I've seen a couple of harpists at Bigears. Mary Lattimore tends to do a lot of treatments on her sound. And Maeve Gilchrist played too, Celtic harp.
I've seen a couple of harpists at Bigears. Mary Lattimore tends to do a lot of treatments on her sound. And Maeve Gilchrist played too, Celtic harp.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain
I ran the Dirac room correction on the SA30 yesterday. The results were interesting, in a good way. The room is far from perfect and the sound seemed to be improved.
In general I favor a neutral sound, the initial Dirac profile brightened things up a little. In preparation I had moved the speakers a couple of cm out from the wall and apart to the minimum recommended placement from KEF.
I doubt if that made a huge change, more with the bass than anything. But the sound is 'better', I will go with that.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain
Any experience with this?
Why Your HiFi Audio System Sounds Worse on Some Days. Is this the Cure? What about Transformer Buzz?
in my own experience -- can't speak for anyone else (including the dude above who goes off the deep end in meaningless adjectives IMO) -- I have noticed that the barometric pressure affects my stereo.Originally Posted by Zeuhlmate
On rainy stormy days -- what's that, "areas of low pressure"? -- my stereo sounds the best, very tight, very accurate, very "compliant." On sunny balmy summer days, the stereo sounds "looser" for lack of a better description. The difference is subtle, but consistent and weather-related.
Can't explain why that might be so. It's not the speed of sound. Could it be that diaphragms move easier in low pressure?
And buzzing in the power transformer? Pfffft. A $99 drugstore stereo is better built than that.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 11-26-2023 at 10:39 AM.
Another factor, also subtle but reliably reproducible: if the stereo has been off for a couple of days, it sounds worse when I first turn it on, for a couple of hours.
My guess(?) is that warming up the voice coils, by running current through them -- or possibly keeping the surrounds loosened up by exercising them? -- makes the speakers more accurate. To that end I've taken to turning on Pandora when I go to bed at light, and closing the music room door (which is pretty much sound-proof.)
Megatest speaker cables – 32 cables listened to and measured!
https://www.alpha-audio.net/review/m...-and-measured/
I was interested enough to click, but I had a sense I could not trust the way the site responded, so I stopped.
What were their conclusions? Did they think fancy cables were snake oil or did thy feel there were real benefits??
Alpha-audio is pretty serious, no worries. They tested 32 cables, measuring and by ear, one of them ordinary bulk cables from the supermarket, and there were big differences, and they describe them in easy terms.
I just upgraded from NordOst Red Dawn, and I could relate to their description of this cable and to the 2 other cables I have heard or owned.
But there are big price differences, and of course your gear is different from theirs, so the only smart thing to do, is borrow many cables and compare. If you don't hear any differences, borrow some other cables or save the money.
I have been happy with all my 'upgrades' and it has been worth the money. I upgraded to NordOst Heimdall II (and off course I bought them second hand)
Their conclusion was this:
"One of the most important factors in speaker cables is impedance. It just has to stay low. Is has to stay low in order to keep the damping factor of the amplifier in good shape. So in this case: the lower the impedance, the better.
One of the factors that plays an important role in impedance is inductance. The lower the inductance, the lower the impedance remains.
A low capacitance – we learned when researching interlinks – usually ensures speed as well as stability in timing. However, it is often a game of balance between inductance and capacitance. It is virtually impossible to keep them both very low. So it is up to the manufacturer to find the right balance there. And you do that by playing with the geometry of the cable, insulation materials, types of shielding… et cetera. This of course requires the necessary expertise.
How a cable handles noise is audible. Cables that show low noise in the measurements, actually sound blacker. That can – as with the interlinks – come at the expense of openness, looseness and ambiance. So, in this case, taste plays a role. And again: balance in a system.
Finally, the phase differences in the cables. We have only been able to determine that there are phase differences. How this expresses itself in the reproduction is very difficult to determine, because we would have to compare everything with a fixed standard and do an A / B test for each cable. We did not do that."
^^ Capacitance alone can be a game changer. I had an instrument cable which made my guitar(s) sound muddy as hell. I checked it with a capacitance meter, and it was much higher than it should've been.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
A point of view.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain
I liked it!
Listen to music, not gear.
