Sweating the Small Stuff for Big Returns

PeterA · Oct 23, 2016

bonzo75 said:
In fact, on the bolded part, sometimes I think audiophiles know their systems so well that it becomes their regretted l reference system, and restricts them from saying other alternatives, and their well laid out plans become an ideology they try not to sway from. Just expounding on what 853 said more euphemistically

You make a good point, Ked. I do sometimes wonder if I get out enough to experience the alternatives. I did, on one recent and very memorable occasion, with my friend Al M. Together we auditioned DACs at a local dealership. That, in many ways, was a revelation, and it completely opened my mind to the possibilities of good digital playback. Interestingly, it was in that very same room, years earlier, in which I heard, for the first time, an audio system which introduced me to what a well sorted high end system could actually sound like. That audition changed my views about what is possible, and it led me down the path I am currently walking.

Reading recent threads about ddk's vintage turntables, Ron's speaker search, as well as the Appoggee thread, I am now very curious about some of these other approaches. I do think we need to get out more, and that is why I am envious of yours and other's audio travel adventures and why those threads are so fascinating to read. Yes, there is much to learn.

853guy, Yes, that too is a great point. Inherent in sweating the small stuff, is leaning from one's mistakes. I guess, one can sweat without learning, but then I think at some point he would simply move on and not sweat any more. Perhaps "reflection" is a way to describe this process, and part of that can be having friends over to evaluate and comment upon system changes. I often return to live music and refer back to that for assessing progress.

bonzo75 · Oct 23, 2016

Peter, if you get out enough you will realize you need to go back to your closed in thinking about digital

.

My point is your vinyl set up is extremely good, and while it can obviously be improved, you will probably get much more gains in other areas.

PeterA · Oct 23, 2016

bonzo75 said:
Peter, if you get out enough you will realize you need to go back to your closed in thinking about digital .

My point is your vinyl set up is extremely good, and while it can obviously be improved, you will probably get much more gains in other areas.

Perhaps many systems can be improved, Ked, but that does not mean they need to be. I am not sure I share your confidence in knowing if a system I've never heard can be improved, let alone which improvements would lead to the biggest gains. Most of us operate within certain restraints, and we have various preferences and references. I would rather hear a system before making assumptions about its qualities.

Regarding analog and digital, I have a preference for one but a respect for both. I have made, and am happy with, my decision. I can not say if that will change over time.

bonzo75 · Oct 23, 2016

I assume you were trying to improve on what you previously had, from your first post. My post wasn't meant to assume anything about your system but that with more optimization you were trying to improve on it like many are trying to improve on their's. There were no other assumptions made about your system, except that I know SME is quite a good TT, some upgrade into it, some move away from it, like many other components. That's all my statement conveyed

NorthStar · Oct 23, 2016

PeterA said:
There is no question that listing to vinyl can be a much bigger commitment than is listening to digital. It depends on how involved one wants to be. There are many digital options and when I watched some of my friends try to configure their computer audio based systems, my head starts to spin because of all of the connections, filters, options. In that sense, perhaps the formats are similar. Once sorted out though, digital is easier, I think.

Yes, an analog expert can certainly help one with set up and fine tuning, but I strongly feel the user must know how to adjust things himself. Cartridges suspensions change over time. Some, like me, adjust VTA for each LP. The learning curve is long and constant.

I don't know about comparing analog to digital at various price points. That may be a long and complicated topic for another thread.

PeterA said:
When it comes to maximizing the potential of one's system, I think there is no substitute for experience and a willingness to learn by doing. I hired Jim Smith for his RoomPlay service on my system. I spend a day and a half watching, discussing, listening, and learning from him about how to position speakers, the listening seat and room treatments. It was a great experience.

I would also love to have a guy like Andre Jennings come over to set up a cartridge and learn more about that process from such an expert. It is important to learn from people who know more than you do. But that can only go so far because they leave, and then you are left with your system. Part of the fun, for me at least, is to tinker and to try to extract more performance without spending much money. It can be fun, and it can certainly be rewarding.

Upgrading components can also be a lot of fun. But it can be frustrating too, especially if one can not do a proper in system direct comparison before buying. We read many complaints about the merry-go-round process and how it often does not lead to longer term satisfaction. I often wonder if the most satisfied audiophiles are those who tend to collect vintage gear, modify it, and tinker away, trying to improve performance and musical enjoyment. And then, at some point, one must ask where does the music fit in? How much is it about the gear itself, the sound of the gear, or the music. Bruce Brown recently wrote in a post that the gear or system is simply a means or vehicle with which to get to the music. (paraphrasing)

In the end, there are many approaches one can take. The happiest audiophiles I know are ones who know their systems well, have a clear idea of a sonic reference point and what they want their systems to do, and are fairly active with sweating the small stuff to make improvements. They have a sense of direction, an awareness of why they are doing things, a willingness to learn and work at it, and they tend to only make changes in a deliberate and well reason way.

