It doesn’t have to be all that expensive really, but there are certainly endless avenues to waste money on.
I went to a friend of a friends place who had spent well over $25k, had a grossly inferior front end, and system and speaker placement set up that really couldn’t have been worse for the room. I listened, heard unrealized potential, tried to make a few suggestions but mostly didn’t and thought to myself now that’s a waste of money.
I just got the Zu Audio Wyle interconnects, so I couldn’t wait to hook them up and listen. I’ve spent enough time listening to vinyl on my system and the system is now good enough (playing vinyl anyway) to start to hear the differences the tweaks will make.
New 180g Fleetwood Mac Tusk was already on the turntable so I dropped the needle on it after hooking up the Zu Audio interconnects. First impression was that there was an appreciable improvement, but that isn’t one of my reference albums so I went straight to some of my reference vinyl to check. Steely Dan Aja… No, not there. MFSL of the Kinks, Misfits… Still nothing I could notice (and I wanted to..). Then I grabbed NIN, which isn’t a long time reference for me but all the NIN vinyl is off the charts good sound quality so it immediately became one. Yep, similar improvements to the mid and high definition and even tighter bass. So… Just to make sure, one of my all-time references went on – Pink Floyd, DSOTM, which I just listened to recently. Yep, subtle but same improvements as previously noted. More pronounced on the classic measure of the track with the alarm clocks going off.
As for where the interconnects fit into the equation of a high end system, the following quote is what i’ve been saying all along. But it’s a pleasant suprize to hear it from Zu Audio, who sells high end interconnects, which is very different than the “snake oil” pitches of other companies (A few good examples of fact vs. fiction in the high end audio world:):
“Get the right loudspeakers for your sense of music and sound, find the happy amp that feeds ‘em; then get busy on your analog and digital source needs. Fill your room with a bunch of albums and books and stuff. And once you have a hi-fi rig you like, start messing with cable. And careful not to use cables as tone controls to fix a loudspeaker or setup issue—it’s a trap that will have you spending more money on accessories than on music.”
well… i’ve finally got the main components of my system on Maui in place, so it’s time to start auditioning interconnects. I e-spied a new pair of these beauties for $50 (they run about $500 retail):
how did i choose these you may ask?… the same company does nude mods for my Denon 103R:
http://aperionaudio.typepad.com/the_sound_room/2009/04/all-things-vinyl-march-18-2009-zu-audiodenon-dl-103.html
so i’m hoping they have similar taste. will be interesting to see if the interconnects make any difference at all. i know one thing for certain, if it’s there, i now have a system fully capable of revealing it…
and, i’ll be running my CC-2s as mono blocks so needed longer interconnects anyway.
I never really heard Wagner and thought “what’s the big deal” until I listened to The Ring start to finish on a good system, which moved me to tears the first time I did so. Now I never listen to The Ring unless I’m in the mood to listen to it in its entirety. When you think about it it makes perfect sense. It was written that way and when it was first performed in fact the only way to listen to it was live performances in their entirety since the original gammaphone wasn’t even invented until 24 years later.
It’s the same with albums that were released when the only way to listen to them was vinyl. Most of the best albums were written to be listened to one side at a time as a complete composition. This of course became lost in the world of MP3 players set on “shuffle”.
https://www.dwell.com/article/from-vinyl-to-streaming-an-audio-expert-takes-us-through-more-than-100-years-of-sound-tech-986b2acb
I was experience untenable hum in a behemoth of a vintage power amplifier and discovered what I had going on was a very dramatic ground loop.
I figured it out when I hooked up cheap speakers to the amp, turned it on again, and noticed extra hum and noise when I touched the SACD player, which was a part of the ground loop of course through the interconnects from the amp to pre-amp to SACD player.
That would also explain the blast of hum when the chassis touches anything (or anything touches it). Yes… it is that bad.
I ascertained it was a ground loop by “floating” the ground on the power amp with a 3 prong to 2 prong converter, but w/o screwing the ground screw to the outlet plate. Pretty primitive diagnostic tools, but hey… it worked!
As an aside, I’m definitely not gonna use the power amp with the adapter on the power cord, even though it does eliminate the hum by eliminating the ground loop. I just threw it on there for one power up to see if that was it and even used a plastic sharpie to push the power switch just in case the chassis was “hot”. Musicians have been killed by this very practice, but of course with multiple huge amps with floating grounds for live music. But I still don’t want to ever know what those caps are capable of, probably 20 to 30 amps at least I’m guessing.
Now that I know where to look, I’m guessing the power cord is old and restive, creating a voltage imbalance between the multiple grounds. V=IR and all 😉
So Class A amplification became popular in the 80s and 90s, after the Total Harmonic Distortion wars (The THD Wars – why lower distortion often doesn’t equal better sound quality.) finally abated and amplifier designers were looking for ways to improve sound quality in solid state circuits.
More later…
I have nothing against digital audio reproduction in general, even MP3’s. I love that I can listen to music with headphones mounted inside my downhill mountain bike helmet, waterproof headphones surfing waves, and earbuds playing off an iPod shuffle road biking. Not to mention having a few thousand tracks in my vehicles, all of which have iPod integration installed. Try that with a turntable, eh?
When I gave up on sitting down and listening to music in the late 1980s since vinyl was gone and high definition digital hadn’t arrived on the scene yet, leaving only Redbook (44.1k/16bit) CDs, I figured I might as well make the best of the MP3 world and ripped all my CDs into iTunes and put the tracks anywhere and everywhere. and i still kept buying music. and still kept listening to and enjoying music, all the time, for what it was. and i only bought CDs cause i knew i might be able to sit down and listen to music again someday and i might as well have at least that level of quality, instead of the MP3 garbage for sale on iTunes.
it didn’t make sense until recently, with SACDs and vinyl (finally) making a comeback. it was a long wait (as Lynn said, nigh on 20 years), but i figured enough listeners who still cared would survive long enough that it it would come back sooner or later, which it is now. so now is a time of “best of both worlds” scenarios, exciting!
and yes… absolutely in regard the the HT improvements! Amazing. but even then i would venture to say that they were mostly just hype until Blu-ray came along and provided descent quality at the source.
i think you may be confusing SACDs with HT though. They are completely separate and SACDs have survived in spite of HT, which does sampling in an entirely different way. SACDs were a redesign, from the ground up as to how to make digital sound better. and a very successful one. They have survived in spite of the HT market, and most certainly not because of it (HT would love to see it disappear, it interferes with their marketing). The mass market of AVRs and other HT stuff don’t want SACD around, it is one more thing to have to support. That’s why the vast majority of Blu-Ray players don’t support it (Even Sony, who invented, often doesn’t support it on their blu-ray players). I pointed you in the direction of one of the very few that does, Oppo, and you pay a very high premium for what they do, your unit retails for $500 vs. $99 for a regular blu-ray player. And… the majority of SACD units are not HT players. They do audio only, period. Sometimes, no usually, only 2 ch audio at that.
The reason SACD and vinyl has survived is that it is truly better and enough people (barely enough) cared. The fact that it is making a (modest) comeback tells me that maybe some who didn’t care before are starting to. Maybe they have started listening to music again. That is what was lost all along, after all. Listening to music for music’s sake.
Pops and clicks are often not audible during a song on a well-maintained record and should not distract from the listening experience. No evidence exists of a record that is shown to be played back with absolutely no pops or clicks whatsoever. They are introduced at virtually every stage of production, from cutting the lacquer to the pressing to the playback itself. Some pops and ticks are pressed into the record itself.
more later…
Talk about 5.1 surround mixes on DAV-As and SACDs here. Mention, of course, how they added new material from the original master tapes when the did DSOTM and WYWH in 5.1.
when i did my vinyl vs. SACD vs DVD-A (i already knew not to bother with CDs, i already know where they stood from years of ginning and bearing it until i gave up and sold my MLs and Adcoms) tests five years ago. i uncovered on my own exactly the same conclusions that Harley and Lynn have come to. I went in almost hoping vinyl would lose since i had none of it and had a vast collection of high def digi music. Within less than an hour of critical listening to music i brought in and know well on a reference quality system it became unecquivacally evident that vinyl still offered the best quality, SACDs second, DVD-As (at 196K/24 bit, not all are) a fairly distant third. harley endeavors to explain why SACDs are the best digi format. Lynn just mentions it in passing.
