I also bought my first “real” audiophile gear there, Conrad Johnson PV5 and MV50. The other shop I really liked was dB Audio in Berkeley where I purchased the Sequerra Met 7s with an RH Sub. Audio Excellence and Music By Design were also great shops in the Bay Area.
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dB was a jewel. Ah, for the good old days. 
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It was a pain in the ass to do, but the new Synergistic Powercell 8 SX is settling into the system now, replacing a Nordost QB-8 Mk2.
It ain’t pretty, but my first impressions include the sense that the system is playing louder and is clearly more dynamic. Also, I may need to turn down my RELs a smidge.
Let the break-in games begin!!!
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Wow! You walked away from the Nordost gear for the funny stuff. Interesting! And you are pleased! Nice.
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That is where I got my real turntable, the Well Tempered Classic and Benz MC-3 cartridge that was nuded because it sounded better with the body removed. My brother also got his first real speakers, the Thiel CS6 from dB Audio. We had fun making the ribbons flap on the Apogee’s with organ music using Jeff Roland Model 9T’s 4 box monoblocks. The other place we frequent worth mentioning was Bay Area Audio in San Jose with highlighted the Hales speaker system with the external crossover box and Cardas cables connecting it to the drivers. Too bad all those dealers are gone.
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he QB-8 was the last vestige of Nordost in my system. With cables anyway, at every turn Synergistic was better for half the price.
And our friend Juan actively makes it all so relatively painless…
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I was always curious about the Nordost stuff. Great reviews and all that. But I never reached for it. Enjoy!
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Some forum members are in the situation of making multiple upgrades during the year.
Is it an idea to rank these according to impact on sound?
I know it is system dependent, but it may help if you are looking to upgrade your set.
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In my yearly journey:
- PowerZone + Grid Protector (I’m considering the combo as a unique big leap)
- STEALTH Sakra V17 LE XLR
- MSB Reference DAC (vs previous Premiere DAC)
- NA MUON Pro + Tempus (again, as a combo upgrade)
- STEALTH Cloude Grande power cords (feeding the Innuos Statement in particular)
- Neodio Origine B2
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This year’s gear bump, in order of niceness:
- MU2
- Stealth Sakra XLR
- PZ (sans GP, maybe someday)
- Stealth Octava T XLR
- Stealth Dream 2020 power cords (3)
- Muon Pro filter
- Stealth Ultra 8 Ethernet cable
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I think the question relates to what causes the best performance for the best price. Not that you’re putting me in the same box as the big boys here. I’ve invested a lot in my system lately. Whether it was the best investment for me is questionable. One reason I did it was because I wasn’t feeling well and I could use the upgrades to improve my mood. But I should take it slower now and not allow myself to be tempted too often here in the forum. Which upgrade in your system is most profitable depends a lot on the initial situation. Where is the actual bottleneck in the system? Analyzing your own system saves unnecessary expenses. Not all optimizations provide the same return on investment. An optimal placement of the speakers often helps (free optimization). A solid power supply is certainly one of the main pillars. Speakers have a crucial role in converting the signal into sound. Weaknesses that appear at the beginning usually cannot be corrected later. That’s why my idea is to first ensure a reasonable power supply. Then choose speakers that are suitable for your room. The amplifier should fit the speakers and be able to drive them in a controlled manner. From my point of view, speakers suitable for the size of the room》amplifiers suitable for the speakers. Which source do you prefer? This source should make few errors. What the source does not provide cannot be gained later. I think power cables and speaker cables have a bigger impact than interconnect cables. Fuses can also have an influence, with which you can achieve fine tuning.
The placement of the components also has an influence on the result. I think it’s best to start with a solid power supply. Ensures that the signal is distorted as little as possible right from the start.
I think for many recently it’s been the new power strip that’s been a big upgrade. Be it the Powerzone or my Furutech Vault power strip. A solid power supply is like a solid foundation for a house.
Greetings Andreas
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1 FTA metis ethernet cable
2 Ansuz C2 powercord
3 Remove optical setup and return to copper .
(2 pcs Netgear GS305 switches with DIY hybrid Power supply and grounding)
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I consider this year to be a triumph considering how much improvement they have made:
- PSA FR30 speakers
- Grimm MU2 network player
- Gryphon PowerZone
Still waiting for Muon Pro System
In terms of tweak, there are too many but the below made noticeable improvement:
Stack AUVA 100, EQ, SmoothLan and Neodio Origine B2
In terms of cables, Fidelium XLR is a great buy compared to my original plan of a Sakra. I am waiting for AQ Dragon jumpers too.
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That has to be hard to beat!
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You definitely took a deep dive!
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My deep sea diving this year.
-
Furutech Vault Power strip + Schnerzinger Grid Protector
-
Furutech Project V1 Power cord
for Vault
and AVM Mono power amplifiers. -
Audioquest Dragon Source for
Preamplifier
and Farad power supply. -
Network Acoustic muon pro
-
Farad Super 10 LPS with Silver 3 DC cable for Melco S100 switch.
-
Stack Audio Auva 100 and EQ
-
LHY SW 6 Switch + Adot single Fiber optic
-
Fuses SR Master, SR Pink, Lan cable
Furutech cat 8, audio base
Thanks to the forum colleagues here. Without you, I wouldn’t have thought about most things. 
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It has been a year of upgrades! Thing is, each has built on the preceding upgrade, so a fairer (but tedious!!) way to compare each relative contribution would be to remove all of this year’s additions and just add in each one individually to test.
In chronological order, my upgrades this year included:
- BACCH4Mac / Mac mini. Wow. Quantum change. Can’t go back.
- Replaced the rail fuses and valve input fuses in my BHK300 monoblocks with HiFi Tuning supreme (NOT the main input fuse as this was prep for the SDFB). Very significant improvement and well worth while. Some have suggested that changing the rail fuses wouldn’t do much - well they did in my system. Great bang for the buck.
- Swiss Digital Fuse Boxes with super piggies and graphene sluggos x 3 sets for my P20 and two BHK300s. Wow. Big jump. So much more detail I didn’t know was there. Hmmm, I’m contemplating two more for my Directstream Mk2 & BHK Pre.
- Fidelium XLRs x 2 sets. First set was between my Directstream & BHK Pre. Excellent - again, more detail, transients, presence. The second set was between my BHK Pre and the BHK 300 monoblocks. I had to wait to install this as I had to tediously run the 6m long XLR through two segments of limestone block wall (pain). Also improvement, but less dramatic than Direcstream to Pre. I suspect, due to the long length of XLR (longer burn in?) and the signal is probably more delicate from Direcstream to Pre, whereas already amplified from Pre to mono blocks. Still worthwhile.
- Furutech Cat 8 NCF LAN cable from my etherRegen to my Mac mini. Great bang for buck. Seems nice.
- Muon Pro ethernet filter. Oooh yeah baby. I was surprised at how much this improved my streaming over the etherRegen (which I’m still using).
I have Coherent FTLF1318P3BTL SFP modules x2, and awaiting delivery of a TP-link copper to SFP converter (TP-Link 220L) with single mode LC-LC fibre cables. When they arrive, I’ll use the optical SFP module in the etherRegen and compare Furutech Cat 8 in the A side vs B side to the Mac mini. I also have 3 LINKUP ethernet cables to replace the junk Cat 6 cables upstream.
Fun!
Future upgrades on my radar might include the PZ or Schnerzinger devices, and maybe MU2, but I think I’ll need to take a breather or hit the jackpot before then.
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Wow, that is quite a year. Of fthese I’ve only done three Swiss Digital Fuse Boxes and three Graphene Sluggos (P15, DSD Mk II, SEWE300B) and will echo your praise for what they have brought to the system.
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Hey everyone, wanted to update anyone who was curious on the sale of the PSM 156 from @weedeewop . We ended up being a lot closer to each other than we realized an met for coffee. That was super fun for me because, being new, there is a lot to learn from just chatting with someone who’s been in the game a lot longer. It flipped the script from me researching the right question to ask, scouring the internet for something written on it, to just getting a window into someone’s mind and see how they think. Was hugely beneficial for me, thanks again.
As for the PSM 156 (for me it’s the second one I’ve got in the system). The change was no short of huge. Now, I must mention that, I unlike other people here, have not heard every power conditioner, so take my findings with a grain of salt. But here is my experience:
My system is really noisy because my source is a gaming PC and there are OLED tvs and Standing Desks and just a nightmare of electronics around. So when I first put the first PSM 156 in it was a revolution for me. It just sucked up so much of that electrical haze it converted me on the spot to power conditioning. However, over time as I’ve added more pieces, I’ve slowly but surely lost ground. I didn’t notice this until one day I realized I was turning up the system seemingly endlessly to hear the magic I was used to hearing and I couldn’t. It was flat. Imaging was bad, and it hurt my ears. I was kinda in a death spiral where it felt like the only thing I could do was turn things up, but that only hurt my ears more.
From there, I realized I’d used every port on my PSM 156 and I started to think, even though these are supposedly completely separate ports, would I benefit from splitting things out, not plugging them in next to each other, and just easing the load onto two Power Conditioners.
Night and Day. Seriously, no exaggeration. Back to all the hifi things we love. 3D soundstage, speakers disappearing, elegance. Whatever was going on with my system, and something was clearly going on, vanished.
Now are things perfect? No, I don’t think so. I’ve got some more cable swapping to do (Probably with a focus on noise rejection, I’m currently waiting on a demo set of Monsoons, of which I have one and like it a lot). But it felt like it jump started me back to sanity, whereas before I was starting to think I’m just not cut out for this.
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I wish I lived closer to other audio guys. I seem to be in the middle of nowhere.
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