[bigshot]

That may be true for you, but I assure you, given my experience and the kinds of pattern-recognition that my experience has developed, there is much less music perceivable in a recording than in a live hearing, or in a poor recording vs. a good one. And it can fundamentally alter the presentation of the musicality.

Your perception of musicality is dependent on accurate dynamics and frequency response.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

 
Aside from this, today I was reading the Wireworld website, and they seem to be promoting some ABX comparator switchbox, no links to any actual test results (perhaps unsurpisingly) yet - just hot air for now.  Might be worth contacting them to see if they are actually planning to do anything with this equipment or just talk about having it...  Might be interesting to send them an email to see if they are sending these out to distributors, but I'm probably being a little too hopeful here.

 
This is an old thing they have been touting for several years. It was basically a passive switch box with two cables and a direct connection and a switch. The link to the device is now been broken. They claim a University study has used it in DBTs to prove cable audibility and will be demonstrating this on an upcoming  "home theater cruise" ??? I'll reserve judgment till I see more concrete data.

 

[bigshot]

However if you are methodical in how you measure and/or modify your equipment I'm sure that dynamic range can be improved for example by reducing phase distortion, improving power supply, properly engineering equipment line input/output stages and cabling etc

No. You're barking up the wrong tree. If there are problems with dynamics it is MUCH more likely to have been mixed into the recording itself. The next culpret would be frequency response around the percussion. Lastly, reducing the noise floor of your listening room would help.

There is a reason that we have volume and tone controls, but no dynamics control. If the recording captures it, and your system is faithfully reproducing the other aspects of sound, you don't need to mess with it.

Monkeying with cables and power supplies won't help.

 

[bigshot]

Aside from this, today I was reading the Wireworld website, and they seem to be promoting some ABX comparator switchbox,

Makes sense. They sell grossly overpriced cables,they might as well sell grossly overpriced switchboxes to test them with.

 

[OJNeg]

Quote:

A good recording should be able to accurately convey the energy of the live event even if one cannot achieve live volume levels & one should not actually even try for live volume levels as that is damaging to hearing except with live unamplified  instruments & voices. If your system faithfully can reproduce live unamped instruments & voices then you should be able to get the best out of all recordings. The volume does not nessessarily need to be as loud as a live event in order to perceive the energy of the live performace in a system that accurately reproduces the sound of live unamped instruments. Many people assume that you need volume that closely matches the live event to get the impression of energy present in the live performance.
 
Am I against the use of compression? No, but in the way it is used in many recordings it is way way overdone & detracts from the energy of the live event whether it be in the studio or live event. Compression used wisely actually can enhance the sense of the live energy when properly used but must be used with subtleness. In other word one should not be aware that compression was even used even though it was.
 
A large part of what makes a recording sound its best is that the impresion of dynamics is not lost. The whole recording & playback chain must be able to accurately be able to convey dynamics in order to have that feeling that you are there at the live event. Precious few systems or recording are capable of reproducing to that level. You do not need to have an audiophile recording to get a well recorded album.  Wynton Marceles Magic Hour is an incredable recording that truely give you the feeling that you are there in the studio with them. It has that incredible live energy sound & with my system I feel as though I am in the same venue with them. This is not an audiophile recording but a standard issue one that was incredibly well recorded.

 
Well said. Compression is a legitimate technique used in recorded music. The engineer is not supposed to aim for 100% fidelity. The goal is create a piece of recorded music that maintains the originality and dynamics, while also being listenable on playback equipment.

 

[Katun]

From my very minimal experience with cables, I actually find it makes more of a notable difference than switching between amps, IMO.
 
(Pro 900 stock cable vs Blue Dragon, HD600 stock cable vs HD650 cable -- Asgard, Valhalla, P650, M-Stage, LD MKIII, EF5)

 

[germanium]

Quote:

From my very minimal experience with cables, I actually find it makes more of a notable difference than switching between amps, IMO.
 
(Pro 900 stock cable vs Blue Dragon, HD600 stock cable vs HD650 cable -- Asgard, Valhalla, P650, M-Stage, LD MKIII, EF5)

Kind of depends on which amps & which cables you compare  Back some time ago I compared a similarly powered Adcom to a Krell (same power class but huge price difference) 300watt/channel monoblock amps. The Krell was definately the winner in this contest as it had a much less muddled low level sound than the Adcom proving at least in this case that you get what you pay for though there is a huge premium & the laws of deminishing returns definately applies here as most people would definately still be happy with the adcom ( for me it would have been a good candidate for modification as the potential was there ). This difference was definately more than I hear from most cable comparisons.
 
I have to admit though that I have heard some really bad cables like the ones that came with my Adcom GFA 545 amp when I had that. That amp when I got it was no great super revealing amp but even as bad as it was stock it's provided interconnect cables were even worse than the amp. With my mods on that amp it performed sonically similar to the Krell. The Adcom cables went into the garbage almost as soon as I tried other cables & no there was nothing physically wrong with these cable they just sounded really really bad. I eventually made the best sounding cables that I ever used with that amp out of copper tubing which I used for both interconnect & speaker wire though larger size for the speaker wire. Capacitance  on that cable was almost nonexistant. Only the RCA connectors contributed any meaningfull capacitance. Other than the insulators in the RCA connectors the only dielectric used with these cables was air. Air other than vacumm has the lowest dielectric constant of any material that can be used as a dielectic meaning it contributes the least to making capacitance of any material.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Capacitance  on that cable was almost nonexistant.

 
So then you must have had the conductors widely spaced, making them highly inductive.
 
se

 

[jnjn]

Quote:

 
So then you must have had the conductors widely spaced, making them highly inductive.
 
se

I bet retrofitting the equipment to SMA's was also expensive..

 
jnjn

 

[bigshot]

Back some time ago I compared a similarly powered Adcom to a Krell (same power class but huge price difference) 300watt/channel monoblock amps. The Krell was definately the winner in this contest

In a controlled double blind test, the Krell lost to a $120 Pioneer amp. But the vote tally was close enough to be statistically the same.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

In a controlled double blind test, the Krell lost to a $120 Pioneer amp. But the vote tally was close enough to be statistically the same.

 
Link ?

 

[bigshot]

It's in the thread with all the links to tests in the first post.

 

[stv014]

Yes, it is here, linked from this thread.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

I bet retrofitting the equipment to SMA's was also expensive..

 
HA!
 
se

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Yes, it is here, linked from this thread.

Oh !, I have that article, but the Krell is not one of the amps tested (Futterman,NAD,Hafler, Pioneer, Mark Levinson,Counterpoint)