I still love my digi collection. and one thing they offer that vinyl never did is fantastic 5.1 surround mixes. quadrophonic, finally realized.
So stylus cleaning is an inexact science at best. Truth is, the entire concept of a diamond needle tracking in a vinyl groove is incredibly primitive at best. But… if done correctly, it remains by far the most enthralling method to reproduce high quality audio recordings at home. This is, of course, a big if. Anyone outside of the Golden Age (post) thinks back upon vinyl records with memories of clicks, pops, and scratches. And in most cases this was true. Vinyl records require a great deal of care to faithfully reproduce music with any sort of longevity. In fact, one can completely ruin a vinyl record forever by simply neglecting to clean it properly before the first time dropping a needle onto it.
So, assuming you are fastidiously caring for your cherished vinyl (post), how do you also care for the needle tracking it. First and foremost for the care of both you must take great care to set up your turntable/tonearm to so the stylus is properly tracking the groove without excessive force vertically or laterally. But still, no matter how well you care for your vinyl prior to each drop of the needle, your stylus itself is going to need some care or excessive wear, audio quality segregation, and mis-tracking will ensue.
While there are several companies that will be happy to sell you expensive “snake oil” stylus cleaning solutions promising to change your life in the listening chair forever, the solution is in fact very simple, inexpensive, and just might be already on the shelf of your cleaning closet.
The Magic Eraser is a household cleaning product designed to remove just about any stain on any surface. Rather than relying upon strong solvents, which could easily damage your phono cartridge should they wick up into it’s delicate coils, it uses a unique molecular structure to strip materials clean of unwanted debris.
very good summary here.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/ultimate-surround-sound-guide-different-formats-explained/
one thing i like… DD 7.1 and blu-ray quality audio go hand in hand. time for me to give 7.1 a listen again. native, on your home theatre!
THX – is only mentioned in passing as collaborating with DD to create their standards, also good 🙂
the only reference to THX surround sound in home theatre i can find is… DD “EX”
http://www.timefordvd.com/ref/THXSurroundEX.shtml
so… that’s a good thing as well. DD is doing a fine job already, if the folks at THX have something to add all the better.
but it still begs the question. what does THX think it’s adding by putting their name on other peoples Blu-ray movies, all 5?!
First, let me preface by mentioning that 7.1 surround sound is intended for home theater applications only.
from HK’s web site (what they do with non-native 7.1 sources):
“HARMAN Logic 7 technology transforms a stereo input into full 7.1-channel surround sound, courtesy of proprietary algorithms that make any audio source – HDMI, analog, component, composite or computer-based audio from a USB connection – truly spectacular. The result is optimal quality and a superior, enveloping experience that engulfs you in a 360-degree soundscape.”
my translation after listening to it. “we can turn any high quality analog signal, be it 2 ch or 5.1, do an AtoD conversion, then a DtoA conversion, both unnecessary, and guess where to put extra sound w/o having any idea of what is in the content of a movie, and make it sound like crap.”
