got his levels correct and the one who did not. This gives plenty of headroom for dynamics and variations in recording levels.
Secondly it gives your ears a reference as you listen to the recording at the same level every time therefore enabling you to hear subtle changes in sounds without being affected by volume changes.
Another effect is the system to room interaction as this method encourages you to set the room acoustics and the bass levels to a neutral point in the room that is correct. This way you adjust the bass level or crossover points (if adjustable) and even speaker positioning that is optimal for this reference level. Otherwise if you listen to the same recording at different levels it will sound different and you can or will adjust the system to a moving target, which is difficult to hit.
Of course this only works if you are activly listening to the music not using it as background music. There are other points to consider and reasons for doing this but that is enough for now.
Bob

Bob - you have an excellent point that variable volume means a moving target. So one needs to be careful during evaluation time. One reason for waiting so long to make changes is to have a few months between where you can simply enjoy the music, which I think resets one's sensitivity away from purely analitical and more toward how the music also effects you emotionally and open's ones intuition about what to do next which can save years of effort.

Hi Gammajo, Yes, for myself, since I only listen all out, it is important that the volume be set correctly. My suggestion is that when you do indeed sit down to listen that the system is set at a reference volume. This is something that takes awhile to find and in the beginning it itself can be a moving target. Ultimatly this is how I feel you can get your system to be at its best in terms of dynamics and frequency response. If you do listen non-critically do not attempt to adjust your system in any manor if you believe that the "one volume theory" is going to work for you.
You are also correct in your assement of not changing components or system tuning for a time period. It is important for you to get a handle on the sound and also a chance to listen to the music without driving yourself nuts and spinnning round in circles. Great advice
Bob