PeterA said:
Bob, good level analog is a commitment, both in time and in money. Sure, one can buy a turntable/arm/cartridge with built in phono for a few hundred dollars, some LPs at a used record bin and start to enjoy vinyl records. But to get to a higher level of sound quality, one needs to spend money and effort to learn how to do the things you mention: clean, store, set up, maintain, optimize, etc. It is far from easy and requires effort to get really good sound.

There are a few people who rebuild cartridges in the US. I do not have any experience with those businesses. I sent my fairly rare Japanese cartridge back to the manufacturer through the US distributor. It was expensive for the complete rebuild. Essentially, I got back a brand new cartridge in the old metal body and box. The cost is roughly 35-50% of the new cost of the cartridge.

There is not much new music available on vinyl, but depending on one's musical taste and collection, that may or may not be much of an issue.

Here is a list, arranged by genre, of the music which is right now in my listening room carried down from my LP storage in the third floor of my house:

pop/rock
Lorde, Pure Herioine
Black Sabbath, Paranoid
Led Zeppelin, II

Jazz
Carla White, Mood Swings
Melody Gordot, Worrisome Heart
Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass, Whipped Cream & Other Delights
Johhny Harman, Once in Every Life
Art Pepper, +Eleven
Duke Ellington and Ray Brown, This One's for Blanton
Ray Brown & L. Almeida, Moonlight Serenade
Sonny Rollins, Way Out West
Chet Baker, Chet

Classical
Bach/Starker, Suites for Unaccompanied Cello Complete
Mozart/Grumiax Trio, String Quintets, No. 1 in B flat, No. 2 in C minor
Vivaldi, Les Concertoes pour Mandolines
Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto
Beethoven/Kamiya, "Appassionata", D2D 45rpm
Janaki String Trio, debut
Holst/Zubin Mehta, The Planets

I listen to a variety of music, and some of the LPs on that list serve as my long term references to gauge system improvement, which I'm in the process of doing now because of my cartridge break in. I am revisiting my VTA settings for individual LPs because this cartridge is so resolving, and has brought the overall level of my system up a notch, that I am finding a couple of the previous settings are a bit off. It is great fun to hear familiar recordings in new ways with new details.

It is precisely this, that prompted me to start this thread: small adjustments, requiring focused listening, effort and time, often result in big musical returns. One could argue that I just got a newly rebuilt cartridge and that alone elevated the sound of my system, but I think that the cartridge has prompted me to re explore previous assumptions about my particular vinyl playback, and by making new, minor changes, has resulted in greater system performance and musical enjoyment.

Peter, this is great everything you just said above, thanks.

Lee · Oct 23, 2016

A few observations from my own personal experience:

1. Jim Smith's book Get Better Sound is the best volume on tweaks and setup. Using his book has allowed me to get much better sound.

2. Visit RMAF and Axpona and there are many, many super-expensive systems that sound mediocre or poor. The Scaena speakers in the PS Audio sucked horrible at RMAF this year but the PS Audio gear was very good in other rooms-it's good stuff. Most Magico systems at shows I have been too have been very unbalanced sounding almost as much as Alon himself, lol. Vandy 7s tend to be overly warm. System synergy really matters in this hobby. Speaker-amp pairing is critical.

3. There are music lovers and gear heads. Gear heads just love the pursuit of playback technology. They have nice systems but have a music library of 25 audiophile records or discs and really only play five of them. I guess that benefits us music lovers and it sells gear and that helps the mfrs.

4. EVERYTHING matters I have found. It seems odd that power supplies matter so much but they do. A good SPDIF cable is critical for CD playback. And the hell of it is that the more resolving the system gets on our journey, the more everything matters.

5. Part of the fun of this hobby is learning something new from wise practitioners like Jim Smith, George Cardas, Tim De Paravicini and others. Part of it, for me, is finding a better mastered CD or LP that is the new "ultimate" version of the band to have.

YashN · Oct 24, 2016

Interesting thoughts. Sweating the small stuff can be an exercise in constraints and a learning experience.

For instance, if you put on yourself the constraint of not buying anything new, then you're forced to optimise your existing setup, and do DIY tweaks with what you have at hand.

And this can bring you to revise some easy opinions, like whether a power cable with a different geometry could make an audible difference.

If that does, then would a USB cable do an audible difference if its geometry is changed?

If you already have star grounding, would connecting all the signal ground planes to an external box make a difference?

Does our gear have the proper 'space/environment' in which we can properly hear its capabilities?

What frequencies are the interference that affect us?

What are the best ways cables could be made for each step to enable us to maximise SQ?

