Decision made today. Movin' on up with the BSG Qol SCU.

treitz3

Would xcapri79, rskaytwat and others agree with that?

LOL.

Truth be told, I am sir. As time passes, it's getting slightly better. I hope this doesn't turn into a Klauss product. If it does, it's out the door. I can't handle that anymore.

Tom

treitz3

Just got reminded to update this thread and offer my observations. First off, this unit will not be for everyone. It has the ability to provide sound that literally is THE best thing since stereo itself. SDA's can't touch it, sonic holography can't touch it and I have yet to hear anything that even remotely comes close to reproducing a true life-like sonic reproductive effort.

On many songs.

Those songs that it does exceedingly well on, there is no comparison (other than live music) to the sound stage and imaging it presents in the listening position. That's the good part and I could not recommend a better piece of gear for my rig than this with regards to those songs.

The end result? It hasn't been hooked up for about a month or two. I know, a 2K investment that brings audio bliss to as close to live music as I have ever heard and it just sits there collecting dust. Now before you say that I should lose my audiophile card, let me tell you the deficiencies of this unit.

First off, it does (regardless of what others say) change the sound slightly when it is installed yet on bypass. No, I'm not gonna pull out the measurements to prove something to somebody. You are just gonna have to trust my ears on that one. It's not enough to really complain about and to be honest, if I didn't have such a revealing system, perhaps even I wouldn't have noticed. Most casual listeners probably wouldn't notice this at all but for me, this is unacceptable. I didn't get to where I was at to have the signal degraded, even if the degradation is very slight. It would be akin to shaving the last .05% off of the top end. Slight but aggravating to me because I know my system and what it is capable of.

I have no idea whether this is due to the additional cable and the unit, whether it's just the unit or what causes the slight change on sonic attributes, nor do I really care. What I do care about is the end result as to what hits these ears and to me? Not worth it, regardless of what this unit can bring to the table.

I will say this, if you listen off axis often, don't even consider this unit. As one of my good friend says (who is a superb mastering engineer), "it sounds phasey". This unit is one that you MUST be sitting in the sweet spot in order to fully enjoy what it does, which at times is purely incredible. This unit really does make an existing great sounding 3-D sound stage sound like a 2-D sound stage once it is engaged. Only then will you discover what a true 3-D sound stage sounds like. Words can not describe what a change this is once you hear it. I will reiterate once again though.....you need to listen to it in the sweet spot. Anything off axis will sound like processed, phase ridden (in a bad way) music.

I am at a crossroads with this unit. I love it and I hate it. Some songs or even complete albums sound like....well, like the band is performing in front of me. The walls disappear and much like the SDA, sounds will be coming from "outside" of the wall....from the other side of the wall, if you will. With pinpoint precision, reflections and coherency to boot. Sounds will take an already large sound stage and in my case, easily double it with exacting precision. Other songs (no rhyme or reason to this) this unit degrades in a bad way and even in the listening position, sounds "bloated". The pinpoint precision is lost. The "feel" of the music, the urge to tap your foot and the occasional "goose bump" sounds just melt away.

I want to keep it in the loop but I don't want the slight loss. I want to "experience" a true 3-D sound stage that this unit delivers in spades but I don't want to hook it up for certain songs or albums only to unhook it for other songs or albums. I can put up with the labor of love to hear vinyl on the rig for the end result as to what hits these ears but I am not willing to continually swap in and out a component and reconfigure the rig every time I desire to listen to the rig one way or another. I want to sell it but dag nabbit, it offers too much of realistic reproduction on certain things to let it go.

So, my conclusion is that I will continue to play with it. Try different things, experiment with its placement in the rig (I placed it right before the amplifier for my latest observations), see how it works with vinyl once I hook that part of the rig back up and let time and my ears determine whether or not this is the greatest thing ever or the greatest thing to have come and gone.

Tom

tonyb

treitz3 wrote: »

The Transparent Reference IC's were just what the doctor ordered for the rig. I learned a lot with those cables.....things I "thought" were room issues, well, they turned out to be cable issues. Whoda' thunk? Thing is, the ones you heard were the best out of the 30-40 I had tried up to that date.

Tom

Ya know....I keep sayin'....lol. Don't under estimate what a good cable brings to the table.

Tom,
If I was you, I'd sell it before it loses too much value. I'm kinda like you, little things that degrade sound would bug me to no end....even if on just a percentage of music.

Minus the variations in the quality of recordings, I like to keep my system as close to pleasurable no matter what I throw at it, as I can. I think the Dodd and the MF do that for you, so why fix what isn't broken I say.

txcoastal1

Appreciate the update Tom, let s know if you get a sparkle in other places in your rig

[Deleted User]

Excellent review and follow-ups. I'm sorry I missed them before.
I'll cut to the chase and ask if one of these
units are worth a $1000.00 bucks or just
pass. I did like the time I spent w/ my
Carver pre...

BlueFox

It appears the technology needs to be built into a pre so that the cables and power cord are eliminated. Then the pre can have a pure bypass mode to disengage if wanted.

txcoastal1

BlueFox wrote: »

It appears the technology needs to be built into a pre so that the cables and power cord are eliminated. Then the pre can have a pure bypass mode to disengage if wanted.

Hence the reason I want to play with the DEQX

scottyboy76

omg I'm sol