What has produced the greatest sound improvement for you?

[daverich4]

In many cases I don't hear the difference in some of the things described here although I certainly have spent enough time trying. There are a few things that have made an audible improvement to me though. I had my Cary 280 V12 Monoblocks for more than a decade and was pleasantly surprised when I replaced them with an Audio Research Ref 70 SE. My system had always felt a little light weight to me and the REF 70 seemed to fill in the areas that were lacking. My system is in a dedicated/treated room yet getting convolution filters from Thierry @ Home Audio Fidelity smoothed off the wrinkles that I wasn't able to fix manually. However, like @Dr. Tone above, speakers are the one item that have always made a noticeable difference to me. Over a period of time I upgraded through 3 Martin-Logan models before purchasing Wilson Audio Sofia II's in 2007. They were set up for me by the Wilson dealer in San Francisco and when I brought them  with me to North Carolina I paid the Wilson dealer here to set them up for me in our new home. I enjoyed those speakers for 11 years but when the Wilson Sasha II's were replaced by the DAW last winter a number of dealers offered substantial discounts on brand new, warrantied Sasha II's and I bought a pair. The sound with them goes deeper and occupies a larger soundstage than I was used to. At my age I'm pretty much done upgrading the one thing that I can hear the most difference in so now what? Listen to music?

[daverich4]

11 hours ago, robocop said:

Source, upgrading recently from an I7 4790K, quad core switch mode power supply to a Phasure Stealth MKIII Xenon 12 core with linear power supply. Both only used exclusively for audio. The MKIII takes the sound to an easy 3D level over 2D for I7. This is a far greater sound improvement, than I've ever had for a long time. The whole sound and everything within it, is improved to the point the former source can't compare in anyway. The I7 was a large step up from an I3 laptop. I suspect this difference is greater than upgrading Dac's, speakers and amplifiers. All are important no less, but the old story started by Mr Linn (Ivor Tiefenbrun) many years ago "Your System Is Only As Good As Your Source" No matter if it's analog or a digital front end, it's still garbage in, garbage out.

Best source I've ever owned!!!

 

Robert