Step by step surgery

[fas42]

A thought that may be helpful for some ... PeterSt's thread on his Lush^2 cable has arrived on a configuration which has allowed at least one rig to present "invisible" speakers,

This is a crucial movement forward - the system has been pushed into a state where the musical playback is overriding the signature of the rig, in at least one area. Unfortunately, this state is highly unstable, and Peter then notes in a later post that it 'degenerates' into " the worst sound ever."

 

This is the agony, and ecstacy of pushing a rig to a high performance level!! I cannot emphasise enough that this will most likely happen over and over again when one is at this quality of sound! - and if one doesn't persevere with trying to understand what's happening here, then the glimpse of what is possible may be left to rot on the roadside - and may not repeat.

 

One must understand that the sound will not always be nicer and nicer as one approaches good competence - the nature of the beast is that the SQ may irritate intensely, when it's 99.5% there - one needs to get that last 0.5% in place ... and then all is calm, and everything just, works ...

[fas42]

Noticing that the NAD and Sharp combo was developing a slight dullness after extended running - and decided to bite the bullet and perform a tweak that I had put off doing for ages - stabilise the fuse connections in the amp. Pulling them, and reinserting seemed to show there was something there - so I did the clean and silver paste treatment of the end connections.

 

Definitely worth doing! A decent improvement in acoustic retrieval, another step towards invisibility - 'big' orchestral spaces were that much more there, without having to pull out other stops in taming the electrical surroundings.

[gmgraves]

On 2/10/2019 at 10:56 PM, fas42 said:

Noticing that the NAD and Sharp combo was developing a slight dullness after extended running - and decided to bite the bullet and perform a tweak that I had put off doing for ages - stabilise the fuse connections in the amp. Pulling them, and reinserting seemed to show there was something there - so I did the clean and silver paste treatment of the end connections.

 

Definitely worth doing! A decent improvement in acoustic retrieval, another step towards invisibility - 'big' orchestral spaces were that much more there, without having to pull out other stops in taming the electrical surroundings.

Ain't a good imagination grand?

[fas42]

Isn't the predisposition of the human mind to being fooled grand ... magicians use it as a source of income, and the 'trick' is to know how to exploit it, deliberately - it's typically used by objectivists to point out the frailty of the listening brain; and, the whole point of multi-channel is to, "fool you!!". Thus, you just spin this idea around, and make it work for you, not against you.

 

A big part of humans being able to do things, is that they 'know' that they can do it - a tennis player can serve brilliantly, and on another occasion double fault continuously - nothing changed in the latter circumstance except that he lost the self- belief - "I can't serve!!"

 

I 'know' I can make stereo do these tricks - because it happened the first time ... everything else follows. And I know roughly where the current setup is on the line joining hopeless sound, and optimum. About 3/4s there, to pull a figure out of the air - I can hear what it's doing well, and where it's still not good enough.

 

If someone has no experience with playing with rigs this way, then they have little concept of what they're listening for - they are constantly chasing phantoms of what they think is good sound is - and typically missing the real clues ... the friend down the road took ages to lose the usual audiophile misconceptions of what getting somewhere was.

[fas42]

Just to dispel a possible silly notion, by some, that movement is always forward - I just did something which has occurred again and again over the years: I made a simple change to the physical environment which was extremely minor - a tidying up, so to speak - and the SQ took a  nosedive - what happened??!!

 

Disk put on was this, https://www.discogs.com/Dave-Edmunds-Rockin/release/1378163, and the sound was wrong, wrong, wrong!! I didn't connect what I had done earlier, to causing the degradation, and so did a mad round of checking - and added in a whole series of electrical optimising fiddles ... nope, nothing was working ...

 

Finally - maybe that slight adjustment of the lay of the power lead to the amplifier was affecting things? Long story short, I had made it more prone to being vibrated by the energy of one of the speakers - and that was the cause of my ills. A relatively easy reorganising of that cable restored the sound - and I had learnt that I needed to do something to have a robust, long term fix; the mains cable for the NAD was still the ordinary figure 8 flex that came with the unit.

