A.Thorsen
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2006
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After a good weekend and a good chunk of this morning:
See post 9 in this very thread. What he described about the Apogee is exactly right and what I can vouch for now myself.
Quote:
Here we go:
I've just realized the Apogee was doing something wonderful that I wasn't fully aware of until today, after a good weekend of "sessions."
Unbeknowest to me, before the Apogee, ...when I'm playing my music direct from my player into the headphone amp over the RCA unbalanced analogs...among other minor quibbles that I had: The sound tends to favor or at least have a slight favoring towards the left side.
(Yes, I checked the player's settings. Everything's where it should be.
)
Now the Apogee is connected XLR balanced all the way into my GS-X.
I know there's a lot of arguments up and down the spectrum about balanced but I had no less than three audio calibrators tell me that balanced between source and amp is the most important and where it gets done. They also suggested there isn't much benefit if any unless you're trying to cover long distances.
I can't speak for that latter part, but I can tell you this much: I definitely have some kind of benefit going right now and this is in a rack setup with maybe 3 ft. worth of XLR cable involved.
What's happened here is:
When I A/B switch back and forth on the fly with the GS-X's XLR/RCA switch (seamless) between the music coming through the XLR'd Apogee vs. straight up old RCA directly out of my player...the sound from the Apogee is now dead on 50-50 at all times with ALL recordings of ALL kinds and "better distributed" to the left side and right side. The soundstage has been "corrected."
When I swtich back to RCA analogs without the Apogee there's a noticeable favoring to the left side vs. the right in terms of the soundstage.
Without the Apogee: It feels like, if you could, you'd reach out and just kind of pull that soundstage back to center where it belongs (and where I have it with the Apogee.)
I guess that's something going balanced does for you... who knows?
In any event: My sound truly is "balanced" now, literally. The stereo imaging as a whole is better.
I credit the Apogee for that in conjunction with the GS-X from HeadAmp.
^^ Just that alone makes the Apogee a keeper for me, but thankfully that's not where the benefits have ended.
I do have more warmth, which I was looking for. I didn't lose any of the detail and resolution that were the strengths of my rig, but now I have a touch more of dimensions, spatiality, and the aforementioned "corrected and centered/balanced" soundstage, for lack of a better phrase.
Some of the occasional harshness, brightness, and dryness that I had at times on some recordings are also gone for the most part.
Technically, I'm still "testing" this thing out, but I really have no expectations of sending this thing back.
See post 9 in this very thread. What he described about the Apogee is exactly right and what I can vouch for now myself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artears /img/forum/go_quote.gif This is what I am thinking. I am following your impressions in the recent Apogee thread as well... Please post more... |
Here we go:
I've just realized the Apogee was doing something wonderful that I wasn't fully aware of until today, after a good weekend of "sessions."
Unbeknowest to me, before the Apogee, ...when I'm playing my music direct from my player into the headphone amp over the RCA unbalanced analogs...among other minor quibbles that I had: The sound tends to favor or at least have a slight favoring towards the left side.
(Yes, I checked the player's settings. Everything's where it should be.
Now the Apogee is connected XLR balanced all the way into my GS-X.
I know there's a lot of arguments up and down the spectrum about balanced but I had no less than three audio calibrators tell me that balanced between source and amp is the most important and where it gets done. They also suggested there isn't much benefit if any unless you're trying to cover long distances.
I can't speak for that latter part, but I can tell you this much: I definitely have some kind of benefit going right now and this is in a rack setup with maybe 3 ft. worth of XLR cable involved.
What's happened here is:
When I A/B switch back and forth on the fly with the GS-X's XLR/RCA switch (seamless) between the music coming through the XLR'd Apogee vs. straight up old RCA directly out of my player...the sound from the Apogee is now dead on 50-50 at all times with ALL recordings of ALL kinds and "better distributed" to the left side and right side. The soundstage has been "corrected."
When I swtich back to RCA analogs without the Apogee there's a noticeable favoring to the left side vs. the right in terms of the soundstage.
Without the Apogee: It feels like, if you could, you'd reach out and just kind of pull that soundstage back to center where it belongs (and where I have it with the Apogee.)
I guess that's something going balanced does for you... who knows?
In any event: My sound truly is "balanced" now, literally. The stereo imaging as a whole is better.
I credit the Apogee for that in conjunction with the GS-X from HeadAmp.
^^ Just that alone makes the Apogee a keeper for me, but thankfully that's not where the benefits have ended.
I do have more warmth, which I was looking for. I didn't lose any of the detail and resolution that were the strengths of my rig, but now I have a touch more of dimensions, spatiality, and the aforementioned "corrected and centered/balanced" soundstage, for lack of a better phrase.
Some of the occasional harshness, brightness, and dryness that I had at times on some recordings are also gone for the most part.
Technically, I'm still "testing" this thing out, but I really have no expectations of sending this thing back.