Ron’s New System
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
You are correct. I amended my original post to "My personal belief is that all cables are like fixed parametric equalizers."
Thank you.
What does your post have to do with the discussion? You come out of the blue from nowhere to make a snide remark disrupting an interesting conversation. It seems personal and in my opinion, is quite a strange comment.
Ron is musing about how to improve the sound of his system. He is sharing his thoughts. By asking him questions, he shares more details about what he is trying to achieve. It’s a pretty good discussion which may lead to other suggestions.
In my experience, it helps to understand what it is you’re trying to improve so that you can gauge progress with targeted experiments in search of a specific solution.
Asking questions to advance the discussion, in my opinion, is not condescending.
Manual says 5-7 feet in front of wall, i have moved them around a lot ( not an easy task) and ended up 5,5 feet from front wall, i little further into the room than the MBL's prefer.
This is where having a reference pays off.
Interesting. The Pendragon panels I think are 8 feet in front of the front wall.
I agree that a reference helps in a situation like this. To be fair, Ron just assembled the system and might not have had another cable that length with which to compare.
Of course you may be referring to the reference of live acoustic music. And I can see that also serving as a reference in this case against which one can gauge the sound of the system.
When comparing two wires or components to each other, I always ask myself which one comes closer to the reference.
I believe you can do that with one wire.
Edit: we listen through systems. Does what you hear reproduced sound like what you hear listening to live music?
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When I played with the speaker location of my old Magicos out into the room, I found that proximity to sidewalls affected the mid range frequencies and the proximity to the front wall affected the lower frequencies. I don’t know how easy it is to move your four speakers around, but you have a nice new wood floor which is smooth and level and you could use sliders for ease of movement, at least initially.
Have you scheduled the visit with Jim Smith yet? Perhaps you might want to consider cable experiments after Jim works with your system and room.
The stat panels play down to 200 hz like your ribbons, but the 7,5 inch oppen baffle drivers next to the panels play down to 55 hz they are most likely the main reason for the placement. Without a active crossover they play down in the 30 hz region, but sound too loose in the bass for my taste. I tested them that way to find out how transparent the reworked last generation X-model crossover is, and could hear no difference in the treble midrange region with or without active crossover . Anecdotally i blew a fuse and had to use my early model crossover, that looks identical for a few days, and some of the magic was gone
No. I know that Jim's process likely would get me the last few percent of "juice."
But I'm really enjoying how the system is sounding presently. I just don't have much drive right now to change anything.
Also, my near-term focus is getting the new turntable in place. I have both tonearms in hand. I have both cartridges in hand. I am waiting for the new PBN Audio turntable stand. Joseph Cali will be delivering the turntable in two or three weeks. So my focus presently is to plan for J.R. to visit in the next month or so.
That would be the most logical sequence.
Ron ,
I use Cardas RCA Clear Beyond in several looms in my system- one of them to my amps for the line array panels. For my woofers I use Allnic Balanced cables for the subs. I use this configuration mainly because my panel amp is single ended and my sub amp likes balanced.
I adjust levels to match. The idea of propogation delay in different cable types is swamped out by the transfer function of the amps being used in our domestic situations. In your case you would have to rebalance levels
If you can, move things around to try a run lent to you from a dealer first and see if it meets your priorities.
Now I am no golden eared guru, however, I can hear different signatures of cables and what they lend to my system. The clear beyond is the first Cardas cable that I like. It is really reference quality.
I use Cardas RCA Clear Beyond in several looms in my system- one of them to my amps for the line array panels. For my woofers I use Allnic Balanced cables for the subs. I use this configuration mainly because my panel amp is single ended and my sub amp likes balanced.
I adjust levels to match. The idea of propogation delay in different cable types is swamped out by the transfer function of the amps being used in our domestic situations. In your case you would have to rebalance levels
If you can, move things around to try a run lent to you from a dealer first and see if it meets your priorities.
Now I am no golden eared guru, however, I can hear different signatures of cables and what they lend to my system. The clear beyond is the first Cardas cable that I like. It is really reference quality.
Surely the best way to let our biases decide for us. IMO high-end stereo is so much different from real music and so diverse between recordings to allow such exercise in a reasonable time, unless you focus just on a few recordings and decide all else are poor recordings. IMO selecting components or cables also needs some analytical experience.
BTW, how do you conciliate your need to be closer to the real reference and the need to maximize differences? Many times times they play against each other.
We don't listen to live music with our systems , we listen to the recording of live music ....!
Regards
Regards
What does this mean in terms of the sound in your system?
Why do you prefer it to the sound of some other cable you have tried?
This is a very interesting question.
I suspect Peter will be able to reconcile this, but the answer is not obvious to me (other than just to claim that both variables vector to the same point).
I guess I am more optimistic than you seem to be. I think some audio systems remind me quite a bit of the sound of real instruments. Violins and pianos sound like violence and pianos, and a group of men singing up on stage sounds like what I hear at church. On the other hand, some systems make the instruments on the recording sound synthetic and fake. I’m sure some of us have had this experience to a greater or lesser degree.
In terms of judging the sound of a system against a specific reference and reconciling that with the idea of different recordings sounding distinct from each other, it’s pretty simple. The sound of instruments and voices fall within a range. The settings in which they are recorded also follow within a range. This is why I would argue there is no “absolute sound“. There are different halls, different nightclubs, and different studios. There are different pianos and different violins. I judge the performance of the system based on how it sounds compared to my reference of live on amplified music and the sound falling within that range that I have experienced listening to live music.
I want to hear the differences between different recordings because I know them to be different because they are made by different people and recorded in different settings. I want to enjoy the music and the performance and to learn about the recording from what I hear through my system.