 

That small adjustment allowed this track, for example, to fully open up,

 

 

 

[diecaster]

11 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Long story short, I had made it more prone to being vibrated by the energy of one of the speakers - and that was the cause of my ills.

 

Oh please......do you use maple blocks too?

[fas42]

I never buy anything to do these experiments - it simply meant that I positioned the cable in this instance so it was essentially behind the speaker, and lay on material that had no 'bounce' - a tip here: make sure every cable inside the speaker cabinet is secured in such a way that if you flick it with the tip of your finger that it doesn't 'wobble' - tying down cables so that they are relatively immovable can sort many issues.

[fas42]

OK, found another issue ... the NAD CDP after so many hours of play time loses SQ - not dramatic, but the sense of space deteriorates; I noticed this particularly on the Billie Holiday CD played a couple of days ago. Put on a synthesizer workout which confirmed the losses - final step, power down the player, let the caps discharge, and back on again ... yes, SQ is back on track again.

 

So, what's this? Could be temperature rise in the player - the day is getting warmer - or some part within is subject to some static charge buildup; some part is aged to the point where it starts to "play up" after so much time being active has passed; or some contact surface or variable element within is changing its characteristics through not being 'refreshed' ...

 

Tried improving the electrical path, meaning contacts, outside the box in the power lead. Ummm, things are going backwards - I'm destabilising too many things when doing the mod, perhaps. So, it's bite the bullet time - I'm going inside the CDP box, to do the next level of tidying up, and stabilising contacts and cables - I've been able to get away with not doing this so far, but it's meant that the SQ is not robust; it will vary depending upon too many factors - I need to achieve higher integrity of key parts of the player, meaning that it will be easier to get consistency in playback quality.

[fas42]

When doing a round of improving the "little things" it never works to have a listen half way through. Midway through tidying up the CDP internals I was prodded by my wife to "put some music on", and in a moment of weakness I agreed - slapped the bits together enough so that it worked - "sounds OK ... uh, oh, starting to go off". By the third track of the second CD I couldn't stand it any more - it was sounding awful!! And pulled the plugs ...

 

When doing a round of fiddling, you have to take it to its clear conclusion; reassemble everything exactly as it should be for optimum  - and let it settle down, before taking the SQ seriously. I don't use the word "burn-in", but so many materials have been stressed and destabilised by the goings on - it's unfair to assess before the rig's 'comfortable' again.

[fas42]

Okay, finished off that round of cleaning up - more to do, on the CDP, but will leave to another day. Did it survive unscathed from that effort? Signs so far are good, handling aggressive rock quite nicely - listening to

 

 

 

 

First track is the torture test - can the rig hold it together, and show up everything that's going on ...

 

 

Hmmm, not too bad ...

[fas42]

From the Far Side ...

 

 

"Hmmm, I have no idea why I'm having EMC issues ..." 

[semente]

On 2/18/2019 at 11:26 PM, fas42 said:

When doing a round of improving the "little things" it never works to have a listen half way through. Midway through tidying up the CDP internals I was prodded by my wife to "put some music on", and in a moment of weakness I agreed - slapped the bits together enough so that it worked - "sounds OK ... uh, oh, starting to go off". By the third track of the second CD I couldn't stand it any more - it was sounding awful!! And pulled the plugs ...

 

How did your wife react to that?

[fas42]

Not a problem ... she knows this is a game of swings and roundabouts, after so many years of being engaged in it. There will days when I'm on a high - and others when I could kick the cat ... she enjoys what comes out when it's in the zone; and has little problem picking when something is not right. So if I say it's not working at the moment - and I want to give it a rest ... all's good.

 

This gives me a chance to mention that I don't think I've knocked over the issue that caused this latest round of tweaking - the SQ was starting to drop off again after some hours of running, even though initial indications were that gains had been made ... meaning more checking and varying aspects of the environment is needed to confirm that I haven't missed or overlooked something obvious.