like i said, every AVR receiver will have it’s own flavour, but they will all involve A2D and D2A conversions and there isn’t much hope that HK (or Onkyo) can sell a AVR with 7.1 channels of amplification, all those other whistles and bells, and good quality DACs at an MSRP of under $1K (of course they sell for far less than that, almost half)
even with 7.1 native sources, you are stuck with your AVR doing the DACs, rather than your Oppo which has the good ones. personally, i’d stick with the “quality over quantity” approach of the Oppo’s 5.1 analog signal path, even for movies. see p. 115 for a very good quantity over quality analogy to speakers, which i’ve seen (very negatively by my taste) effect peoples purchase approach to them. (obviously not the case here, just a good analogy)
also see p. 73, para 3: “A key feature of a high-end A/V controller is the ability to pass analog input signals to the output without converting the signal to digital and then back to analog.” what he fails to mention is that this is the sole domain of 2 ch and 5.1 ch audio for movies…
more later…
Any quick look under the hood of truly high end audio components immediately reveals their design philosophy: the highest quality of pure, simple, short signal paths w/o tone controls or other things screwing it up. One look at the above photo of the Nakamichi CA-5A preamplifier (The Nakamichi CA-5A preamplifier) illustrates this completely, and also shows off the build quality. Witness the isolated transformer, simple high quality components, and exemplary design. No more, no less…
As for the rest of the components?… I want them to amplify the signal as accurately as possible and other than that get out of the way of the original integrity of the (minuscule!) analog signal path created by my 103R phono cartridge (The formidable Denon 103 vs. 103R low output moving coil phono cartridges – is there really a difference?…) or the (albeit more robust) signal from my very carefully chosen outboard DAC (Marantz DSD DAC)
missed the link before. good read.
this is very true, and mentioned by Haley as well:
“much more important to limit higher order harmonic distortion than it is to seek artificially low overall distortion levels.”
that’s why THD tell you nothing. that, along with WPC, are used to sell amplifiers. ignore these ratings. or, if anything, look for a amp with higher THD which means they didn’t use negative feedback or other things to get a low THD thereby screwing up it’s sonic qualities. and… you now know what to look for in a high current amp, which is something very significant, especially with your speakers!
A very good example of why its not about watts per channel. This is one of the best sounding amps ever made and only 50 wpc (class a). Was looking for one of their preamps though. Always wanted one. I had Audionics of Oregon, a main competitor at the time but lower cost.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MARK-LEVINSON-NO-29-SOLID-STATE-50w-X-2-CLASS-A-AMPLIFIER-IN-NEAR-MINT-CONDITION-/331071698680?pt=US_Home_Audio_Amplifiers_Preamps&hash=item4d156936f8
So finally got to relax and listen to music on my new system this evening. Just wrapped up a sesh of Heart live and Norah Jones on sacd. Just relaxing and enjoying the music. First chance ive had to do that. Nora jones brought chuckles and tears, never done that before. One thing is certain, i now have a system i can rediscover my entire high def digi collection with.
Warts and all, the Rotel and these Kefs are in a whole different league than what i had going on before. It is glimpsing on what i remember, hence the tears. God i love lisgening to music! It not Nora Jones, this is the first time ive heard that album. Really heard it.
So i had my critical listening cap fully off, but i will say in hind sight that i have a sneaking suspicion that the Rotel sounds a lot better as an integrated amp then just a pre amp, and it is certainly fully capable of driving the kefs as such. That is, after all what it was intended to do. Or… Maybe im just rally good at loving what i have when i relax and enjoy the music. Ive been doing that for years with my HK and kef q5s and i knew there was more in store but still loved listening to music in a somewhat high quality form again. Now i jave this treasure chest of high def audio that i get to rediscover again, like for the first time!!!
Absolutely loving the kefs (they are fine after the Adcom disaster thank goodness). I love their bass, mids, highs. I love that the bass ends where it does, woulnt want lower freq for this small room.
I highly rcommend both sacds. Very good bit very different. Both are inexpensive when i bought them, ill send links.
F
Sent from my iPad
just sent you a copy of this. thought you might not be in the mood to spend more $$$ at this juncture and this is an absolute “must read” (at least the first couple of chapters) before you go much further so i didn’t want to wait until christmas ;-). i learned this stuff as an inquisitive high school kid and it took several years (and still learning of course) and there wasn’t a book like this out at the time that i’m aware of. or maybe i was just having so much fun (and making so much money) by learning it through trial and error that i didn’t care.
it is written by the editor in chief of The Absolute Sound, the undisputed best source of reviews in the 70s. Stereophile was also quite good. Absolute Sound had no advertising and was quite expensive to subscribe to back then. Came in a small book form, wish I’d saved copies 😉 Not sure if they exist in the same capacity today, but it is immediately apparent when you start to read this book that these values are of the same ethos.
i got through the first 36 pages, they were remedial but very interesting and fun to read, before i started to jump forward to get to some answers to some of my (long standing) unanswered questions. in those first 36 pages he has already addressed almost all of what i put into my emails to you, such as:
– it’s all about loving the music, not the gear.
– pay attention to the people who love listening to music and therefore do reviews on gear that does it best, not the techies
– pay attention to reviewers who like the same music and have similar taste as you (or better still, do lots of critical listening and form your own preferences)
– don’t forget to take your reviewer’s hat off once you are satisfied and enjoy the music again. this is what i’m suggesting you do for a while… it’s the reward! this is also why i prefer to upgrade one component in the signal path at a time and listen to a lot of music with the upgrade before moving on. how else can i really appreciate the difference? over several years in the late 70s i did this until i ended up with the ultimate system (for me). then i fully relaxed and looked for new music to enjoy. my reviewer’s hat was off for good at that point. that is the system i am seeking to recreate now. it’s funny, i collected the music long before the gear this time around. there is so much in my collection that i can’t wait to hear!!!
– it’s all about matching your gear to your wishes, i.e. do you sit down and listen to music or do you watch movies where the sound takes second stage?
– it’s all about matching each component (including your room) in the signal path. i.e. your music can sound worse with a better quality reproduction system if the quality of the source is inferior, for example. now one is just hearing more of the original deficiencies. i believe i am running into this now with the DACs on my Denon, but won’t know for sure until i can play vinyl to compare, might just be the nature of digi (even SACD), which is well known for some of the deficiencies i’m hearing. or my tweeters might need to be overhauled (refill the fluid in the voice coils, they are 25 years old after all). you know me, i’ll find out 🙂
i could extract countless quotes for you from this book, reinforcing things i’ve written in my prior emails to you, and started to do so until i realized the entire thing was just so quotable and thought…. no, Dave just needs to own this book.
I would suggest reading the first two or three chapters and put it down and enjoy your music for a while. Of course jump ahead to anything of particular interest (such as bi-amping, for example). But then consider it as a reference when you want to know more cause you are starting to notice things from listening to music. This is sure to come and these things are far more interesting to read about when you’ve already noticed them first hand than when you just read about them in theory.
i would skip over much of the “budgeting” and “relationship with your dealer” sections as they don’t fit how both you and i acquire our audio gear. in an ideal world where money is no object i would do this. but so far i’ve been pretty good and making money on audio gear rather than spending it and getting to listen to music along the way! (now i’m even making money on the music itself, on paper anyway)
i also like the way he gives digi and vinyl equal play, it becomes quite clear early on that he likes them both for what they have to offer, much as i do (or i wouldn’t have a huge SACD collection). he clearly and very correctly states the pros and cons of both on page 234. i like how he puts it… “LPs distortions are periodically apparent, but separate from the music, digital’s distortions are woven int the music’s fabric” – well said! (p234)
and… what are those unanswered (or me) gems i’ve already looked up?…
– why did i immediately hear something magic in my Denon 103R phono cartridge (in the late 70s) , which shipped directly from Japan with a hand tested/plotted/signed frequency response curve that was flat from 5 Hz to 50 kHz, even though the human ear can only hear up to 20 kHz?
– how exactly do SACDs work and why do they sound so much better than other digi formats?
– how do i use a music server to grab high-def digi audio via download off the internet?
and… just gotta send you this quote in the interim, since it is not only exactly what i was saying on the phone to you yesterday, but even uses a motor-sport analogy to do it, much as I did:
“I once read that a motorcycle manufacturer attempted to quantify the ‘feel’ by… putting the motorcycle on a dynamometer in a wind tunnel (with sensors attached). … After much money spent, the company went back to relying on the comments of experienced test riders who could describe the experience in subjective terns.” (p. 28)
this is funny, cause i just read it after sending the email of tech vs. musical audiophiles.
any (musical) audiophile would never. i repeat never use an HDMI signal path vs. an analog one:
“We utilized the industries most advanced HDMI Audio Analyzer”
so… these guys are obviously of the techy variety. there’s a lot of that going around.
given the chance, i always do listening tests over technical ones, like i have for the past couple days.
http://www.audioholics.com/blu-ray-and-dvd-player-reviews/oppo-bdp-83se
you get the irony of this, right?…
Oppo has gone to great lengths to improve the analog audio (i.e. RCA jacks… 6 of them) signal path on both the 83SE and the 95 models (after the DACs)
yet… this review grabs the digi signal off the HDMI output and tries to say it sucks. Oppo knows it sucks, ALL HDMI signals suck for all players, that’s why Oppo made the effort to not only offer but also to improve their analog outputs. I would venture to say that Oppo also knows HDMI sucks for video, but they are stuck with that one 🙁
heck, their analyzed signal path is only 192 kHz vs. the 2.8224 MHz that SACDs offer.
these guys are idiots who plug in instruments to inferior signal paths then try to tell you how things are gonna sound, w/o ever listening to music. if they did listen to music, they wouldn’t be discussing an HDMI signal path (and theoretically discussing an analog one that they didn’t even plug into to test, let alone listen to) in the first place.
Classic of what I’ve been saying all along. Techy (i.e. incredible in my way of thinking) guy meets music oriented (highly credible by way way of thinking) audiophile.
it’s very clear who listens to music and who talks about specs and what’s proven or not proven technically here.
i had the same reaction and comments that both Harley and Lynn had when i listened to music played on CDs. the debate ends at the listening chair, not with the osiliscope or other arguments. both Lynn and Harley consistently point out that specs don’t tell the story, listening does. that’s what i’ve been saying all along and why i warned about paying heed to THD and WPC from day one. i actually emailed Lynn after i sent the link. would be fun to get in touch and see if he remembers me, the kid doing final assembly and packing of CC-2 amps.
Is a power conditioning necessary for audiophile quality sound reproduction? Yes, most of the time. Is it worth spending big bucks on an uber high end power conditioning unit in order to improve sound quality? Never in my experience. (Should I spend (waste?) money on power conditioning?)
Do RCA interconnects (I just got the Zu Audio Wyle interconnects. and The quest for some bang for the buck in interconnects and speaker cables) make a big difference in signal quality? Not really… unless you use uber-cheap ones running critical analog signal paths, like pre-amp to amp or SACD to pre-amp. Is it worth spending more than about $100 on them?… Probably not. If carefully chosen you will get the maximum quality you can at that price point and any additional $$$ spend will be wasted. Same applies to speaker cables. Physics is physics (Speaker Cables).
Does the quality of your source make a difference to sound quality? Absolutely. Do you get big improvements in sound quality with superior source recordings and carefully upgraded playback components? Positively. Along with your speakers, that’s where you get the most “bang for your buck”. The rest of the equipment has a very important but also very simple task – amplification, and amplification only (Why I prefer analog preamplifiers that lack tone controls and Doing a little research on vintage Sansui… and Circuit topology, why less is more). With the exception of digital audio reproduction of course, which adds Digital to Analog Converters (DACs) to the signal path.
It really is pretty easy to steer clear of the B.S. and avoid wasting money on glittery “upgrades” that don’t improve sound quality and may on occasion even detract from it. There are two different types of audiophiles: those that love the music and those that love the gear. I am the former and as such I invested thousands of dollars collecting music before I spent a nickel on high end gear. In order to bring out the best in those carefully chosen and cared for recordings I seek out the purest signal path possible to bring the “music to my ears”, which involves getting to know the gear as well.
1 – D to A converters, also known as DACs. You want good quality DACs in your player, get it to output 5.1 analog, then get everything else in the signal path after that to leave it alone as much as possible (beyond amplification of course). That’s one of the many reasons why HDMI rains on the parade for a high end audio signal path.
2 – Discreet analogue signal path for all 5.1 channels once the signal has been converted to analogue by the DACs (i.e. BDP-95 – take a closer look at that unit and you will immediately see what i am referring to).