This Saturday is the second month of two hours of vinyl listening at a local high end stereo store to demonstrate high end equipment by playing our records. This month is anything goes, that's a can of worms they may not be able to handle.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STUPID PEOPLE IN LARGE GROUPS!
I think everyone in this forum agrees.
But I am in several HiFi-fb forums where many (to my surprise) begs to differ. I don't see the fun, but each to their own.
Decent equipment can greatly enhance the enjoyment of music. My setup would never garner the respect of a true audiophile. But it's much better than what the vast majority have in their living rooms.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
I think it's important not to overlook in the all of the technical remedies to this problem (which I certainly experience with my own system) the possibility that your ears might have a great deal to do with this as well: in short, we hear better on some days than others and this may well serve to significantly impact on our perceptions of system performance. There can be a whole bunch of physiological factors that might influence this that shouldn't be discounted when considering what the problem might be that should also been taken into account when wondering why your set-up sounds fantastic one day and relatively lousy the next that may be every bit as, if not more, important, than fluctuations in equipment performance.
You may have a Wooo leak. You could be entitled to compensation.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain
A contributing factor may or may not be atmospheric pressure. With changes in air pressure altering the way sound waves travel through the air.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
Out there somewhere an audiophile is now plotting to build a pressurized chamber that has a constant atmospheric pressure at all times to prove this theory. It takes him ages and ages to get it right, time he could have spent listening to great music instead.
More dipping the toes in the audiophile world.
After my etymotic ER4XR IEM had one bud stop working while on a trip I decided to look around for a replacement. The budget airport shop set I bought to get home will work great for mowing the lawn.
The etymotic's I have had over the last 15 years or so have served my ears well. They are very light and pretty rugged, and have a balanced sound, or so I thought.
I started looking into IEM's and portable audio reviews from John Darko ( the guy who did the Music First video above ). I know there is a dizzying array of "ChiFi" IEM's and players out there. I was drawn to Campfire Audio both because of positive reviews and the 'Made in USA' thing. Geeze, what a can of worms that has become. It's a competitive market segment and being first or best at something plays into things.
Just trying to get past all the different types and numbers of drivers is somewhat daunting. I prefer a neutral sound, but like it when the bass drops, or the taurus pedals get exercised.
So blah blah. Decided to go with the Andromeda Emerald Sea due to it's fairly long life span as a product, fairly great reviews, and a sound profile that matched my preferences.
At the same time, I'm probably going to need a new phone. I carry a lot of music on my phone and frequently use earbuds and bluetooth streaming in the car. In the new phone world 3.5mm earphone jacks are very hard to find, as are microsd card slots. So I also picked ip an iFi USB C DAC for the 3.5mm problem. I wanted a DAP also, as a more focused player. Looked at reviews of a few and Sony NW-A306 'walkman' had what I needed at a reasonable price. Most of them run Android of some kind, and the Sony had a very recent version. It will take a 1tb microsd card, where many of the others would take only a much smaller capacity. 1tb holds a lot of music, I had almost filled a 400gb in my phone. It's got good battery life and gets updates. So stuff started to trickle in, it took the better part of two days to copy 720gb of music. Tried out some random music with the Andromeda's. Wow, there is no comparison to the etymotics. There is a significant price difference, but just wow.
I have been playing Mogwai's Atomic on my listening system so I'm familiar with it. I played through that album on the sony/andromeda. It's kind of funny when you know an album and Right Here it really hits sonically, but with the IEM there's no rumble but I got a chill. My body was still expecting the physical sensation, it just got translated. Most IEM/earbuds I have heard just carry the sound to my ears, but this was more...personal. I like it.
Now comes the slippery slope part, I was still looking around for a more 'fun' IEM that did not cost as much, that I wouldn't worry taking it out of the house. And in my looking found Drop has Campfire Audio Atlas on sale. An older model with a single drive design that promises to have more bass/sub bass extension while still having decent mid highs. At a price I could leave the house with, so a pair of those is coming. I sense this is going to be a problem.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain
Same here. My equipment is old, but the best I could afford and knocks spots off the soundbars and other rubbish that most people listen to music on these days. This was brought home tome when the last Marillion album was released: I couldn't believe that so many fans of the band seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that it sounded so bad. It wasn't until a fellow member of the Marillion fans forum pointed out that most people just don't listen to music on proper hi-fi equipment anymore that this lack of awareness began to make sense.
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