My monitor/subwoofer system
- Thread starter Al M.
- Start date
I thought isolation transformers were considered unnatural?
That might well be!
Regardless, I was just experiencing absolute magic tonight, with Beethoven's Tempest piano sonata played by Helene Grimaud, and then her on the piano for Beethoven's Choral Fantasy. Wow, what music, ridiculously dynamic, amazing atmosphere in the spacious sound of the orchestra, wonderful melodies. The choir at the end ups the dynamics even more. Ian sent me the CD (Credo) as a surprise -- thanks!
The first piece, John Corigliano, Fantasia on an ostinato for solo piano is amazing too. Towards the end, at around 9 min, I recognized a faint quotation of the slow movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, confirmed by looking it up in the CD booklet.
Boy, does it all sound clean and atmospheric with those isolation transformers.
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My own experience with the Shunyata NR cords--I went for the hype( see another fanboy forum!) and ordered them.
After, I thought serious burnin/etc--I felt I had lost some drive /dynamic contrasts--not hugely so but enough even for my old ears to pick up
I'm sure Mr Gabriel knows his market and product and his customer base is a happy one.
I just feel some of the baby is thrown out with the bathwater--but not obviously apparent to the posters above
--fair enough purely personal observations here.
I changed cabling and sold off the NR's.
YVMV
BruceD
It was obvious to me in a friend's system, both on the amps, and on the DAC. The baby was indeed thrown out.
That is often the problem with power conditioning. I have always been extremely skeptical and careful about that. There has been little power conditioning that I have heard over the decades that so far has passed my smell test, regardless of price.
My old Tice Powerblock II from 1990 did -- it was part of my old system the dynamics of which have been universally lauded by all my audiophile friends who have heard it, including you. The power conditioning that I have now does too.
The promises are always new. The problems are always the same.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." (Won't Get Fooled Again, The Who, 1971).
Al, I was specifically talking about the Shunyata NR power cords and supporting Bruce's comment about the power cords.
Regarding your power conditioning, more accurately, I was complementary of the sound of your entire system but don’t recall doing a specific comparison of your system with and without those power conditioners in place. You have done that obviously and I take you at your word but I have not heard the difference for myself unless it was separated by days or weeks between visits which I don’t consider very reliable.
Perhaps next time you will indulge me with such a direct comparison. Or, we can just play tunes.
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Al, what a great read about your subwoofer placement and tuning. Just curious if you ever tried having the subs on the outside of the monitors.
I ask because when I finally got my JL's back up and running, I first placed them where you have yours now, on the inside of the mains, right along side them. Bass was extremely lacking, somewhat soft around the edges and really didn't offer much more than what the Martin Logan's are capable of on their own. It also closed in the sound stage some, narrowing the entire stage width.
The pics you first saw was when I immediately moved them to the front wall, but placed more towards the center of the wall. This was a big improvement over the initial placement, but still not great. Bass was peaky and bloated, along with a bit of slop.
My current arrangement is with the subs on the outside along the side walls, about 2 feet out into the room, which puts the faces of the drivers about 8 inches behind the face of the ML's. Crossover is set at 35 Hz or so, phase at 0, variable phase also at 0, and gains are less than a 1/3 of the way up. This makes for a pretty darn smooth response, deeper extension, tight, detailed bass that's quick and precise. The sound stage has also opened up tremendously, and is also deeper. I'm still tweaking here and there though.
Sorry for overtaking your thread a tiny bit. Just thought I would let you in on my own personal findings.
As always, your system and room looks great. I can only imagine what it sounds like, especially with the big brothers to my subs.
I ask because when I finally got my JL's back up and running, I first placed them where you have yours now, on the inside of the mains, right along side them. Bass was extremely lacking, somewhat soft around the edges and really didn't offer much more than what the Martin Logan's are capable of on their own. It also closed in the sound stage some, narrowing the entire stage width.
The pics you first saw was when I immediately moved them to the front wall, but placed more towards the center of the wall. This was a big improvement over the initial placement, but still not great. Bass was peaky and bloated, along with a bit of slop.
