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The illusion of audio upgrade (especially in infancy territory)


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Everyone loves upgrade. This should sound better. This is very good bang of buck upgrade. A lot people are cheering for this one. And so on.

 

Finally I decided to purchase this upgrade. It has very good capacitor. Nice sounding transformer and wiring with good audiophile parts filled in. Should be best deal at this price.

 

I bought it and I think it makes good improvements here and there. But somehow I ended up switching back to previous components or even stock one.

 

This is a story of my client who decided to upgrade linear power supply from 3rd-party company to use with my Nimitra server. I got his permission to share his story here.

 

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Things like this happens all the time. Be it audiophile receptacle upgrade where most people will start with Wattgate and Furutech. A few including me ended up coming back to Hubbell.

 

Many people went for audiophile connectors with Rhodium, Silver, many fancy name plating and finishing. A few including me coming back to classic gold plated connector from trusted vendors.

 

It's not all about fancy parts or high quality parts mixed together to get the biggest improvement for price/performance ratio from what you can read online.

 

Some people hype about some sort audiophile upgrade recently and some ended up finding some upgrades sounding less musical than before.

 

Many cost effective upgrades are built for people aiming for best high fidelity performance on offering price. Those who offer better perceived performance/price ratio wins.

 

However, none can show you how it can bring you closer to music on musicality side. And things like this sounds very subjective and can't be perceived from online content.

 

This kind of things come from experience and learning from past mistakes like some of us here already have realized that those exotic things won't always bring you closer to music.

 

At some point you'll realize that some fancy stuff can be used in some situation for some devices. Not every case will get sure fire happy improvements anymore.

 

Audiophile is like cooking. Throwing all best ingredients together doesn't mean you get the most delicious cooking. There's a lot of factors involved to get the finest spice and you'll learn that over time.

 

I hope this story will help reminding people in this forum to consider more on musicality aspect before pulling a trigger on each new upgrade.

 

Regards,

Keetakawee

Happy Emm Labs/Viola/Karan/Rockport audiophile

 

Fidelizer - Feel the real sound http://www.fidelizer-audio.com

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LPS's improve clarity... which means if you have a masked problem, you are more likely to hear it... which means you may find other changes are needed. The users unhappiness has nothing to do with musicality, more to do with  wanting a  "silver bullet".  Would agree that those new to the hobby tend to fixate on 1 component

vs recognizing that audio is a system of interacting components

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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4 minutes ago, davide256 said:

LPS's improve clarity... which means if you have a masked problem, you are more likely to hear it... which means you may find other changes are needed. This has nothing to do with musicality, more to do with someone wanting a  "silver bullet". 

 

True that most LPS improve clarity but not many LPS can retain or improve musicality. There's a good reason why I don't build LPS for budget like $300 but $500. Because I saw countless of LPS under $500 ended up sounding less musical than bundled switching adapter no matter what cable you put on.

Happy Emm Labs/Viola/Karan/Rockport audiophile

 

Fidelizer - Feel the real sound http://www.fidelizer-audio.com

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9 minutes ago, Windows X said:

 

True that most LPS improve clarity but not many LPS can retain or improve musicality. There's a good reason why I don't build LPS for budget like $300 but $500. Because I saw countless of LPS under $500 ended up sounding less musical than bundled switching adapter no matter what cable you put on.

A power supply  should have no effect on musicality... its the "water" required to make the "koolaid".  Of course if you are used to pretty nasty water, it may come

as quite a shock to you when you get clean water, how bad the brand of "koolaid" tastes that you have been drinking. Given that a decent LPS costs ~$200 and up

not sure how one could be included with a $300 solution.

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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54 minutes ago, davide256 said:

A power supply  should have no effect on musicality... its the "water" required to make the "koolaid".  Of course if you are used to pretty nasty water, it may come

as quite a shock to you when you get clean water, how bad the brand of "koolaid" tastes that you have been drinking. Given that a decent LPS costs ~$200 and up

not sure how one could be included with a $300 solution.

 

I disagree. Even power cable can affect on musicality a lot and most of tonal balance tuning are done on power cables no less than interconnects in highend systems during the show. You can check Munich show and ask all vendors and audiophiles there on room you find it sounding very good to your ears.

Happy Emm Labs/Viola/Karan/Rockport audiophile

 

Fidelizer - Feel the real sound http://www.fidelizer-audio.com

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2 hours ago, davide256 said:

A power supply  should have no effect on musicality... its the "water" required to make the "koolaid". 

If an after market power supply changes the musicality of a hi-fi product, I would quietly sell that poorly designed product on e-bay.

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3 hours ago, Speedskater said:

If an after market power supply changes the musicality of a hi-fi product, I would quietly sell that poorly designed product on e-bay.

 

Some products as DC input voltage for optional upgrading. Some build their own power supply upgrade and some can be used with 3rd-party ones. Just saying in case you don't know.

Happy Emm Labs/Viola/Karan/Rockport audiophile

 

Fidelizer - Feel the real sound http://www.fidelizer-audio.com

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