I thought I would open this discussion and see what you all think.
"tweaks" are always what seem to be on the frontline of audio-nervosa. Some people think they are utter nonsense and others swear by them. If I think back there was a time when even audiophiles were skeptical about signal cables and people would say they don't make a difference. Today, it seems there are very few audiophiles who would claim that signal cables don't make a difference. Then it seems powercords were next. Then along came all types of footers and vibration control. Now there are various types of "grounding" devices. Let's not forget things like high-end fuses and various strange items that help room acoustics ala Synergistic Research (just to name one). In each of these categories there was always a leading fringe of people who claimed they could hear obvious differences that were better in their system while the majority called BS.
Being a scientist and an audiophile I find these things fascinating. I love trying them because honestly I can't seem to explain why many of them should make one iota of a difference -- but I can hear a difference. I have to keep telling myself that just because I can't really explain why something works doesn't mean that it doesn't work. I sometimes think that the pseudo-science explanations the vendors use hurts their cause. Perhaps they should just say "It works. We think by doing X. If you don't like it send it back." This is how I bought my first power conditioner -- an equitech 2Q. I was extremely skeptical but they offered a 90 day trial and ... well, I never sent it back.
Could it be that as the main components & speakers have become better and better with lower and lower distortion that what was once a wash (take footers for example) is now able to lower the noise floor just a little bit more and a few more micro-volts of signal resolution gets through? Let's say a footer (just to pick one of many options) on your CD transport lowered the noise floor 100 uV to 10uV (just to randomly pick two numbers). If the DAC has a noise floor of 500 uV then wouldn't a person say that the footer had no effect? Whereas if the DAC has a noisefloor of 10 uV then a person might say "Wow, that is incredible".
So are all these things insanity or does your system have to have sufficient resolution to hear a difference? Interested in hearing your thoughts.
"tweaks" are always what seem to be on the frontline of audio-nervosa. Some people think they are utter nonsense and others swear by them. If I think back there was a time when even audiophiles were skeptical about signal cables and people would say they don't make a difference. Today, it seems there are very few audiophiles who would claim that signal cables don't make a difference. Then it seems powercords were next. Then along came all types of footers and vibration control. Now there are various types of "grounding" devices. Let's not forget things like high-end fuses and various strange items that help room acoustics ala Synergistic Research (just to name one). In each of these categories there was always a leading fringe of people who claimed they could hear obvious differences that were better in their system while the majority called BS.
Being a scientist and an audiophile I find these things fascinating. I love trying them because honestly I can't seem to explain why many of them should make one iota of a difference -- but I can hear a difference. I have to keep telling myself that just because I can't really explain why something works doesn't mean that it doesn't work. I sometimes think that the pseudo-science explanations the vendors use hurts their cause. Perhaps they should just say "It works. We think by doing X. If you don't like it send it back." This is how I bought my first power conditioner -- an equitech 2Q. I was extremely skeptical but they offered a 90 day trial and ... well, I never sent it back.
Could it be that as the main components & speakers have become better and better with lower and lower distortion that what was once a wash (take footers for example) is now able to lower the noise floor just a little bit more and a few more micro-volts of signal resolution gets through? Let's say a footer (just to pick one of many options) on your CD transport lowered the noise floor 100 uV to 10uV (just to randomly pick two numbers). If the DAC has a noise floor of 500 uV then wouldn't a person say that the footer had no effect? Whereas if the DAC has a noisefloor of 10 uV then a person might say "Wow, that is incredible".
So are all these things insanity or does your system have to have sufficient resolution to hear a difference? Interested in hearing your thoughts.