|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
47.18.86.71
Don't laugh, but Im posting my observations anyway. I just decided to tighten the binding posts on my amp more than the usual hand tightening. I used a wrench. Sat down and listened to willie Nelson "stardust" and was surprised that it sounded WORSE than it did with just a hand tightening. It tilted the sound to the bright side, and lost any type of relaxing sound.. It actually sounded constricted, with less ease, and actually had a slight hardness to the sound...I would have laughed at this kinda stuff a couple of years ago, but since graduating to relatively high end gear, it is quite true that EVERYTHING makes a difference. I loosened up the connections and that wonderful lush, sound came back..WTH! I "can't"
Edits: 08/12/14Follow Ups:
as in that broken connector. Maybe, surface impurities are reacting to the increased pressure. Maybe, it is purely a mechanical resonance effect. Maybe, we're hallucinating.
I'll agree that EVERYTHING seems to count in a high resolution system.
Tightening the cables meant you moved them.....they will settle in again and be the way they once were.
Exhibit A: ARC D-130 binding post. (I think the OEM was Vampire...)
I am not a gorilla tightener. I have 2 torque wrenches and a torquing screwdriver. If I see a torque spec, I follow it.
The problem with these basterd posts is the hole for bare wire. It removes way too much metal, and just who is using a bare wire termination on a power amp?
My routine was to hand tighten and with a wrench maybe an additional 1/10 max. of a turn. Now I'm looking at $60-80 for Cardas replacements, which, BTW, don't appear to have that stupid hole.
I don't know about sound quality, but I'm advising extreme caution if your speaker terminals have a bare wire hole.
"It removes way too much metal, and just who is using a bare wire termination on a power amp?"
I use 6 gauge wire (Telcoflex), with bare (tinned) end at the speakers (bananas at the amp), the terminals can accommodate them......
(After some experimentation over the years, I've found that the heavier the speaker cable, the better. Even with flea-powered amplification.)
Wow, that sucks! I remember back in the 90s, all the dealers use some type of wrench to tighten speaker cables. I used one on my Pass Aleph Os amp, and it twisted the whole thing, and snap the internal connection. Apparently, the nut behind the faceplate was not tightened enough. I was lucky because it was a easy fix by soldering the internal wire back to the contact and tighten the nut behind the faceplate. But ever since, I would just use my hand instead...
FrankC
Taking both yours and Todd's into account, did you clean your connections before tightening them? I've had a similar sonic experience to what you describe- had to undo everything, clean and THEN tighten up everything accordingly. Things sounded much better after that little procedure...
"If the audio industry built gear that sounded as good as it did 50 years ago, there would NEVER be a need to re-issued anything!"
My connections were cleaned about two weeks ago... Not right before tightening...
Very interesting. One of those audio-weirdness things, I guess...
"If the audio industry built gear that sounded as good as it did 50 years ago, there would NEVER be a need to re-issued anything!"
"Sat down and listened to willie Nelson 'stardust' and was surprised that it sound WORSE than it did with just a hand tightening. It tilted the sound to the bright side, and lost any type of relaxing sound."
Strange as it may seem, my experiences with this are exactly the same as described above.....
My only speculation why this might occur is that the electrons don't travel as well along a "stressed" metal surface. I won't speculate further, however.
... is that tighter connections provide better electrical contact. Better electrical contact might sound "different" than poor electrical contact, but if we're used to the sound of one we might think that the sound of the other sounds "wrong" or "worse". If we are not used to the sound of improved electrical contact it might only take hours or days for us to decide that good contact sounds better than the old way, but who knows?No way of telling for sure, I guess...
Edits: 08/12/14 08/12/14
Thanks Todd,
I knew I wasn't imagining it. I asked myself, why am I not enjoy ing this? It even cut the depth out of the soundstage. My speculation is the same as yours.
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: