Can you hear the difference? (1 Viewer)

[Jay_Leonard]

Lee,
I am sorry, you are correct, given time, money, desire, and skill all the things you discuss above can be attained.
I was speaking about my experience not saying that anyone elses is incorrect. I try to make reasonable choices based on available knowledge and resources.
Let me explain by expanding on your questions.

J " Even if you could show benefit that was controllable the difference would still fall below the noise (other affect) threshold for most applications." Lee " What ?!?!?!? We are talking about sonic differences in the AUDIBLE band here by definition..."

What I mean is that The "audible" difference would not be detectable in many environments. I would Imagine based on the casual reading of other postings in the forum that many folks here do not build theaters from foundations. they deal with where they are, in apartments, with old houses with demands on their time beyond the design of the theater, as a result there are environmental factors which would make that "audible" difference disappear. like the 88' article above, not every one gets to sit in the sweet spot. Maybe because of room constraints the speakers can only be 12 feet apart and against the wall. Maybe because your wife loves marble you have a loverly marble floor in the room. all of these things would change the listening environment more than switching wires to the speakers.
You are obviously a man with skills far beyond mine, I am not here to tell you, you are wrong, I could not and would not want to if I could. I am here to learn and listen to folks like you so that I can eek out that little extra from my set up. Pardon my flip nature, I am also here to have fun.
by way of that here are some of the questions I asked myself.
Which of the following would you do before tripling your cable cost?
Would you buy a larger TV
Would you buy curtains for the room?
Would you buy separates?
Would you buy a better DVD Player?
Would you buy a bigger sub?
Would you buy better speakers?
Would you pay for camp for the kiddies?
Would you replace the noisy dishwasher?
Would you paint?
Would you buy more DVD's and CD's
Would you spend the weekend building or are you hiring a contractor?
I am getting carried away now.
Thank you for your patience.
J

 

[Bill Kane]

...out of the Lab and into Norm's Workshop -- whirrwhirr, bangbang, Honey! Time for lunch...I love it!

 

[Yee-Ming]

a professionally installed Bose (eek)surround system.

I also had occasion to visit an acquaintance who had a Bose system. my only thoughts were, for the amount he paid, I am getting a Marantz SR8200, Mission 782s + 78c + 78ds, as well as an SVS25-31PCi.

 

[Phil Mays]

Sorry for the side track here.
As this is under "tweaking" my thought is that to tweak the bose system one would have to replace, now thats a tweak
Back on track...I did used to have thin zip cables last year running my system. I then went to the monster 12 guage and could tell a big difference. Then I went to Kimber 8TC and could hear a little more difference. Then I bi-wired with Kimber Kable and could hear even a little more.
I do not have the skill in this area that others who posted here do (not even close), but I can hear a difference. Do I hear it, yes. Is the difference really there, maybe. Is my brain playing a trick on me to mentally justify the expence, maybe. If it is the latter then so be it. As I have said before, a placebo pill has cured many "illness's" before.
Having said that would I do it again, yes. Its like a hotrod. People tweak and spend great amounts of money to maximize performance, even for the slightest increase. My hotrod just happens to be parked in the living room

 

[Jay_Leonard]

Phil,

My hotrod just happens to be parked in the living room

Amen to that. I used to have a car now I don't need to go anywhere!
J

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I asked the salesman about it, and commented that it was a "bad recording". he was of the view that it was actually a "good recording", in that it had been recorded more or less "live", with just two mikes in a recording studio and everyone playing at once, in contrast to modern recording techniques where each instrument is individually recorded (and miked), and after everything is mixed the singer comes in and records her vocals.

Yee,
This could be a whole other discussion. The short answer is that minimally miked recordings, particularly live to two track almost always sound better. The fact that this sounded poor to you could be due to all sorts of factors from the playback system, whether the salesperson was actually correct, and your familiarity with the recording to name just a few.
The bottom line is that every time you add a circuit in the recording chain, you degrade the sound slightly or even more.

 

[Yee-Ming]

The fact that this sounded poor to you could be due to all sorts of factors from the playback system, whether the salesperson was actually correct, and your familiarity with the recording to name just a few.

well, the only reason I thought it was poor was solely due to the sheer amount of noise/hiss (are these the same thing?) I heard, nowadays one hardly hears this anymore. no comment intended on the fidelity of the recording as far as the singer/instruments are concerned, nor on the soundstage, since I wasn't sitting in the sweet spot and was completely unfamiliar with the recording anyway. although come to think of it the singer's voice certainly sounded nice and sweet.

 

[MattCPT]

Lee,
I have a similar question to Yee. I purchases 4 cd's from Mapleshade Productions after your recommendation. Overall I'm happy with my purchase. I did however notice that when playing the Alan Gampel - Chopin & Liszt Piano Sonatas I heard a lot more white noise/static sound than I did with many of my "lesser quality" classical piano cd's. I must say that I'm very disapointed with the amount of noise I hear out of my speakers with that particular cd. I wonder if your familiar with the cd, or why an audiophile label cd would have so much white noise in their recording?

 

[MattCPT]

Lee,
I have a similar question to Yee. I purchases 4 cd's from Mapleshade Productions after your recommendation. Overall I'm happy with my purchase. I did however notice that when playing the Alan Gampel - Chopin & Liszt Piano Sonatas I heard a lot more white noise/static sound than I did with many of my "lesser quality" classical piano cd's. I must say that I'm very disappointed with the amount of noise I hear out of my speakers with that particular cd. I wonder if your familiar with the cd, or why an audiophile label cd would have so much white noise in their recording?

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I have a similar question to Yee. I purchases 4 cd's from Mapleshade Productions after your recommendation.

You are likely hearing tape hiss which indicates a sound close to the master tape in all likelihood. Such white noise is, however, unusual for a good audiophile recording. The idea is that, like vinyl, we care less about snap, crackle and pop, as long as we can hear more of what happened in the studio.