Why should a miserable fatiguing type of sound be considered "audiophile sound"?
Sublime Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
- Start date
Why should a miserable fatiguing type of sound be considered "audiophile sound"?
Call it what you will. I enjoy my Bose 901’s more than I enjoy most systems I hear at shows.
I agree with you. It seems most of us also agree that most of the time show sound is not representative of good audiophile sound.
Peter, i think this is a particularly insightful comment. I heard that same system at Goodwins many times and think your observation about it's constricted nature is indeed due in part to the networked MIT cabling that was mandated by their use of Spectral ams at the time. I went down the MIT road for years and thought I had reached the top of the mountaintop with every upgrade of MIT interconnects and cabling, only to realize that my system enjoyment went down a little further each time, which left me scratching my head. I certainly don't think it was an issue with the Spectral 400 monobloc amps I had since I betrayed the Spectral dogma relatively quickly and used those amps successfully for years with a VTL 7.5III hybrid preamp. Wonderful combo. But it wasn't until I moved to MB cabling that the VTL/Spectral system really opened up to show its true merits. In retrospect, the MIT cables really were a rabbit hole, an observation first suggested to me by guess who? Yup, ddk!
I want to try to demonstrate the result of my attempt to realign my cartridge and tonearm using the technique I learned while visiting ddk last week. Below are two videos. I posted the first one a few weeks ago. The second one is with the new set up method. I don't know if people will be able to hear the differences, but it is clear when listening live in my room. I do not know if the volumes are exactly the same.
I am very grateful to David for teaching me this technique. We used no fancy measurement tools with demo disks, no computer programs, no USB cameras, no attempt to get the mythical 92 degree SRA. We simply used David's alignement jig and protractor, a digital scale for VTF, and a tiny mirror to confirm azimuth. We got everything close by eye. We then listened to music while he guided me. I did all the work and made adjustments by ear. The whole procedure took about 15 minutes to install the cartridge and adjust the tonearm. We spent another 15 minutes or so listening and adjusting VTA using the playing cards. With practice, it will take me less time. I used the same technique here at home to redo my vdH cartridge and SME arm set up. The second video is the result.
Video 1:
Video 2:
I am very grateful to David for teaching me this technique. We used no fancy measurement tools with demo disks, no computer programs, no USB cameras, no attempt to get the mythical 92 degree SRA. We simply used David's alignement jig and protractor, a digital scale for VTF, and a tiny mirror to confirm azimuth. We got everything close by eye. We then listened to music while he guided me. I did all the work and made adjustments by ear. The whole procedure took about 15 minutes to install the cartridge and adjust the tonearm. We spent another 15 minutes or so listening and adjusting VTA using the playing cards. With practice, it will take me less time. I used the same technique here at home to redo my vdH cartridge and SME arm set up. The second video is the result.
Video 1:
Video 2:
All in good time, Vienna. I agree that will be fun and interesting. The table should be here in a couple of weeks. Until then, I just posted a pair of videos of an album I took to David's. See above. I think I also made a video of this same song on David's big system. I will post that later in a dedicated thread. I took a few videos in Utah.
Did the number of cards change after you tried your newly learnt technique?
Wow, pretty drastic change actually a total transformation to more natural sound and balance! Open with full ambient information too!
david
The new alignment seems to make everything more of a piece Peter, very whole with better flow and sense of ease and coherence and nothing out of place... a very nice and apparent shift for 15 minutes work (or is it more the work of a lifetime).
Your Honor he is leading the witness !!!
Howie, I am a bit embarrassed actually because I thought I knew what I was doing with cartridge set up. These videos make clear that I did not have a clue. David's method is fool proof because I could pick it up immediately and after only doing it once, I was able to dramatically improve the sound of my own system. Such a great gift from David.
The arm went down about 10 cards, and the overhang/alignment changed slightly. VTF, azimuth were fine. I am glad the difference is so obvious through the videos. I am now really looking forward to the additional improvements the Micro Seiki should bring.
Hi Peter,
i remember you said you like using the bubble provided by vdh. I Ikie using it too..freebie. With 10 cards lower now, how is the bubble reacting. Mine is always off center.
Good question. I will check tomorrow. I know that the bubble is off center for azimuth because I checked after I used the mirror. My SME armtube is not parallel with the headshell. Right now I think the arm is slightly up in back, but the headshell is slightly up in front. I suspect the bubble on the headshell will show it up in front.
I learned not to go by any of that, just listen for best sound.
Thank you, yes. And I heard Trios at the Avantgarde factory. And Duos also at another member's home.
Wow. 10 cards is quite a big change but as long as the sound has improved there is nothing to be embarrassed about.
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