Does Everything Make a Difference?

[Ron Resnick]

It is often said by many audiophiles that "everything makes a difference." Beyond different cables and different components making a difference, these folks mean that everything makes a difference:

-- the metallurgy of the duplex outlet wall cover plate

-- a block of wood or other material on the top of a component

-- a Shun Mook disc or Shakti Stone on the top of an amplifier

-- the power cord going into the power supply of a turntable motor

-- the DAC is plugged in when you are listening to vinyl

-- interconnects are elevated above the floor

-- the metallurgy of the wire carrying power from the electrical sub-panel servicing the listening room to the outlets into which components are lugged

-- different fuses in a component

-- power cables are not criss-crossed with signal cables

-- an unused amplifier is sitting on the floor of the listening room

-- the connector on the speaker cable is Rhodium plated or not

-- the unused jacks on the pre-amp are plugged up

-- a coffee table is in front of the listening chair

-- an extra piece of wire "dongle" is inserted somewhere

-- a block of wood or steel or granite underneath a component

-- the ASC TubeTrap is diffusion side out or absorption side out

-- a clock is plugged into a AC outlet in the listening room

-- the wire coming out of your Wi-Fi router

-- the USB extension bus ("switch") going to your streamer

-- etc.

Does everything really make a difference? Or do we just believe -- or do we just want to believe -- that everything makes a difference?

Do we want to believe that everything makes a different because we think we can hear a difference?

 

[morricab]

Perhaps not everything but far more than one dreams possible when first getting into this hobby. I was a power cable denier for a long time…then heard it have an impact so many times I could no longer bury my head in the sand. Just one example of many…

 

[Sampajanna]

I think everything could matter, but don’t forget to get into the music and forget the gear. Otherwise, it (or you) is in the way!

 

[bonzo75]

It is often said by many audiophiles that "everything makes a difference." Beyond different cables and different components making a difference, these folks mean that everything makes a difference:

-- the metallurgy of the duplex outlet wall cover plate

-- a block of wood or other material on the top of a component

-- a Shun Mook disc or Shakti Stone on the top of an amplifier

-- the power cord going into the power supply of a turntable motor

-- the DAC is plugged in when you are listening to vinyl

-- interconnects are elevated above the floor

-- the metallurgy of the wire carrying power from the electrical sub-panel servicing the listening room to the outlets into which components are lugged

-- different fuses in a component

-- power cables are not criss-crossed with signal cables

-- an unused amplifier is sitting on the floor of the listening room

-- the connector on the speaker cable is Rhodium plated or not

-- the unused jacks on the pre-amp are plugged up

-- a coffee table is in front of the listening chair

-- an extra piece of wire "dongle" is inserted somewhere

-- a block of wood or steel or granite underneath a component

-- the ASC TubeTrap is diffusion side out or absorption side out

-- a clock is plugged into a AC outlet in the listening room

-- etc.

Does everything really make a difference? Or do we just believe -- or do we just want to believe -- that everything makes a difference?

Do we want to believe that everything makes a different because we think we can hear a difference?

also glasses and opening/closing of eyes

 

[bonzo75]

It is often said by many audiophiles that "everything makes a difference." Beyond different cables and different components making a difference, these folks mean that everything makes a difference:

-- the metallurgy of the duplex outlet wall cover plate

-- a block of wood or other material on the top of a component

-- a Shun Mook disc or Shakti Stone on the top of an amplifier

-- the power cord going into the power supply of a turntable motor

-- the DAC is plugged in when you are listening to vinyl

-- interconnects are elevated above the floor

-- the metallurgy of the wire carrying power from the electrical sub-panel servicing the listening room to the outlets into which components are lugged

-- different fuses in a component

-- power cables are not criss-crossed with signal cables

-- an unused amplifier is sitting on the floor of the listening room

-- the connector on the speaker cable is Rhodium plated or not

-- the unused jacks on the pre-amp are plugged up

-- a coffee table is in front of the listening chair

-- an extra piece of wire "dongle" is inserted somewhere

-- a block of wood or steel or granite underneath a component

-- the ASC TubeTrap is diffusion side out or absorption side out

-- a clock is plugged into a AC outlet in the listening room

-- etc.

Does everything really make a difference? Or do we just believe -- or do we just want to believe -- that everything makes a difference?

Do we want to believe that everything makes a different because we think we can hear a difference?

