Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the forum. Tonight I was reminded once again just how important isolating things are with regards to your rig. Not through experiment, not through trial and error. I have already done these things. To make a long story real short.....I got a new CD in today that was a "must listen too CD". One of those that qualifies as a listen too right now CD. It's not new. Well, actually it is but it's brand spankin' new to me and I had to give it a whirl ASAP.
Problem was, my rig was still disassembled from an audio event and I could not just plop it in and give it a whirl. So, I did the best I could and just built the rig to a "minimum" just so I could hear the tunes offered off of this new CD. I made a comment on another thread that "the first 10 seconds" did not sound good. I kept listening for about a half an hour just to listen to the tunes and at that point, I couldn't stand it any more. It sounded very bad to me. Overponderance of bass and upper midbass, not the clearest of reproductive efforts and without getting into a great deal of detail, generally the reproductive effort left many things to be desired. The kind of desire to where I would have wanted to replace the entire rig.
Stop. Reset.
These two words are something I carry with me when something does not sound right. Check everything. Verify. Listen and observe once again.
Yes, I had connected everything. Yes, I had a signal and yes, every component was back to its original dedicated place. The only thing missing was all of my isolation. I sat there thinking for a short stint that the isolation of the gear could not have changed the system so much that I wouldn't like it. No...that "couldn't" be the case. It had to be this new recording from a well respected artist and engineer that was the cause of such displeasure of the rig.
I was wrong on many accounts.
All I did was add back in that isolation components I have for the rig. The CD sounds great with no overponderance whatsoever, the details just blossomed and everything came back into fruition. In other words, I had my system back and this turned out to be a good recording. It had nothing to do with system warm up [though imaging and some other aspects may slightly improve after 3 or more days of being continuously on based on experience] since I just plugged it all back up tonight. Now I can not tell a lie. I could have sworn that as I added each isolation to the individual components, the sound got better but I could not verify this as I was not sitting in the sweet spot but it did sound to me as I was at the rack that things were improving.
Then came the sweet spot and the re-learning of something I had already known about albeit a new found respect.
My point is, isolation of individual components can and will make a major [not all of the time] change. In my case tonight, I was reminded once again of how much isolation actually does make a change in the reproduction. I know that there are many folks on this forum that have invested heavily on isolation. My hope in this thread is that those who have not tried isolation will consider how much of an actual change isolating gear can make. Tonight, it wasn't a night and day difference but it did make the change in my rig tonight [with all of the combined isolation components I have] to make a considerable difference and the end result was that it made a rather "UN-impressionable" album a well recorded one that showed me once again my respect for isolation of gear.
Tom
Problem was, my rig was still disassembled from an audio event and I could not just plop it in and give it a whirl. So, I did the best I could and just built the rig to a "minimum" just so I could hear the tunes offered off of this new CD. I made a comment on another thread that "the first 10 seconds" did not sound good. I kept listening for about a half an hour just to listen to the tunes and at that point, I couldn't stand it any more. It sounded very bad to me. Overponderance of bass and upper midbass, not the clearest of reproductive efforts and without getting into a great deal of detail, generally the reproductive effort left many things to be desired. The kind of desire to where I would have wanted to replace the entire rig.
Stop. Reset.
These two words are something I carry with me when something does not sound right. Check everything. Verify. Listen and observe once again.
Yes, I had connected everything. Yes, I had a signal and yes, every component was back to its original dedicated place. The only thing missing was all of my isolation. I sat there thinking for a short stint that the isolation of the gear could not have changed the system so much that I wouldn't like it. No...that "couldn't" be the case. It had to be this new recording from a well respected artist and engineer that was the cause of such displeasure of the rig.
I was wrong on many accounts.
All I did was add back in that isolation components I have for the rig. The CD sounds great with no overponderance whatsoever, the details just blossomed and everything came back into fruition. In other words, I had my system back and this turned out to be a good recording. It had nothing to do with system warm up [though imaging and some other aspects may slightly improve after 3 or more days of being continuously on based on experience] since I just plugged it all back up tonight. Now I can not tell a lie. I could have sworn that as I added each isolation to the individual components, the sound got better but I could not verify this as I was not sitting in the sweet spot but it did sound to me as I was at the rack that things were improving.
Then came the sweet spot and the re-learning of something I had already known about albeit a new found respect.
My point is, isolation of individual components can and will make a major [not all of the time] change. In my case tonight, I was reminded once again of how much isolation actually does make a change in the reproduction. I know that there are many folks on this forum that have invested heavily on isolation. My hope in this thread is that those who have not tried isolation will consider how much of an actual change isolating gear can make. Tonight, it wasn't a night and day difference but it did make the change in my rig tonight [with all of the combined isolation components I have] to make a considerable difference and the end result was that it made a rather "UN-impressionable" album a well recorded one that showed me once again my respect for isolation of gear.
Tom
