A little experiment

tonyb

I always recommend, and do myself, to take out a new piece of gear after some time goes by and your ears adjust to the new sound. So I did....took out the Cary Xciter dac and put everything back the way it was prior. Though I did cheat, I left the MIT shotgun S3's in the mix to hopefully give it a "leg up".

I do this because I want to make sure that the differences in sound are worth the money spent....not just placebo or the excitement of getting new gear. Took all of 10 seconds for me to put the dac back in. I couldn't understand how I became so accustomed to the prior sound.

I guess I'm going to chalk it up by comparing to fine wine. Once you have the good stuff, it's hard to go backwards. Nothing really new here for a lot of you guys, but for some just getting into digital....you need a decent dac, period.

soundfreak1

A wise way too tell. I do the same with any new additions.its easy to confuse 'different" with "better".

voltz

Good stuff, something I had spoken to Skip about before was I'm bad about liking something just because its new or different. I like you idea about taking something out of the mix.... and I like what skip said about giving it time to adjust before I change it up to quickly.... I've got a lot to learn about doing this a better way and getting the results I'm after. And not fooling myself into thinking its better just cause its different.

11tsteve

i did this last week right before I sold my B&k. #1 I wanted to make sure nothing had gone wrong in the week+it sat before I sold it, and I wanted to make sure the Conrad Johnson was the right choice for me.
Of course the B&K is a great amp, and at first I wondered why I had even done what I did... but then, I turned it up a couple of notches...
the space, warmth, and air the CJ seems to have in my ears just wasn't there with the B&K.
I sold it with confidence.

tonyb

Good for you guys, sometimes our ears ....and brain play tricks on us and it's well worth the small effort to double check yourself.

Steve, by your description it appears the B&k was running out of steam at higher volumes. The CJ maybe has more balls to play cleaner...louder. Just be careful pal, that cleaner/louder sound tricks you into believing it's not loud enough and you eventually turn up the volume to ear bleed levels....which can spell disaster not only for your ears but your gear too.

cnh

Your system "may" improve over time but your "hearing" does the opposite. So there will come a point in time where the two curves meet and the hearing becomes the DECIDING factor regardless of system improvements.

Such is the Eastern Wisdom of the Ear (old age, deafness and death) , alas! How many years do we have left? Are we there "already", perhaps. Only our EGOS know? And the ego of an audiophile is greater than his/her ability to actually hear differences in his/her later years, especially.

cnh

11tsteve

tonyb wrote: »

Good for you guys, sometimes our ears ....and brain play tricks on us and it's well worth the small effort to double check yourself.

Steve, by your description it appears the B&k was running out of steam at higher volumes. The CJ maybe has more balls to play cleaner...louder. Just be careful pal, that cleaner/louder sound tricks you into believing it's not loud enough and you eventually turn up the volume to ear bleed levels....which can spell disaster not only for your ears but your gear too.

noted tony. in reality i don't go very loud very often. i pushed the limits in my younger days, between stereo and years of playing guitar. my last hearing test, the tech was surprised, for a guy my age, that i showed nearly no hearing loss... and i would like to enjoy music now as long as possible.
of course when beer and bourbon get involved....

tophatjohnny

I was kinda forced into this little experiment when I lost my Onkyo TX SR805 that I was using as a pre. Running the Cambridge Stream Magic 6 straight through the Liberty Audio B2B amp (which btw is leaps and bounds better sounding than my old Parasound HCA 1200II) sounded good, but when the Cambridge Audio 840e came back into the picture a couple days ago, it was a beautiful thing. Enough so that I'm staying with the system just like it is. Now it's time to enjoy the massive collection of music I have ripped to my (backed up) hard drive and happy to say I am happy with what my beat up ears are hearing all the way around. Still I will do one more little experiment by auditioning Dougs Alpha IC's in the next few days, If that change is noticeable, the Nordost F-2's will be going going GON as they wont last long on the market at the price I'll list them for!! After this test, I'm done!! (for at least a year!! lol)