12-Feb-2016, 18:21
I have been a hifi enthusiast for over 45 years. For the first 25 or so I often experimented with tweaks like these.
After all this experience I came to the conclusion that probably 90% of the effort in getting good sound is the speakers, where they are positioned in the room, the room acoustics (bare modernist rooms sound horrid) and where the listening position is.
The electronics are the other 10%.
Unless one uses a record player, that is, and that, being a seismic vibration transducer, is enormously influenced by design and environment so the 90%/10% split does not apply to systems where LPs are a major source.
I came to the conclusion that all the other stuff, including what you list here (though I have not experimented with my mobile phone position) have the same effect on the listening pleasure as your mood, so gave up on them 20 years ago.
I have a dedicated listening room and the only audiophilia thing I did was to install an independent power supply for the equipment. Whether this makes any difference or not depends on my mood.
I have compared a linear power supply with standard one on my Metric Halo LIO-8 and hear no difference, but one well known recording engineer, Barry Diament, says his definitely has better bass with the switched mode power supply.
All Devialet products have switched a mode power supply, of course.
So we have two experienced enthusiasts with almost opposite experience and opinions
Shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose!
After all this experience I came to the conclusion that probably 90% of the effort in getting good sound is the speakers, where they are positioned in the room, the room acoustics (bare modernist rooms sound horrid) and where the listening position is.
The electronics are the other 10%.
Unless one uses a record player, that is, and that, being a seismic vibration transducer, is enormously influenced by design and environment so the 90%/10% split does not apply to systems where LPs are a major source.
I came to the conclusion that all the other stuff, including what you list here (though I have not experimented with my mobile phone position) have the same effect on the listening pleasure as your mood, so gave up on them 20 years ago.
I have a dedicated listening room and the only audiophilia thing I did was to install an independent power supply for the equipment. Whether this makes any difference or not depends on my mood.
I have compared a linear power supply with standard one on my Metric Halo LIO-8 and hear no difference, but one well known recording engineer, Barry Diament, says his definitely has better bass with the switched mode power supply.
All Devialet products have switched a mode power supply, of course.
So we have two experienced enthusiasts with almost opposite experience and opinions
Shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose!
Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire
