Al - you know you really need the Mutec 10MHz Master clock…
I can’t get my head around why a clock would improve ethernet sq. It still has to do with the noise profile on the ground plane, right?
Ugh, I’ve been looking at this device for a little while and now I know I won’t be able to stop myself. 
I don’t want to spend that much though. I may end up doing it.
Any news regarding your new clock,is it still the best thing since ER itself?
Did you get lps and bnc cable upgrade for it?
We keep saying that, and then…
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Why stop at the REF10? REF10 SE120 or bust. 
The Cybershaft OP21A is another option but a PITA the get hold of in the US.
Makes me wonder, what exactly are we searching for in audio? Is there a perfection out there and we keep spending time and money to better our systems to reach that audio perfection? Even if that perfection is subjective to a particular individual, and not absolute or universal - does such a thing exist?
New cables, new boxes, new gizmos, new speakers, on and on. If improvement does exist, wouldn’t it at some point reach an end where improvement is no longer possible? And what would that sound like?
Perhaps that end goal, and even improvement itself is an illusion? Especially if one sets aside the hardware, and instead focuses on the brain and ears doing the listening. What is that bran after? Could it be that the mind creates its own dissatisfaction and it’s own breadcrumbs to chase after? Could it be that it’s really not about achieving something in audio reproduction, but rather an exercise to satisfy our transient desire to have something new? And once we have that new thing, the desire is filled for a bit, yet being desire, it begins to thirst again and off we go. Buy this, add that, etc.
If the end goal of audio perfection is an illusion, perhaps that very thirsting for perfect, or even improvement, is also an illusion?
I’m thinking more and more this hobby revolves around that behavior of the human mind, the thirsting, the searching, the acquiring, the temporary satisfaction, only to thirst again a short time later. Are we not chasing our own tail? Around and round in circles of our own creation?
Of course, it’s all great fun. But it must certainly be more about the change than anything else. Right? I wonder what happens if we set aside the goal of audio improvement and instead inquire into the nature of transients, the essence of change, and the fleeting satisfaction it supplies. What then? And what inner voice commands that whole process? What is that?
I wonder if that mystery becomes solved, if the thirst vanishes forever, and if that should happen, would we still be interested in audio quality improvements? Or would we be hearing an entirely different sort of music, one that comes from within, and not from speakers? And what would that sound like?
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program…
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“I am centrally aware that all this is just entertainment, mine and yours. The objective needs of amplifier users are largely solved on a practical level, and as [Marshall] McLuhan perceptively noted, when that happens, we turn our technology into art. For me, the art lies in making simple, unusual amplifiers that sound great and measure fairly well. They aren’t for everyone, but if they appeal to even a narrow segment of audiophiles, I’m perfectly happy. I’m equally happy if they are reliable.”
Nelson Pass
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I don’t think so, and I hope not. The recording gear and recording techniques and formats keep getting better. Why not the Repro gear?
And that in a sense only applies to traditional sorts of instruments. There are now musical devices that produce sounds that did not exactly exist before, and that recording tech from the past would’ve had difficulty capturing properly.
Besides, it is a bit like thinking we know all there is to know about a given branch of Science. No point in building better telescopes, because Now Is as Good as It Can Get! We’ve Seen All there is to See!
When I listen to Sunlight, I just keep shaking my head. Ted’s a Magician, and I’m personally very glad he keeps at it. Of course the Cost of all of these DAC Updates has been usurious… 
Also - I think that affordable systems are way better than ever, so it is not about how much money you throw at it. It is about how it all hangs together. I could live out my life quite happily with my cheaper system. The primary question for me is, “Does it make Music?”
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I could suggest that these add-ons and improvements are all about making digital sound like vinyl. 
But your observations are spot on and delightfully Boulder-esque.
I think that our perception is based on change. We realize things only in contrast, as with seeing black ink against the white background of a page in order to communicate thoughts. One wouldn’t know good unless they had experienced bad. We have evolved to see danger, and perhaps pleasure, by noting changes and differences in the landscape. Very dualistic.
