(Long) Hello From Brooklyn, Part 2
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| Posted on September 14, 2021 at 17:57:17 | ||
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Posts: 8
Location: New York Joined: July 4, 2021 |
Eventually, I found a tape on YouTube of John Atkinson interviewing Paul McGowan. They agreed that CDs sound better than streaming. "But it makes no sense," said Atkinson (or words to that effect.) "It's all ones and zeros. They should both sound the same." McGowan said that they were working solving the problem, but he didn't sound like his company would solve the problem tomorrow. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0NUvziOgWQ) By pointing out these audio heavyweights were asking the same questions as me, I managed to shut down the attacks. But it didn't exactly endear veteran Audiogoners to me, or me to the site. Anyway, I'm a hard science guy. And a skeptic. So I was naturally drawn to the side of the cable skeptics. But I bought the used Arcam from a knowledgeable and persuasive southern gentleman. He convinced me to give cables a shot. Look, science or not, a lot of seemingly smart, sincere people are on the side of cables. It seemed like it was worth a try. I found a pair of used speaker cables from Q Acoustics on eBay for $50. Perennial winners of the What Hi-Fi Best Buy Award. A gamble with a low down side. Immediately, they sounded different from my old Blue Jeans cables. That wasn't supposed to happen. Different, but not better. My Southern gentleman told me that of course they didn't sound good yet, they had to burn in. C'mon. Burning in? Two of the most infamous myths in one day? Sure enough, a couple of days later, the brightness had burned out and my world had turned upside down. (Later, I traded in the Q Acoustics cables for Twisted Pairs by AA's own Jon Risch. Very happy.) I now had some new first hand experience but that anecdotal evidence had no intellectual underpinnings. I didn't know what to think. I certainly didn't trust my own ears. I was floating in space. But I had heard what I had heard. I tried interconnects next. No difference. But I already had a decent pair of interconnects. Maybe that wasn't a fair contest. Power cables were the only thing left. Bought two cheapies ($25) from China, one for the amp, one for the CD player. I'd been told that power cables made the least significant change so I wasn't expecting much. Also, of course, there's not an engineer or physicist in the world who could find a difference between what comes out of these garden hose thick cables and lamp cord. But the difference was immediate and unmistakable. More bass, more clarity, more. I still haven't received the cable for the CD player but I've heard that the cord to the source can make an even bigger difference. I can't wait. So here's my new thinking: Stock cables are crap. Even the cheapest after-market cables sound better than the thin interconnects that come with your new CD player. But I'm not ready to crappy, sign on to the idea of continuing improvement, the idea that Odin II sound even better. Of course, I've never heard Odin II so I don't know what the hell I'm talking about but the idea that suckers who spend $10,00 for Odin II are getting ripped off makes me feel better. It's depressing, but it really looks like I'm running out of available tweaks. I've already lined my CD player with Dynamat. (Wasn't rigourous in differentiating my variables. Not sure how much improvement is attributable to the Dynamat versus other tweaks. My sense is not much.)
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