 

[fas42]

And still not happy ... the rig has developed an old foe - that the sound steadily deteriorates from a initial clean presentation - the symptoms are easily heard on a CD which has a huge, deep soundstage, with sparkling treble; that these qualities slowly go sour, to the point where it is far too irritating to keep listening - and you hit Stop.

 

This is with the CDP, not the amp. Easily determined by switching off the amp in mid track, and powering up again. Yep, the problem is still there - so, power down the CDP, let supplies drain charge, turn on again, and go straight to the track last playing - SQ is back up again to what it should be.

 

What has caused this? It could be that I disturbed something during the physical manipulation of the player while doing the mods - or, I made a change in a way or to a degree which the player is not happy with ... note, the electrical paths in the NAD have not been altered one iota, merely how they are physically organised. Will the problem go away if I just let it "burn in"? From previous experience, unlikely ....

 

Further examination needed - and experimenting ... hmmm.

[fas42]

I feel I can't emphasise this enough ... this rig, more than any of my previous efforts, satisfies from immediate switch-on. For a variety of reasons, it's been sitting cold for a number of days, and I only today felt it was worthwhile giving it a run. Put on a HiFi News giveaway classical compilation CD first thing, and it pressed so many plus buttons - it just sounds good!

 

Previous setups usually took hours to deliver a decent satisfaction hit, as all the parts of them settled down at different rates, from a standing start. This unit, now, delivers a big sound from the word go - good parts, and design at the heart of the components makes this possible, I feel.

[fas42]

An aspect that can't be emphasised too much is expressed in this post,

 

 

When a system is working at a high level, disturbing it in seemingly trivial ways can "demolish" the SQ - "What a disaster! This sounded horrible, flat, thin and dead. Afraid that it was broken for good I did the world's fastest shield reconfig back to the default. Happily it worked and all is good again." 

 

The sides of the plateau of optimum sound are extremely sleep, in many places - slip off by performing a careless move and you can fall a very long way ... the good news is, that the plateau can always be recovered - no need to panic ... .

[fas42]

The Lush^ thread continues to throw up good examples of how juggling of rubber bands to hold something together will always give different results, depending upon exactly how tight the bands are, how many, where you put them, etc, etc, etc ...

 

At one stage many years ago I played this game with how I set up earthing and shielding of analogue cables; every variation changed the sound, you go round and round and round in circles ...

 

To stop the madness, completely redoing the interface or whatever is really what's necessary - the underlying fragility or susceptibilty of that part of the system to the slightest puff of wind in the room needs to be changed; how the system is behaving in all areas has to be got completely under control; to stop the huge time waste, and frustration.

[fas42]

The thread that just keeps giving ... .

 

From a recent post,

 

"It's still amazing to me how a cable, and a USB cable at that, can so transform my system sound for the better. Add to that the ability to experiment with so many different configurations, pretty much like trying a new cable each time, this could possibly be the best bang for the buck in audio right now."

 

This again is coming from the usual audiophile desire to Add Goodness; rather than seeing it as an exercise in working out how to Subtract Badness - the recording can never be Gooder than what's contained in the source material; the principle is to work towards making the playback chain completely transparent. If playing with an aspect of the rig keeps altering the sound, and you're doing it without a clear end goal, then you might as well have an old fashioned graphic equaliser, for endlessly tinkering with the makeup that the equipment applies to the recording.

 

 

[fas42]

I didn't bother following most of that absurd Belden thread - a remarkably good example of how off track people's thinking can go, when they cling to certain beliefs which are fundamentally flawed.

 

What people cling to, always, is the idea that everything you do with an audio system Adds Goodness - fatal error; what you should always have in mind is that you're Fixing the system, getting rid of critical flaws and poor implementation that is audibly degrading the SQ. And if you have to spend a lot money buying a device, a key part or materials to achieve that goal, for your rig, so be it. Don't moan about the cost, specialist items are always going to be expensive; that's how the market works ...

 

An alternative route is DIY. Which is what I do. Tradeoff is minimal cost versus having to really understand what's going on, and getting grease on your hands.

[fas42]

Had a look at the papers put out by the Ionoclast by Belden mob, and can see that they have got a lot of the construction right, in key areas. So they certainly will do a better job than the average cable used at keeping some of the gremlins at bay; it's all about the fine details of the actual construction, rather than the mumbo jumbo about LCR, time, etc.

 

It definitely will cost something extra to produce those type of conductor arrangements, but whether it's worth the money asked is another matter ...

[fas42]

The magnificence of Peter's Lush^2 device is that it does a remarkably good job of overturning "expectation bias" barrows. Reconfigure, of all things, a digital communication links - and you reconfigure your sound! No extra money is paid, no new bling enters the equation ... yet, the sound changes, and one can go back to an old config with ease ... leaving objectivists seething, gritting their teeth, .

[fas42]

All the threads are dominated, as usual, by the audio enthusiast's belief that Adding Goodness is the Solution to Everything - which is why, of course, the audiophile world is such a disasterous rats' nest, . All far more rational fields of human endeavour worked out ages ago that when something doesn't function as well as it sometimes can, then it generally means that "we have a problem". And that therefore you move logically forward, by analysing the situation, experimenting, understanding that the issue exists for a specific reason - and resolving by the most intelligent, least expensive method.

 

The Hobbit world of audio resolves by pumping hard on the passion pedal, throwing money in the air, and indulging in strange whims - and as relaxation engages in games of "old men yelling at each other" .

[fas42]

Latest post in the Lush^2 thread ended with the comment, " Audio is a VERY complicated and strange thing"  - no, it's not!! What one is trying to achieve is complete transparency to the source recording, with no contribution from the playback rig; and, this is not trivial to do!

 

Think of acquiring a luxury vehicle - one of the attributes you would prize is its subjective isolation from the outside; the sense of "quietness". Only trouble is, the quieter you make one area of the vehicle's makeup, the more the remaining noises will intrude into one's consciousness - a minor rattle will drive you crazy, and you will demand that the dealer sort it - or you will waste much time trying to track it down yourself.

 

And that's the nature of achieving optimum quality in a rig - the closer you get to a peak, the more the "little things" will draw your attention to something "not being perfect". Choices are, accept the quality level where you're at; or, decide to dive in even deeper, and determine where and why "the noises are occurring".

[fas42]

Again in Lush^2 - from PeterSt,

 

Quote

The otherwise rounded square sound for suitable music now turned into palpable square (go figure). Yesterday I played a favorite Infected Mushroom and besides I didn't even recognize it any more (not for each of the 6 or so "demo" tracks I keep of it) it was all the most literally beautiful. This with a freshness and sparkle previously unknown and what keeps on occurring is the ever so nicely "splashing" of cymbals this now shows.
I just wrote in my notes that all these (3) weeks I haven't had one annoying moment.

 

The "splashing of cymbals" is an excellent guide, something I have used for 3 decades. The most "extreme" rock, or "heavy" music should convey the pristine quality of that drumkit element - because it's always there, in the capture. It makes it so, so easy to assess the SQ - 30 secs of a Status Quo track gives one enough data to make a quick, correct decision on the tune of the rig.

[fas42]

Chris's recent posting of Munich 2019 sounds is a good grab bag of rigs that of a high standard; and other ones which are showing significant issues, or exhibit far too much 'character' - a fancy word for distortion that doesn't sound like distortion. Just carefully comparing and contrasting the 'tonalities' would be a good exercise in learning to recognise where setups "get it wrong" ... a key word is "dynamics" - this is normally used by people when they hear correct sound; the lack of, "dynamics", is one of the hallmarks of faulty reproduction.