Tweaks will make a sonic difference, but not necessarily always positive or negative, and the direction is also not linear, .e.g.. because 3 mpingo discs work for you on the preamp, you might might put 3 on the phono and that would work too, but does not mean putting more on everything will. You will have to judge at each step.

The other point is where you hear a sonic difference vs impact to musical message, i.e. just because your bass gets a bit deeper, does not mean it will impact the musical message. Depends where it was and what the delta is. However, for some people any delta in this example is a positive because they expect it to be additive.

Also some tweaks are hard to control, for example you can't exactly address how much carpet once it is laid down, unless you have small cuts of carpet and keep adding it or taking it off until you have it right. Most will put down a carpet and won't be able to change it.

 

[Juiced]

i don't think "everything" makes a difference.

could be in the analog and electric domain,
but i don't think in the digital domain.

best example is a 'roon core' especially if it connected to a 'roon ready' dac/streamer.

no matter what hardware i ran the roon core on i couldn't hear any sonic difference.

 

[Tangram]

Ron, if I were you I’d restate: “Everything makes a difference TO THE SOUND.” Semantics? Sure. But in my brief time hanging around these forums I’ve noted that this is a persnickety crowd.

Now, to answer the question, I have both feet firmly in the “no” camp for all the usual reasons. And to save people the effort, here’s what others say when explaining why I’m wrong:

1) Your system isn’t resolving enough (whatever that means.)
2) You don’t listen to enough live music.
3) You listen to the wrong music.
4) You haven’t listened to enough gear in enough setups in enough rooms.
5) You don’t know how to listen.
6) Your room isn’t good enough.
7) If you haven’t tried it, how do you know?

This doesn’t mean I’m part of the ASR crowd. Far from it. In my gear evaluations I simply trust my ears and try to minimize personal bias whenever I can (knowing that it can’t be eliminated - we’re human, after all.) But I do have a science background - we’re trained to be skeptics - so I question when a tiny change (say, in metallurgy) claims to result in “not subtle” sound improvements.

 

[treitz3]

<snip> so I question some of the when a tiny change (say, in metallurgy) claims to result in “not subtle” sound improvements.

Good morning, Tangram.

That shouldn't really be considered a "claim". To me, this is part of the problem with communicating about listening observations in an effective and constructive way.

All I can say is that once you have experienced it for yourself, one would realize that's it's not a "claim". It's an actual observation that is clear, present and in some cases, not subtle.

Tom

 

[Another Johnson]

no matter what hardware i ran the roon core on i couldn't hear any sonic difference.

When I moved my Roon Core from my M1 MacBook Air to a dedicated Nucleus, I heard a definite improvement in the form of less grain and better presence.

In general though, I think this is one of the questions we can only answer for ourselves. In my system, to my ears, more things seem to matter than should. But I am not at the point where everything matters. I am very satisfied… and enough is as good as a feast.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Does everything really make a difference?

who can know? but some things are simply differences and not progress, looking back at what we have done and where we have gone is the only way to see it. some of us are explorers by nature following our passion. and exploring can be one satisfying part of the hobby as good as any other. when the clouds part it can be special.

in my experience there were points where i could not audibly hear differences that later revealed themselves as significant. something could be obscuring. we can't always tell there is a worthwhile difference. we operate in our present circumstances.

Or do we just believe -- or do we just want to believe -- that everything makes a difference?

Do we want to believe that everything makes a different because we think we can hear a difference?

this comes down to being able to sit and listen to music, and get our minds out of analysis mode. where we can just listen. this is how we separate the expectations from the progress. everyone has a different process for this. then at some point we 'get' it. there are differences that are more obvious too. but we enjoy the baby steps as well as the bigger ones.

there is an element of faith we have to have in our process. we have to trust our ears. trust the music to ultimately reveal the truth. we need the absence of fear of being wrong. part of this comes from practice and developing a system that does reveal differences. and we have to keep our own counsel in terms of being at peace with how we do it. yet also open to any result when it happens. the joy of the music is the goal, not being right.

there is also a category of system housekeeping too; where we do all these little tiny organizational things but have low expectations we might hear any change. like cable elevators, or cable routing. where our logical brain can connect the dots but realistically we are not needing to test for it, or any proof. yet collectively these things later might reveal themselves to be something positive. are we saying these little things matter? not really, but we know they might. this stuff is part of the picture. my point being that there are things we do where we have zero expectations....but we still do them.

 

[Elliot G.]

