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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Have I Reached The Point Of Diminishing Returns? posted by RandyB&W on July 27, 2014 at 18:01:34:
My advice is to ignore suggestions that you can quantify the increase in sound quality with ratios and probabilities like "10:1 increase in cost over quality". There are many things that you can do to make your system even better. Some may cost a lot but much improvement can be had by experimentation based on listening and training yourself to be more skilled in system set-up and room treatments.
Before retiring a couple of years ago, I earned well enough buy many nice components and it sounded very nice most of the time. I had an excellent dealer who set up most of my gear and allowed me to borrow gear for up to a month to try at home before purchase, and a fantastic trade-up program that led to a system of well-matched components that together cost somewhere North of $30K (1990 dollars). I listened when I could but spent a lot of time on my career. I made good money and had little time, so whenever I got "upgraditis", I threw money at it.
Being retired now, I am rich in time and wary of spending down my savings and so I committed myself to learning as much as I could about setting up and maintaining my equipment myself whenever possible. Lately, experience has led me to get really serious about things like vibration control and EMI/RF mitigation, cartridge set-up, SRA, azimuth, and speaker placement. I can answer for myself questions such as "how good/bad is class D", "how important is it to run clean power?" and "how much change in vertical tracking force does occur when adjusting the VTF by 1 mm? and does it matter?" An experiment with a single slab of wood, some used BearPaws and some isoblocks led me to buy and install solid brass footers, isoblocks and maple platforms under every power supply and component in my system with stellar results, all for under $1500. Getting serious about cleaning and treatment of male and female connections on ICs, power cords and fuses two or three times a year costs peanuts and can bring your system up another notch or two.
Fortunately for me, I also bought a lot of records before retiring and now have more than 3000 albums to listen to. Half have never been opened, or were played only once or twice and now I have time to really listen. You are in an excellent place with your current satisfaction with your system. Your CD player may be one of the best ever made, but you could make a long-term commitment to trying little changes to its setup and cabling to see just how good it can be. I would like to someday have a chance to invite Kevin Voecks over to listen to how gorgeous the sound is coming from his 1990 B-types now that they are in a system with 21st century wiring, outlets, platforms, fuses, etc. Don't be afraid to experiment and revisit things you thought were already handled.
Cheers an good listening.
Everything is going to the dogs
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Follow Ups
- RE: Have I Reached The Point Of Diminishing Returns? Nah! - mcbuddah 16:54:33 07/28/14 (1)
- Great advice! Thanks. (nt). - RandyB&W 17:54:41 07/28/14 (0)
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