3 – Transport mechanism. Pretty hard to screw this up too dramatically, but the higher end players make certain this is of the highest integrity so the digi info on the discs is read with as much accuracy as possible. Other’s fudge it with some sort of error correction protocol, such as parity. They recognize that there will be a certain % of errors reading the disc so they have algorithms to correct for that. Obviously, it is better still if the laser reads with as close to 100% accuracy as possible. The higher end units separate the Transport and the DACs into two components. very pricey of course, and the cost isn’t warranted by a digital sourced signal path IMHO, especially for CDs. Like I said, garbage in, garbage out… what ever else they try to say. But there are many who would beg to differ, until recently at least.
Dirty household current can certainly adversely effect sound quality, usually dramatically so… Think hum, but that could also be from a ground loop and best eliminated by an isolation transformer (Hum?… Maybe it’s just a ground loop). Power conditioning should be redundant to the power supplies provided in your components, which makes claims of better sound quality from overpriced, dedicated power conditioners (some cost thousands of dollars) illegitimate.
Remember, that if you are going for audiophile sound quality, then you are purchasing components that have already gone to great lengths to optimize their power supplies to that end. Then of course really high end audio provides separate power supplies for each channel.
Such high end audio manufacturers are assuming you are running off household power (including the incumbent flaws there-in), that is what their equipment is designed for. If you think you need elaborate power conditioning units to improve sound quality, then I would re-think the components you are purchasing.
Rather than “second guess” the adequacy of the power supply in your components (you’ve already chosen ones that are exemplary in that department, right?), money spent on the purchase of elaborate power conditioning units for your high-end audio components could be better spent elsewhere, such as high quality recordings.
That said, a power conditioner can serve a simple but indispensable task, that of surge protection from lighting strikes or other aberrations from your local electric provider. Consider it a sacrificial part of your audio chain, rather than one that is essential to audio quality. If lightening strikes and takes out your $100 power conditioner and saves thousands of dollars in high end components , it will be the best dollars ever spent.
Oh… and about “high end” power cords? Same comments as on power conditioners. Sure you can spend up to $2K and go solid silver or something ridiculous like that, but why on earth would you. Any manufacturer of high end audio gear will have considered the quality of the power cord they have provided and even designed it specifically for the power supply of that component. So not only are you “second guessing” their choice, you are also superseding their design and quite possibly introducing mis-matched wiring. Of course this would mean that not only have dollars spent on an “upgraded” power cord been wasted, they have actually been spent to degregate the quality of the power supply in the component they are used with.
So I just finished reading a recent copy of one of the main audiophile magazines, which shall remain nameless. After finishing I came to the distinct conclusion that it was, cover to cover, all advertising.
The “Product Reviews” were far from unbiased and without fail I found an add for the product somewhere else in the same issue. We all know that magazine content is often tied to advertising dollars but I’ve honestly never come across a more blatant example of shameless “advertorial” content.
What was also obvious was that some of the most venerable brands , who didn’t choose to advertise in this issue or perhaps in the publication at all, were very conspicuously missing from product reviews and other “content”. I certainly applaud the integrity of these brands and several of them happen to be those I’d choose for my own system.
Another obvious observation was that the industry sector spending the most advertising dollars was that of cables and interconnects. The issue contained one full page ad after another. This would lead me to speculate that this sector has the highest profit margins and the greatest percentage of revenue on marketing rather than materials, manufacturing, and research and development.
Such observations may not be popular in the industry but they are my two cents. The best and most honest marketing happens in the listening chair, where the proof is in the pudding.
And, of course I’d much rather savour the music one album at a time as most of the best albums have been written that way. I never really heard Wagner and thought “what’s the big deal” until I listened to The Ring start to finish on a good system, which brought me to tears the first time I did so. Now I never listen to The Ring unless I’m in the mood to listen to it in its entirety. When you think about it it makes perfect sense. It was written that way and when it was first performed in fact the only way to listen to it was live performances in their entirety since the original gammaphone wasn’t even invented until 24 years later.
