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Thread: The brain/ear interface!!

  1. #11
    Join Date: Jan 2008

    Location: Wrexham, North Wales, UK

    Posts: 110,012
    I'm AudioAl'sArbiterForPISHANTO.

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    What Ali has outlined is the tried and tested procedure I've always used, and which has served me well for years!

    Marco.
    Main System

    Turntable: Heavily-modified Technics SL-1210MK5G [Mike New bearing/ETP platter/Paul Hynes SR7 PSU & reg mods]. Funk Firm APM Achromat/Nagaoka GL-601 Crystal Record Weight/Isonoe feet & boots/Ortofon RS-212D/Denon DL-103GL in Denon PCL-300 headshell with Funk Firm Houdini/Kondo SL-115 pure-silver cartridge leads.

    Paul Hynes MC head amp/SR5 PSU. Also modded Lentek head amp/Denon AU-310 SUT.

    Other Cartridges: Nippon Columbia (NOS 1987) Denon DL-103. USA-made Shure SC35C with NOS stylus. Goldring G820 with NOS stylus. Shure M55E with NOS stylus.

    CD Player: Audiocom-modified Sony X-777ES/DAS-R1 DAC.

    Tape Deck: Tandberg TCD 310, fully restored and recalibrated as new, by RDE, plus upgraded with heads from the TCD-420a. Also with matching TM4 Norway microphones.

    Preamps: Heavily-modified Croft Charisma-X. LDR Stereo Coffee. Power Amps: Tube Distinctions Copper Amp fitted with Tungsol KT-150s. Quad 306.

    Cables & Sundries: Mark Grant HDX1 interconnects and digital coaxial cable, plus Mark Grant 6mm UP-LCOFC Van Damme speaker cable. MCRU 'Ultimate' mains leads. Lehmann clone headphone amp with vintage Koss PRO-4AAA headphones.

    Tube Distinctions digital noise filter. VPI HW16.5 record cleaning machine.

    Speakers: Tannoy 15MGs in Lockwood cabinets with modified crossovers. 1967 Celestion Ditton 15.


    Protect your HUMAN RIGHTS and REFUSE ANY *MANDATORY* VACCINE FOR COVID-19!

    Also **SAY NO** to unjust 'vaccine passports' or certificates, which are totally incompatible with a FREE society!!!


  2. #12
    Join Date: Aug 2008

    Location: London

    Posts: 2,411
    I'm Nat-andthat'swhyIdrink.

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    I like "different"..

    Perhaps the folly is in setting out to decide if something is "better" from the outset. Maybe it's enough to enjoy the differences and then later on the difference you prefer will reveal itself.

    I guess that's is only possible on the secondhand market unless you can get semi-permanent loans from dealers.

  3. #13
    Join Date: Mar 2012

    Location: Gloucestershire

    Posts: 3,377
    I'm Paul.

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    I had a musician contact me today wanting work done on his speakers. He's a pro and plays mostly classical in a large well regarded symphony orchestra. When I asked him what his reference point was, the response was "I don't need a hifi reference point. I know what an orchestra sounds like and I don't want that in my living room!"

    What he valued in hifi was tonal accuracy (his other comment was "I want a small string section to sound like a small string section, a trumpet to sound like a trumpet and a Piano to sound like a piano), so his test is to take several very good recordings known well to him and listen. His tweaks over the years have been to get that realism in tonal accuracy and to forget the real scale, ambience (presence) and all the other nonsense we crave, often without really understanding the true nature of what it is we're claiming (because it's quite literally impossible to get that in any living room).

    I believe our reference is whatever we justify it as. Like others, I try and move forward in little steps, changing one thing out at a time, listening for several days and replacing with the original, then listening again and making notes of subtle or key differences. Like my musician friend, I value tonal accuracy. I make notes because unless you have a direct AB comparison, the brain is very poor at discerning subtleties in differences and it only becomes a reliable means if there are more obvious (usually detrimental) differences.

  4. #14
    MartinT Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reffc View Post
    forget the real scale, ambience (presence) and all the other nonsense we crave
    Nope, I want those things too. I may not be a musician but I've attended hundreds of concerts and know what the instruments should sound like - including the scale. That's exactly what I want my system to approach.

  5. #15
    Join Date: Jan 2008

    Location: Wrexham, North Wales, UK

    Posts: 110,012
    I'm AudioAl'sArbiterForPISHANTO.

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    Quote Originally Posted by MartinT View Post
    That's exactly what I want my system to approach.
    I think that "approach", as opposed to 'achieve' is the correct word... I'm not sure how close we can *actually* get to realising that goal.

    In essence, however, I agree, and set out for my system to approach the same ends

    Marco.
    Main System

    Turntable: Heavily-modified Technics SL-1210MK5G [Mike New bearing/ETP platter/Paul Hynes SR7 PSU & reg mods]. Funk Firm APM Achromat/Nagaoka GL-601 Crystal Record Weight/Isonoe feet & boots/Ortofon RS-212D/Denon DL-103GL in Denon PCL-300 headshell with Funk Firm Houdini/Kondo SL-115 pure-silver cartridge leads.

    Paul Hynes MC head amp/SR5 PSU. Also modded Lentek head amp/Denon AU-310 SUT.

    Other Cartridges: Nippon Columbia (NOS 1987) Denon DL-103. USA-made Shure SC35C with NOS stylus. Goldring G820 with NOS stylus. Shure M55E with NOS stylus.

    CD Player: Audiocom-modified Sony X-777ES/DAS-R1 DAC.

    Tape Deck: Tandberg TCD 310, fully restored and recalibrated as new, by RDE, plus upgraded with heads from the TCD-420a. Also with matching TM4 Norway microphones.

    Preamps: Heavily-modified Croft Charisma-X. LDR Stereo Coffee. Power Amps: Tube Distinctions Copper Amp fitted with Tungsol KT-150s. Quad 306.

    Cables & