Your Next Upgrade? (Part 1)

I do like main rig listening, but I also really enjoy mobile listening with either IEM’s or decent earbuds. I recently got a set of Nobel wireless IEM, they are surprisingly good. No noise canceling, but I find that feature veils music, it’s great for phone calls, but I don’t use these for that purpose.

I have a theory that listening to music on a good system trains our brains to hear much more detail on even the cheapest systems.

I can buy that theory. Ive done a lot of work in studios and I feel like my ear has been somewhat “trained” by the process of layering instruments to the point where I might be able to pick out things deep in a mix.

Or who knows, maybe I just want that to be the case :laughing:

I have a similar theory, but attribute it to routinely listening to good live music performances. Makes even my best system sound tolerable.

My most recent upgrade involved no purchases (yet), but moving my speakers further apart, sort of mimicking the placement of Magnepan 3.7i from a youtube video (my speakers are not Magnepan). The soundstage widened and the upper bass emphasis lessened a little more. The magic is definitely there with the CJ tube preamp feeding the M1200’s to the Sonist speakers with jazz and female vocals, and has now expanded to other music sounding more satisfying too. Now I need to work on the spikes at the bottom of the speakers. Suggestions??

magnepan37i


With the wood floors I would Giai or others in the forum think the Townsend devices are even better for decoupling

Hugely approve of the ISOAcoustics Gaia’s, have those on mine, amazing, generally love all the ISOAcoustics stuff.

Not experienced the Townsend stuff, is that US based?

Herbie’s has nice brass/steel/titanium cups for receiving spikes that are sliders on the bottom of the cups.

They are pretty cheap and I would consider experimenting with those by themselves and sitting in/on some sort of dampening material.

My understanding is spikes can move vibrations in both directions so finding something to “drain” them to and prevent the return of energy to the speakers would be worth exploring.

You may find the spikes should stay with the right combination of material allowing for the decoupling from the floor.

More theory and product information here:

PS

I use the Cone/Spike Decoupling Gliders under the spiked feet of my equipment racks.

SEE

Townsend is UK based.

Oh, really? Absolutely fantastic, will get some of theirs to test

I’m a big fan of Sonist speakers. :+1:

I think you on to something there. I still enjoy the music as much as I did when I was a kid in grade school. After having put a couple of fairly expensive stereo systems together I get what that particular scene is about but it is just as easy to enjoy the tunes coming from the boom box as it is listening to a couple hundred large singing to you.

I think it all stems from loving music. If music reaches you (it’s odd to say but I know persons who are not touched or reached or as one puts it “understands” music) then in time you learn to enjoy it on a portable radio, a car radio, a compact micro system of the 'eighties, and on large expensive stereos such as we connoisseurs know how to put together.

Add another layer such as learning to play some music, complex or simple, rhythmic or melodic, and again you may sense how to extract minute information without strain on rugged and ragged rigs.

And (I’m imagining and second-handing here) learn how to build playback equipment and you learn how to listen to all types of playback.

Behind it all is an interest or a love for music. For most of us here there probably isn’t even a clear memory of when we fell in love with music, but we sure did.

I know plenty of people uninterested in music. Nothing odd or wrong worth this.

In my life it’s not wrong, but it’s odd. My family has always been interested in music, sacred and secular, and as a result I think almost everyone I really “know” is. . . it’s odd among my friends and family not to be. But it’s not wrong, just eerily different.

I find time and space to make a special place for the arts in my life to the best of my means. Certainly others may choose not to, their choice. I don’t try to understand it, tolerate it yes; embrace their choice no.

Not my next upgrade but would probably be my personal end-game amplifiers if I currently had the scratch:


Breathtaking, in my eyes - inside and out… More info. here:

…and here:

“Odd” and “eerily different” implies something pejorative, rather than simply uncommon in your personal circle.

Then again, pethaps my complete disinterest in team spots such as baseball and football makes me “eerily different.” :slight_smile:

Yeah, I too saw this listing. I’d probably stop at a pair of Pass XA160.8s, but still - these Accuphase are beautiful!

I don’t mean it pejoratively in any fashion, I just honestly have not been familiar with many persons at all who are not interested in music if not passionate. I understand others may have been around such persons or may be one in an intellectual manner, but it’s still “odd” to me and “eery”–and hey I actually like “odd” and “eery” so they are not adjectives I use with any form of distaste.

And I only make an effort to enjoy team sports for my wife when she is watching or wanting to watch. So maybe I’m also odd and eerily different. Which is not a bad thing.