At times I am surprised how good my system and room sound. I have done nothing to the room. My friend Bob wants to bring a bunch of ASC stuff to my house. And I do want subwoofer reinforcement. But really, its darn nice sounding. I spent some time tweaking the speakers here and there when the mood hit me. Mostly getting them level, toed the same and set equal from side and rear walls. Not much else. I know I sound like who cares how good it sound on the Is High End Worth It Thread. I do care. I just don't believe the attachment to music is as tied to how close a stereo can get to a live sound as other believe. Heck, I have been on a weird POP phase. All sorts of rhythmic driving music. That just need bass.
A while back I mentioned I spun up some of my #10 THHN with a drill. Not the way to do it. I terminated it in a heavy outdoor plastic box and used a Furutech Rhodium NCF duplex. I have the male end plugged into my Torus RM20. My mono 40 watt PP KT88 amps are fed off that line. It took about 50 hours to break in. I find myself pretty pleased with the Rhodium duplex. Normally I would never purchase a $250 duplex. A friend that is a dealer pushed me to get it. I got a fair price.
I can not say for sure its the duplex, branch wire or connection cables. Prior to making my extension, I was using DDK Ching Cheng cables into my custom power strip made from Oyaide cable and Hubbell 5362. That is plugged into the Torus also. Now I am using cables made by the guy that made my amps. 14 awg wire. All copper ends. Those are plugged into te rhodium duplex. After 50 hours I have way better liquidity and foundation than prior. FWIW, Torus uses Hubbells so I am still plugged into a Hubbell. As it sits now, I feel no need to change anything.
And I will admit, my tapes with classical music play way better than my digital. With Steely Dan or Billy Joel, the tape is technically better. But I don't feel I am missing anything with the digital. How good does Billie's Piano have to sound. Classical is different. It does matter how defined the individual instruments are. While I like some of the playing style of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto 1 from different performers on digital, the tape version allows much better insight into what the rest of the orchestra is doing. I enjoy that with classical. Its not a make or break thing. I have classical tapes that are recorded and play amazing, but I am not that into the performance and rarely play them. I have some digital files of classical I found and really like the performance and play them often. I just need to be in the mood. Lately that mood is hard driving pop. Generally I am working out when listening. PT/Yoga type stuff. On the floor in front of the system. Plenty of times to stop, sit up and listen. Then back to another set.