Overall, this kind of investigation brought me to these fundamentals:

0. Learn to listen well

1. Seismic Vibration isolation

2. Clean Power and Grounding (cabling is also important here)

3. Room Diagnosis and Acoustic, Organic Treatment

This must all be dealt with with meticulousness if we are to hear our gear properly.

It follows that there is no reason to pursue the new shiny gear if we haven't yet worked on the 4 fundamentals above as we won't be able to hear it properly.

Furthermore, by working on the above diligently, studying the theory or articles and then doing practical simple implementations, we better inform our mind and ears about potential new gear we then could look to acquire or build.

Building provides insights we otherwise wouldn't have for want of paying attention.

For most of our gear (Amps, Pre-Amps, DACs), we have a signal we want to magnify and match with other gear in the chain, alongside power. We say we are often listening to modulations of Power.

All too often, the Power supply of commercial boxes are too simplistic rather than made with the utmost care. By studying how to build a clean power supply and how to magnify signals without polluting it with the power's noises, you learn something of utmost importance for audiophilia.

How we hear provides great information on how our gear should be. Our ears are very sensitive to the mid-range. That should be the primary focal point of a frequency-based approach.

Similarly, we interpret vast quantities of information about timbre, location, and rhythm or urgency from just a tiny fraction of an attack, mere milliseconds. This should also be a matter of prime importance.

The end goal of audiophilia should be the enjoyment of the melomane or musicophile where the intention from the Artist to the Listener is communicated optimally.

Lee · Oct 29, 2016

Excellent post.

On digital though, the timing perception goes into single digit picosecond range which is pretty amazing.

YashN said:
Interesting thoughts. Sweating the small stuff can be an exercise in constraints and a learning experience.

For instance, if you put on yourself the constraint of not buying anything new, then you're forced to optimise your existing setup, and do DIY tweaks with what you have at hand.

And this can bring you to revise some easy opinions, like whether a power cable with a different geometry could make an audible difference.

If that does, then would a USB cable do an audible difference if its geometry is changed?

If you already have star grounding, would connecting all the signal ground planes to an external box make a difference?

Does our gear have the proper 'space/environment' in which we can properly hear its capabilities?

What frequencies are the interference that affect us?

What are the best ways cables could be made for each step to enable us to maximise SQ?

Overall, this kind of investigation brought me to these fundamentals:

0. Learn to listen well

1. Seismic Vibration isolation

2. Clean Power and Grounding (cabling is also important here)

3. Room Diagnosis and Acoustic, Organic Treatment

This must all be dealt with with meticulousness if we are to hear our gear properly.

It follows that there is no reason to pursue the new shiny gear if we haven't yet worked on the 4 fundamentals above as we won't be able to hear it properly.

Furthermore, by working on the above diligently, studying the theory or articles and then doing practical simple implementations, we better inform our mind and ears about potential new gear we then could look to acquire or build.

Building provides insights we otherwise wouldn't have for want of paying attention.

For most of our gear (Amps, Pre-Amps, DACs), we have a signal we want to magnify and match with other gear in the chain, alongside power. We say we are often listening to modulations of Power.

All too often, the Power supply of commercial boxes are too simplistic rather than made with the utmost care. By studying how to build a clean power supply and how to magnify signals without polluting it with the power's noises, you learn something of utmost importance for audiophilia.

How we hear provides great information on how our gear should be. Our ears are very sensitive to the mid-range. That should be the primary focal point of a frequency-based approach.

Similarly, we interpret vast quantities of information about timbre, location, and rhythm or urgency from just a tiny fraction of an attack, mere milliseconds. This should also be a matter of prime importance.

The end goal of audiophilia should be the enjoyment of the melomane or musicophile where the intention from the Artist to the Listener is communicated optimally.

YashN · Oct 29, 2016

Lee said:
Excellent post.

On digital though, the timing perception goes into single digit picosecond range which is pretty amazing.

Thanks Lee, indeed our ears are extremely sensitive to even tiny changes.

Lee · Oct 30, 2016

YashN said:
Thanks Lee, indeed our ears are extremely sensitive to even tiny changes.

Yes. I just placed a Shunyata power cord on my Ref 2 Phono replacing the stock ARC cord and it's made a noticeable improvement this morning.

PeterA · Dec 2, 2016

I don't know if I was inspired by recently reading Bonzo's report of MikeL's system or influenced by the violin and cello recital I heard the other night, but I decided to tinker some more with my system the other day. The system is mature, in the sense that the components have not changed for quite some time now, and the system has remained more or less static. I am very familiar with its sound, but after reading again the lengths to which Mike went to improve the acoustics of his room, and with the memory of energy from that live cello vibrating in my brain, I listened to some well recorded strings on LP and decided the sound lacked clarity and a degree of realism.