It is often said by many audiophiles that "everything makes a difference." Beyond different cables and different components making a difference, these folks mean that everything makes a difference:

-- the metallurgy of the duplex outlet wall cover plate

-- a block of wood or other material on the top of a component

-- a Shun Mook disc or Shakti Stone on the top of an amplifier

-- the power cord going into the power supply of a turntable motor

-- the DAC is plugged in when you are listening to vinyl

-- interconnects are elevated above the floor

-- the metallurgy of the wire carrying power from the electrical sub-panel servicing the listening room to the outlets into which components are lugged

-- different fuses in a component

-- power cables are not criss-crossed with signal cables

-- an unused amplifier is sitting on the floor of the listening room

-- the connector on the speaker cable is Rhodium plated or not

-- the unused jacks on the pre-amp are plugged up

-- a coffee table is in front of the listening chair

-- an extra piece of wire "dongle" is inserted somewhere

-- a block of wood or steel or granite underneath a component

-- the ASC TubeTrap is diffusion side out or absorption side out

-- a clock is plugged into a AC outlet in the listening room

-- the wire coming out of your Wi-Fi router

-- the USB extension bus ("switch") going to your streamer

-- etc.

Does everything really make a difference? Or do we just believe -- or do we just want to believe -- that everything makes a difference?

Do we want to believe that everything makes a different because we think we can hear a difference?

you mentioned everything IMO but what is truly important.
The room and the placement of the speakers and listening chair within the room are far more important than any of these things. These things only really matter ( if at all) once the system and the envirioment has been approached analized and conquered.

 

[Kingrex]

Mike brings up a good point. Your system may not be at a place to resolve some changes.

I always accept altering something is likely to have a sonic change. The question for me is where are the greatest changes for the $.

If its free such as cable management, absolutely go for it. Speaker placement, go for it.

If its pocket change for your wallet, whats the issue with trying.

Its the big $$$ items that impact your wallet that on the surface seem nebulous. Someone on a other group is pushing cable lifters. Its $1200 for 8. For me, hell no. I could use blocks of cut wood and try rubber or felt for added affect.

I have a friend with $44k speakers. I sense he is 80% likes them. He has a severly underpowered amp to run them. The correct amp is close to $30k. I talked about an amp being doubling down. Hard to sell the amp. Very specialized. I thought investing in a isolation transformer would move him the direction he seeks, yet be 1/10th the cost. And it would work on any system he evolves into. I see it as high worth for the investment.
I see things like attention to the room as high worth
I see speakers as high worth
I see power as high worth.
I see replacing a high performing componant with the new model as low worth.
I see things like, individual parts and pieces in a digital chain such as LPS to modem, router, switch, better switches, better cables, footer, isolation as low to med as individual pieces. But many time these piece build on themselves and as a complete whole are transformative and beyond high worth. They are just a necessary evil.

A little of what I am saying is, where are you as a whole. High worth $$ into my personal system would be a stand. I am at a place where my equipment is very capable and would resolve the use of a better platform to place it on. Especially the vinyl that skips if I walk around while its playing.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

@Elliot G. brings up a good point; first things first. basics of system set-up have to be sorted out, and system signal path issues have to be sorted out to a certain degree before we can get into the weeds of everything maters. we have to have base line power grid issues and ambient noise issues somewhat handled too. and it's normal for a newbie to flail around a little working thru these basic level issues. obviously all those things are going to be a large roadblock to the idea that everything matters. since we can't really make sense of differences until the basics are right.

first things first or we can never really assign cause and effect to what we hear.

 

[Juiced]

When I moved my Roon Core from my M1 MacBook Air to a dedicated Nucleus, I heard a definite improvement in the form of less grain and better presence.

could it be just placebo?

i've never tested the Nucleus, but I've ran the roon core on:

- macbook air intel 2019
- macbook pro 13 intel 2019
- macbook 14 m1
- dell latitude 13 laptop
- hp zbook studio 15 laptop
- intel nuc
- HTPC

with weiss 501 dac which is also a 'roon ready' streamer .. and nothing .. no sonic differences.

currently my roon core installed on Asus chromebox 3 with 'mrchromebox' firmware for UEFI support,
just cause the chromebox have the quieter fan compered to intel nuc.

i don't believe 'roon Nucleus' has some kind of secret sauce that make any difference.

 

[Ron Resnick]

When debating subtle differences in sound due to tweaks of various degrees of scientific basis (which may naturally fuel skepticism) I think it is important to always keep in mind that one reason we may or may not hear differences is because as individual humans we may literally hear things differently, and we certainly have different objective sensitivities and different subjective sensitivities to different things we hear.

If I happen not to hear a difference between two things, that does not suggest to me that other people may not hear a difference between those two things. We must be on guard for the unsophisticated reaction that just because you don't hear a difference does not mean other people don't hear a difference.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

When debating subtle differences in sound due to tweaks of various degrees of scientific basis (which may naturally fuel skepticism) I think it is important to always keep in mind that one reason we may or may not hear differences is because as individual humans we may literally hear things differently, and we certainly have different objective sensitivities and different subjective sensitivities to different things we hear.

if I don't happen to hear a difference between two things, that does not suggest to me that other people may not hear a difference between those two things. We must be on guard for the unsophisticated reaction that just because you don't hear a difference does not mean other people don't hear a difference.

and hearing, and listening, are different things. there is a learning/recognition process. an attuning to the consequences of listening subtilties and where it goes musically. that is where the divergence occurs....as we assign different weight and value to things we hear. so one tweak bringing out one attribute has much significance to one listener, but 'meh' to another.

 

[Kingrex]

could it be just placebo?

i've never tested the Nucleus, but I've ran the roon core on:

- macbook air intel 2019
- macbook pro 13 intel 2019
- macbook 14 m1
- dell latitude 13 laptop
- hp zbook studio 15 laptop
- intel nuc
- HTPC

with weiss 501 dac which is also a 'roon ready' streamer .. and nothing .. no sonic differences.

currently my roon core installed on Asus chromebox 3 with 'mrchromebox' firmware for UEFI support,
just cause the chromebox have the quieter fan compered to intel nuc.

i don't believe 'roon Nucleus' has some kind of secret sauce that make any difference.

When I use to use Roon , it was pretty obvious to me it was better to use 2 computers, One was the Core and one was the controller.

Alrainbow showed me how to set all this up. He was a strong advocate of this in the past. Not sure his thoughts now. I also have not used Roon for years so maybe the software has changed enough it is not necessary anymore.

 

[Elliot G.]

and hearing, and listening, are different things. there is a learning/recognition process. an attuning to the consequences of listening subtilties and where it goes musically. that is where the divergence occurs....as we assign different weight and value to things we hear. so one tweak bringing out one attribute has much significance to one listener, but 'meh' to another.

absolutely these are different things and listening is "HEARING PLUS PAYING ATTENTION" or" Hearing Plus Focus"
So saying we all hear differently is not really true. Listening is a skill that can be learned and practiced. Learning how to listen and what to listen for are skills . I believe that many do not know how to do this. wooohooo he said it out loud however in myu years of doing this it has become obvious to me that many do not have the skill.
I don't accept the notion that something can be both the best and worst at the same time there is someting systematically wrong when that occurs.
Everyone can like whatever they like, everyone can have an opinion however they are not all equal. This is no difference than other learned skills, i.e wine tasting, playing an instrument, cooking, driving etc.etc.
Yes we are different and also yes we are not equal. One can certainly learn these skills but they take time and practice.I believe this has also caused the audiophile language to become almost meaningless.

 

[Kingrex]

When debating subtle differences in sound due to tweaks of various degrees of scientific basis (which may naturally fuel skepticism) I think it is important to always keep in mind that one reason we may or may not hear differences is because as individual humans we may literally hear things differently, and we certainly have different objective sensitivities and different subjective sensitivities to different things we hear.

If I happen not to hear a difference between two things, that does not suggest to me that other people may not hear a difference between those two things. We must be on guard for the unsophisticated reaction that just because you don't hear a difference does not mean other people don't hear a difference.

I am not as good at hearing subtle changes in other people systems as some people are. When I do hear them, it sometimes takes me time to figure out what is going on. When Ed and I first finished the major work at Fremers and we turned the system back on, Ed was literally stumbling around saying Owe My God over and over. It took me about 3 songs, then it really clicked. Later on I went back to Fremers and was listening to some additional work I did. He pointed out what he was hearing, then I heard it too. So yes Ron, we hear it, but we don't always process it in our mind.

I wonder if the people that have the best perception of subtle changes are the people that have spent time in their rooms tuning the room, the speakers and dialing in Subwoofers. Maybe they have learned from their time and can clue in to changes faster than other.

 

[Juiced]

When I use to use Roon , it was pretty obvious to me it was better to use 2 computers, One was the Core and one was the controller.

Alrainbow showed me how to set all this up. He was a strong advocate of this in the past. Not sure his thoughts now. I also have not used Roon for years so maybe the software has changed enough it is not necessary anymore.

it's not