My current arrangement is with the subs on the outside along the side walls, about 2 feet out into the room, which puts the faces of the drivers about 8 inches behind the face of the ML's. Crossover is set at 35 Hz or so, phase at 0, variable phase also at 0, and gains are less than a 1/3 of the way up. This makes for a pretty darn smooth response, deeper extension, tight, detailed bass that's quick and precise. The sound stage has also opened up tremendously, and is also deeper. I'm still tweaking here and there though.
Sorry for overtaking your thread a tiny bit. Just thought I would let you in on my own personal findings.
As always, your system and room looks great. I can only imagine what it sounds like, especially with the big brothers to my subs.
I thought isolation transformers were considered unnatural?
Well, based on my listening impressions from a direct comparison in Al's system last night, his isolation transformers did nothing good for the sound. I will share more extensive impressions, but his latest addition to his system is, IMO, moving the system in the wrong direction. The comparison was for me a stark reminder of the difference between a "hifi" sound and a natural one. It was immediately obvious.
I appreciate the fact that Al was willing to allow me to hear the direct comparison. Some here are reluctant to do such a thing, especially after writing positive reports about the change. Al is here to listen, compare, and learn about the influence of this stuff on his system. And he was willing to let me hear the difference in his system. I appreciate that.
Can he swap out readily to just plugging into the wall/distribo strip?
And does he agree with you?
And does he agree with you?
Interesting Peter, clean power is so critical to higher level performance in audio, but there are more ways to foul things up than help when trying to address power concerns.
For me, my biggest learning curve was on going from straight out of house mains to a very highly regarded power conditioner. Initially noise and hash reduction was very beguiling, but the squeezing of dynamics that became apparent over time forced me to sell on the unit, and replace with a 10x cheaper balanced power transformer, thence to an audiophile grade one, and isolated feed to the latter/dedicated lines.
For me, my biggest learning curve was on going from straight out of house mains to a very highly regarded power conditioner. Initially noise and hash reduction was very beguiling, but the squeezing of dynamics that became apparent over time forced me to sell on the unit, and replace with a 10x cheaper balanced power transformer, thence to an audiophile grade one, and isolated feed to the latter/dedicated lines.
That might well be!
Regardless, I was just experiencing absolute magic tonight, with Beethoven's Tempest piano sonata played by Helene Grimaud, and then her on the piano for Beethoven's Choral Fantasy. Wow, what music, ridiculously dynamic, amazing atmosphere in the spacious sound of the orchestra, wonderful melodies. The choir at the end ups the dynamics even more. Ian sent me the CD (Credo) as a surprise -- thanks!
The first piece, John Corigliano, Fantasia on an ostinato for solo piano is amazing too. Towards the end, at around 9 min, I recognized a faint quotation of the slow movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, confirmed by looking it up in the CD booklet.
Boy, does it all sound clean and atmospheric with those isolation transformers.
Al, I just reread your posts describing the sound of your system with the addition of these two Tripp Lite isolation transformers. I know that at least one was added since I last visited, and I suspect both were. After your enthusiastic report quoted above, I wanted to hear this improvement for myself. I appreciate you inviting me over last night for another listen and especially for your willingness to let me hear the system with and without the transformers in place, so that I could do a proper direct comparison. You were already very happy with the sound, so it was great that you were willing to indulge my curiosity. Some people are very hesitant to do such quick comparisons for visitors, and I get that too.
I had listened to Cantata Domino on my system a few days ago. Knowing that Al also has this recording on CD, I asked that we play the first three tracks: the title track which combines organ with brass horns and choir, the second track which is just solo organ, and the third track which is a large choir with one particularly beautiful section of female voices. The rather calm solo organ piece is very reminiscent of the way the organ at my local church sounds, so I know that sound well. Al then played the first movement of Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe for me.