After much procrastination, and because of recent nudging from an audio buddy, I removed the three glass framed paintings on the wall of my listening room. One was actually hanging above the small absorption panel at the first reflection point on the right wall. I repeated the same string tracks and immediately noticed a cleaner, more focused sound. Dynamics improved, images became more palpable, overall clarity increased. I had been hearing a slight blurring to the sound and distortion in the higher frequencies because of the reflections off of the glass. With the decrease in distortion and the increase in clarity, the music became more energetic while I could be more relaxed. Everything took a step toward sounding more natural. I can now listen a bit louder at more realistic levels, and overall musical enjoyment has increased.

I continue to be impressed by the improvements that small, seemingly incidental changes can bring. The wall now looks pretty bare, and considering that this is our living room, I plan to remove the glass from the picture frames and rehang the art on the walls. That way, my wife will be happy with the aesthetics, and I will be happy with the sound.

Here is another example of how sweating the small stuff can bring about big returns.

Mike Lavigne · Dec 2, 2016

PeterA said:
I don't know if I was inspired by recently reading Bonzo's report of MikeL's system or influenced by the violin and cello recital I heard the other night, but I decided to tinker some more with my system the other day. The system is mature, in the sense that the components have not changed for quite some time now, and the system has remained more or less static. I am very familiar with its sound, but after reading again the lengths to which Mike went to improve the acoustics of his room, and with the memory of energy from that live cello vibrating in my brain, I listened to some well recorded strings on LP and decided the sound lacked clarity and a degree of realism.

After much procrastination, and because of recent nudging from an audio buddy, I removed the three glass framed paintings on the wall of my listening room. One was actually hanging above the small absorption panel at the first reflection point on the right wall. I repeated the same string tracks and immediately noticed a cleaner, more focused sound. Dynamics improved, images became more palpable, overall clarity increased. I had been hearing a slight blurring to the sound and distortion in the higher frequencies because of the reflections off of the glass. With the decrease in distortion and the increase in clarity, the music became more energetic while I could be more relaxed. Everything took a step toward sounding more natural. I can now listen a bit louder at more realistic levels, and overall musical enjoyment has increased.

I continue to be impressed by the improvements that small, seemingly incidental changes can bring. The wall now looks pretty bare, and considering that this is our living room, I plan to remove the glass from the picture frames and rehang the art on the walls. That way, my wife will be happy with the aesthetics, and I will be happy with the sound.

Here is another example of how sweating the small stuff can bring about big returns.

yes. I tried a small bit of cloth on the ceiling......then some more.....and away I went.....

congrats on the first step. have fun.

PeterA · Dec 2, 2016

Mike Lavigne said:
yes. I tried a small bit of cloth on the ceiling......then some more.....and away I went.....

congrats on the first step. have fun.

Thank you Mike. I assure you, though, that this was not the first step. The sound board of our piano is temporarily damped. There is a furniture blanket covering our fireplace opening. There are ASC Tube Traps and panels around the room, two pads under the carpet, and special laminated glazing in our 6/6 single pane historic windows. I remove the blanket covering the mantle and bring in a wooden coffee table when we have guests in the room. This is but one more small change that improves the overall room acoustic performance. I'm sure that I will discover others.

It is a fun process of discovery. The next thing to contemplate is whether or not to adjust speaker positioning slightly to adapt to the new room acoustics. I admit that your near field listening position has me intrigued.

Mike Lavigne · Dec 2, 2016

PeterA said:
Thank you Mike. I assure you, though, that this was not the first step. The sound board of our piano is temporarily damped. There is a furniture blanket covering our fireplace opening. There are ASC Tube Traps and panels around the room, two pads under the carpet, and special laminated glazing in our 6/6 single pane historic windows. I remove the blanket covering the mantle and bring in a wooden coffee table when we have guests in the room. This is but one more small change that improves the overall room acoustic performance. I'm sure that I will discover others.

It is a fun process of discovery. The next thing to contemplate is whether or not to adjust speaker positioning slightly to adapt to the new room acoustics. I admit that your near field listening position has me intrigued.

I know. and my cloth on my ceiling was not my first step either. but it was a turning point step for me. it was an ah ha! moment that propelled me to a few levels above.

YashN · Dec 2, 2016

PeterA said:
The sound board of our piano is temporarily damped.

That's good: it's a huge resonant body, lots of strings which can resonate sympathetically with the music, creating sounds as well, affecting the frequency response.

Room diagnosis and organic, acoustic treatment is a pillar in audio reproduction.

Other things you can do without changing audio gear: work on vibration isolation, work on clean power (also combine them), and of course, hone your listening skills.

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Sweating the Small Stuff for Big Returns

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