So we like to compare this cable to that, this box to that one, at this time of day, this humidity vs that dryness. We only perceive differences relative to the backdrop of what we (think we) know, and that process can be fascinating.
Plus, with COVID, we’re really frikkin’ bored, so it helps to pass the time.
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I agree.
If you are a music lover and/or into Hi-Fi kit, I think we are living in a “Golden Age” of both.
The value proposition of the vast array of affordable components is as amazing as the sheer number of options can be overwhelming.
Hi-end and Mid-fi streaming options abound. I am a Roon Core lifer and currently subscribe to Qobuz and Tidal which I listen to via Roon. The amount and disparate nature of the music that is available for exploration via these (and other) streaming systems is absolutely incredible.
On top of all that, when you find something you like and want to buy a physical copy or download files to hold vicariously on your computer’s or NAS’ hard drive – or on your streamer/server of choice, it seems like the number of on-line vendors is increasing these days. Moreover, for more “common” recordings available on plastic, vinyl or tape, its not unusual to place an order through Amazon on a Monday and to be listening to your new purchase by the week’s end.
It is a golden age, I tell ya.
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But hasn’t sound existed for millions if not billions of years, right? And music for the past thousands of years (not sure how many). I think sound itself is pretty well settled. Thus what is it that music reproduction is seeking? If sound has been settled for unimaginably long expanses of time, it in a way becomes a constant. Is our goal to make a violinist in a room playing a violin sound exactly like a violinist playing in a room? That seems attainable to me. After all, in a world (with sound) that’s 4 billion years old, HiFi has only been at it for the last perhaps 100 years. And once we attain the violinist in a room, in our rooms, then what?
This what I wonder about. Who is it that evaluates what is better? Is it that mind that compares? If yes, that is a very unreliable character, fickle, and whimsical. If that evaluation process is rather flaky, which I suggest it substantively is, then does “like” have anything to do with definitively determining what is actually better? Couldn’t “like” just be masquerading as “different” and calling itself “better”, knowing full well that we’ll get dissatisfied with “better” and have to find a better better?
I’m questioning my own audiophile addiction. I see a new video on YouTube and I’m instantly sucked in! Even though my system sounds amazing. I wonder what is it that’s so whimsical, so thirsty, that I find myself often looking for the next best thing? I’m curious why that is? And if my whole process of evaluation and determination is fundamentally flawed in a way so sneaky that I can’t see it as such, then what’s actually real in any of this?
This would make me indescribably happy.
I have been in a smallish room with a dozen or so people as a superb violinist played a Strad a couple of feet from me. We accurately reproduce this and I will be delirious.
While theoretically obtainable, we have a long way to go.
I have had a few opportunities over the years to listen in close proximity to small ensembles of accomplished musicians in an intimate space.
Wonderful experiences all.
Sometimes, with really good recordings and musicianship, the Hi-Fi can get close – especially with woodwinds/reed instruments for some reason in my experience – to the real deal.
True
I think that, as with film and television, we go into it with varying degrees of willingness to suspend disbelief. Don’t have the sense that most film and television fans agonize over this as much as we do.
Also don’t think either of those audiences concerns themselves over seriously, Truly, reproducing the original event.
Not sure I would think of “it” in terms of agonizing – more like a pursuit, to my mind…
A good system can hint at it. One recognizes the instruments and can hear some of the essential sound.
But it is no where close enough for me to be fooled for even the briefest amount of time.
I suspect a good part of this is instruments produce sound so differently from speakers, and speakers are both inaccurate in frequency response, as well as they dynamically compress. They are also slow in comparison to the real thing. There is also so much more energy in an instrument which speakers simply do not capture.
Music reproduction remains at the singing pig stage. I enjoy listening to the adorable pig as he sings. But the amazement is in that the pig can sing at all. Perhaps the pig will fool me some day. I hope so.
I certainly agree with that. I was thinking more of those who seem to get their knickers in a twist over The Absolute Sound or whathaveyou. It is as if, were we not able to produce a palpable Hologram of an Actor in our room that we could walk up to and around, we would be disappointed.