We first heard the system with the preamp plugged into one transformer, and all of the digital front end gear into the second. The trumpets in Cantata Domino sounded harsh and piercing. The high frequencies in general were distorted. Voices were good with nice separation, but they were not quite as smooth as I expected. On the Ravel, the low drums were tight and super focused. The triangles were too sharp and ringing. There was good weight and body to the lower midrange and upper bass, but there was a kind of focus to the sound. And, the energy was contained just outside of each speaker and behind. It did not flow out into the room. I thought I heard a graininess to the voices. Decays were truncated. The sound was stark, defined, and tight/articulate. Each instrument was pretty clear but seemed to act on its own. Even though I was in evaluation mode, I could not really relax, and I found myself constantly thinking about the sound.
Al then spent five minutes unplugging the power cords from the transformers and plugging them into a snake's nest of extension cords behind his rack all leading to one single plug on the wall. He turned off and unplugged the two transformers. We now listened again in reverse order at the same volume level.
I immediately heard a difference but did not comment until we finished Ravel's first movement. I shared some thoughts and then we listened to the Cantata Domino again. The improvement was clear. The high frequency distortion was gone. The triangles rang out cutting through the rest of the sounds, but there was no obvious distortion. They were clean and clear. The grain was gone. The deep drums were not as tight, not as focused, but I heard the mallet on the skin, resonance, impact, energy. The voices soared into the space. The sound was no longer contained in a clear box outside the speakers to the front wall, but it filled the whole room, extended to the side walls, floor and ceiling. People discuss bloom, this was like a swelling of the ocean into a tide pool.
The sound was now much smoother and expansive. Those female voices in the choir made me melt sitting there. After a couple of minutes trying to focus on the differences, I stopped analyzing the sound and simple enjoyed the music. Nothing really stood out as before. It was much more of a whole. It was an orchestra playing in a space rather than a bunch of distinct sounds. The sounds from the individual instruments now sprang forth, overlapping with the other sounds to fill the space and wash over us. Decays, transients, everything was more open and free and convincing.
I don't know what those two transformers were doing to the signal or power delivery or what, but they did seem to choke the sound. They killed the life of the music and energy in the room. Sure, things sounded focused, tight and articulate, but I also heard distortion in the high frequencies, and though only the front end gear was plugged into them, dynamics seemed somehow restricted. I can not think of one sonic attribute they improved.
Interestingly, with the transformers in place, the system reminded me of the "hifi" sound I am moving away from. I used to like the contrast, the focus, the "articulation". I lived with a sound like that for years. I now hear that as artificial sounding. Without the transformers, the sound sprang to life, energy filled the room, and the music sounded much more natural. There was a complete transformation of the sound. I told Al that this was perhaps the single biggest difference I have heard from changing one component in a system. It was so utterly different sounding with the transformers. I now appreciate what is meant by "doing no harm to the power delivery."
I am at a loss to explain why Al did not hear this before. We discussed it after the comparison, and I told him it might be strange to contradict his very strong impressions on his system thread. He told me to forget it and invited me to share my impressions with the readers of his system thread. This was a very telling comment, and a great attitude. I have come to realize that Al is more and more open minded. He seems to simply want better sound and does not really care how he gets there. He now knows these transformers were a mistake, and may even feel somewhat embarrassed by having reported such positive impressions.
After I left last night, apparently Al redid the comparison and reached the same conclusion. I don't think he cares if people point out the contradiction and question the whole experiment and criticize him for so quickly changing his mind or for not hearing the issues in the first place. That does not matter to him. He now knows which he prefers and why. He simply wants to learn and hear more of the music on his recordings. From what I have been hearing, his system is sounding more and more natural.
Getting rid of those isolation transformers is a big step in the right direction. At least in Al's system/room context, they were not good.
I'm just teasing of course. Come to think of it, the last time I heard Al's system was with the two Tripp Lites and I thought it didn't sound as good as the previous time...
Maybe you just prefer noise?
Ian, you have to bring that up? Here and now? LOL.
Yes, that has been claimed of me, right after I reported that I preferred the sound of your system without the new Shunyata NR power cords hooked up to your amps and DAC. They too sucked the life out of the music, IMO. As soon as you removed them and went back to cheap stock power cords, the sound was much better. I was told later by someone not there for the comparison, that it must be because I like noise. Pretty funny. Let's not dive too deeply into that again. Al's thread deserves better.
Thank you, Peter, for your coming over and having me do this experiment. I had not expected the outcome, but obviously I am glad we had this shared experience and that the result will yet again improve the enjoyment of my system. I am at a loss of why I did not hear the problems before, and I am glad you shared your impressions, something to which I indeed encouraged you. Life is not about avoiding mistakes or even concealing them, as many do out of a silly false pride, but about learning from them and being happy when things are better.
As not just myself, but others of our group have experienced, it sometimes takes another person with fresh ears to point out flaws in one's own system, and discover that alleged improvements are in fact a step back. I am not unique in that regard, and the story might be a cautionary tale for those who do not have the privilege of having friends regularly lend their ears, but who toil on their own to improve their sound. From time to time they should step back and reevaluate their assumptions by reverting to what they had before a given change.
I do think that it makes no sense when others are not willing to perform a comparison for a visitor, but insist that the improvements they think have occurred are not to be reevaluated and debated. I have less understanding and patience for such an attitude than you have, Peter, but perhaps your more generous stance towards this is commendable.
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I disagree that the highs were problematic with the transformers; in fact I thought the cleanness of sound improved with them and I still think so. The greater cleanness of sound is the reason why I installed the first transformer after reevaluating, and bought the second one. I also did not hear the grain that you heard with the transformers, rather I thought they removed some. But perhaps I was wrong on the cleaner sound and will reevaluate; I might come to your conclusions on this after all. A complicating factor may also be that at the time of my original evaluating of the transformer the AC power may have been dirtier; we were then just at the tail end of the air conditioning summer which fouls up AC. At that time the transformer might have given a clearer benefit in terms of cleaning up the sound.
Yet I do agree on the larger picture. Just like you I heard the difference immediately. The sound without the transformers was bigger, more expansive, more free. It sounded louder, even though I had not changed the volume level at all when we did the switch at the Ravel (for the Cantata Domino I went back to exactly the same volume level there, which I had studiously taken note in detail by double checking before I switched to the Ravel). The sound had just more energy.
After you left, I confirmed our findings by first relistening to some of the Ravel and Cantate Domino, and then switching back to the transformers, just in case both our impressions had been some strange illusion. They weren't. The sound immediately became smaller again, more restricted, less free, less energetic.
I guess one of the mistakes I made was that I listened for just dynamics when I first tested the transformer, and not for energy. I closely checked for dynamics and don't think they were really diminished with the transformer (unlike with much other power conditioning), but with the final setup the energy was clearly reduced. Another mistake was that I only switched back and forth between transformer and no transformer on the DAC, but not for the other digital components and for the preamp. Instead, after having convinced myself there was no problem on the DAC, I added up from there and did not go back. I should have re-checked for baseline throughout the whole process of adding components to the transformer(s). Yesterday we went back to baseline, and the difference was clear immediately. Like you, Peter, I heard it on the Ravel within just a few seconds. I was just plain astonished about the difference.
Somehow I must have forgotten about just the sheer amount of energy and expansion of sound into the room that my system is capable of.
I do plan to revaluate step by step where things went wrong. Perhaps there is indeed a benefit on the DAC, but not on the preamp or the other digital components (CD transport, reclocker) where then the sound becomes less energetic. Or perhaps it is indeed better without transformers entirely.
Somehow I must have forgotten about just the sheer amount of energy and expansion of sound into the room that my system is capable of
.I do plan to revaluate step by step where things went wrong. Perhaps there is indeed a benefit on the DAC, but not on the preamp or the other digital components (CD transport, reclocker) where then the sound becomes less energetic. Or perhaps it is indeed better without transformers entirely.
Al, isn’t your outlet to your audio system on its own dedicated circuit? Do you think your air conditioner upstairs pollutes that audio circuit that much to account for the better sound in the cooler weather when the AC is off?
