Skip to 4th paragraph to bypass personal journal entry tracing me path from inklings to revelation. I received the GCHA from another head-fier a couple days ago. With iem ue triple.fi 10, first impressions involved how much life it sucked out of the music. No highs, no dynamics, slow slow slugging along elevator music. Yeah it does some things very well in balanced mode. Very black, Nice soundstage, and a perception of it being very solid at what it does. First thing to cross my mind was that something was out of sync. Maybe my dac, powercables, interconnects - something is not synergizing. But other users described similar experiences/characteristics in ~all the post-fotm threads I came across.
Anyway I was having a hard time seeing how this could have sold for $1000, designed by minds established in engineering sonic machines. And with purportedly powerful electronics inside, esp power wise, how such a weak sound?
Well, I put up a fs thread earlier today (since retracted). In the mean time something came to mind. On my dac headphone out with my low impedance iems, it's uneven at low volumes (you don't hear anything in r side until ~9 o'clock, and even then it's diminished). The way I establish where on the volume pot it gets even is by running a test signal/frequency generator on my emu soundcard. So I decided to try this with the gcha, in the hopes that there would be discrepancy, confirming my desire to sell this overpriced pos.
What I heard was unexpected. As I raised the volume over the first nudge which turns the amp on, I heard the tone transform from evenly spread out around a diffuse and unfocused center, to a sharper edged, crisper, well defined sound. Maybe this is the nature of human perception at low volumes? Commendable pagan first reaction.
Next step. I powered up a high def 96khz album at 32 bits, jacked the volume way down on my foobar software player, and raised the roof with the amp volume knob, backing off a little from max due to hiss. I want to scream very loud. It sounds completely different. YA YA YA!! Dynamics dynamics!!! LIVELY LIKE A GRADO!!! YAH!! POWER VROOM SPARKLE OH I WANT TO SWEAR SO LOUD!!!
Maybe it's late and I'll regret writing this in the morning. Maybe someone can confirm ze blizzard is merely outside and not in me head or me head amp me thinks.
