What my amps taught me, and what it says about gear.
What I have to say will rub folks the wrong way. I do not want to give the idea this is the best sounding system ever. I am laying it out here because of this long discussion of whether double blind tests must be taken seriously. I have the luck to not have to have to resort to blind tests.
My system spits out any poor behaving component. One does not need to be blind to hear a marked difference between any component. I say this in all honesty. The largely misunderstood ICE amps led me to some startling facts.
Apogee Scintilla
H2O mono blocks
H2O Fire preamp
Opened up Lambda transport
Opened up Audio Note DAC
Fully shielded PCs.
My own thin ribbon SCs
Speltz ICs
Offenders include:
1) Insulated SC cables. They all hiss.
2) Wrong shaped SCs. Round naked solid sound ghosty with an emphasis in the mids. Braided wires sound mushy. Flat ultra thin naked SCs do it all.
3) All oversampling CD players. They simply sound wrong. Oddly, some cheap oversamplers fair better than expensive ones. A couple of examples are in order. A Marantz player had a good open sound that was marred by a shallow stage, mildly grainy mids, and bright highs. A Sony 999 SACD with full Modwright enhancements sounded smooth, but very short in decay, thin and bland. Most just sound bright. LPs are good sellers on account of that.
4) Most preamps. They err by coloration, and obscuration. No wonder some folks eschew preamps, the naysayers are mostly right. My amp builder had to build his own preamp to circumvent this problem. He hit a home run with it.
In conclusion, I need to reiterate I am talking only of ICE amps. The above offenders offend here. Only one person sold his $10k source for and equally expensive NOS source. He had the same amps as I. Others, crest fallen, took their toys home where they thankfully found them enjoyable as in the past. One thing though, they won't forget what they heard here. Meanwhile, I will continue to experiment with innovative solutions. My duo background in science and theatre design augments my quest for perfection in the science and art of audio.
What I have to say will rub folks the wrong way. I do not want to give the idea this is the best sounding system ever. I am laying it out here because of this long discussion of whether double blind tests must be taken seriously. I have the luck to not have to have to resort to blind tests.
My system spits out any poor behaving component. One does not need to be blind to hear a marked difference between any component. I say this in all honesty. The largely misunderstood ICE amps led me to some startling facts.
Apogee Scintilla
H2O mono blocks
H2O Fire preamp
Opened up Lambda transport
Opened up Audio Note DAC
Fully shielded PCs.
My own thin ribbon SCs
Speltz ICs
Offenders include:
1) Insulated SC cables. They all hiss.
2) Wrong shaped SCs. Round naked solid sound ghosty with an emphasis in the mids. Braided wires sound mushy. Flat ultra thin naked SCs do it all.
3) All oversampling CD players. They simply sound wrong. Oddly, some cheap oversamplers fair better than expensive ones. A couple of examples are in order. A Marantz player had a good open sound that was marred by a shallow stage, mildly grainy mids, and bright highs. A Sony 999 SACD with full Modwright enhancements sounded smooth, but very short in decay, thin and bland. Most just sound bright. LPs are good sellers on account of that.
4) Most preamps. They err by coloration, and obscuration. No wonder some folks eschew preamps, the naysayers are mostly right. My amp builder had to build his own preamp to circumvent this problem. He hit a home run with it.
In conclusion, I need to reiterate I am talking only of ICE amps. The above offenders offend here. Only one person sold his $10k source for and equally expensive NOS source. He had the same amps as I. Others, crest fallen, took their toys home where they thankfully found them enjoyable as in the past. One thing though, they won't forget what they heard here. Meanwhile, I will continue to experiment with innovative solutions. My duo background in science and theatre design augments my quest for perfection in the science and art of audio.