It is certainly possible, and perhaps what is happening in the rest of the neighborhood has some affect too, but I am hard-pressed to see how the benefits outweigh the damage done to the sound.
If you notice an improvement to the high frequencies with the transformer, perhaps your work is not done with room treatments and speaker position.
You could try rotating the tube traps again, or if you are convinced the tube traps belong in the front corners, experiment with the absorption panels at the first reflection points.
That is just a thought. Perhaps you are satisfied with your experiments regarding those treatments.
It is certainly possible, and perhaps what is happening in the rest of the neighborhood has some affect too, but I am hard-pressed to see how the benefits outweigh the damage done to the sound.
If you notice an improvement to the high frequencies with the transformer, perhaps your work is not done with room treatments and speaker position.
You could try rotating the tube traps again, or if you are convinced the tube traps belong in the front corners, experiment with the absorption panels at the first reflection points.
That is just a thought. Perhaps you are satisfied with your experiments regarding those treatments.
Peter, I think the air conditioning season pollutes the entire AC power line. The problem is not just the air conditioner upstairs.
I had rotated the TubeTraps to the reflective side, but that moves the sound further back and makes it yet smaller. Yesterday we listened with the absorptive side into the room.
There is a compromise that needs to be made. Apart from for the bass -- definitely -- I need the TubeTraps also for the images on some recordings not to move too far back. The whole acoustic treatment of the front half of the room, including all those window plugs (which I also use against noise leaking to neighbors), has built up over the years in a fight against too recessed images. That problem has plagued me for a long time, and I am glad the years-long nightmare is over.
You don't have that problem in your room since the speakers are closer to the front wall. In my room I have tried the speakers closer to the front wall as well, but then I get less spatial depth, and worse, the sound becomes more boxed in, less free, which obviously goes against the concept of energy that we both find so important.
What I have now is the best of all worlds in terms of imaging for me. Very upfront on some recordings, with often a thoroughly addictive intimacy, and on the other hand a very deep, expansive and layered soundstage on others, e.g. on a good amount of orchestral music.
For that level of diverse imaging I take the compromise that I cannot remove the last TubeTraps and might gain other advantages that way. I view audio as a holistic exercise with the best possible compromises all geared towards personal preference. There is no point of trying to go all the way in one particular direction, regardless of the drawbacks that this entails.
It is very much about managing the energy in the room, but I cannot not let that goal interfere with other things that are important to me, such as above described soundstage characteristics with those large differences between recordings.
Yet in fact getting rid of some absorptive surfaces such as the large wool carpet from speakers to front wall, even if it might enhance a natural sound even further, would actually diminish energy. Been there, done that. When images are too recessed, which would be the result, energy decreases and you crank up the music to extreme SPL and ask yourself, "why doesn't that sound loud?". Again, it's all a compromise between competing goals. All audio entails compromise.
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Good morning Madfloyd,Maybe you just prefer noise?
One can never go wrong talking the benefit of clean power in audio. But is your power really dirty that it has significant enough adverse effect to the sound of your system? We have been bombarded with the info and benefit of clean power to the point most of us think we have to do "something" to clean up the power going into our gears. It is like the Clean Power 101 class of entering into university of audio. I also was one of those who spent tons of $ on these cleaning power stuff thinking I live in crowded infested Bangkok therefore my power should suck. We can go ahead and try to measure noise from our electricity. If you see the indication of noises, how does that "exactly" effect the sound in what particular area? I am just writing to stir people a second thought about his power. Your power in Boston is not going to be more polluted than mine in Bangkok. I used to live there too and your whole city is far cleaner in every dimension comparing to where I live. Power is not that bad in most cases I believe. The lecturing, talking, teaching, preaching, marketing of clean power in audio is bad. Bad for automatically guide us to almost blindfoldedly jump to buying the clean power products that the sales man keep stirring our concerns in our mind. I am just raising a question if one really needs a power cleaning device.
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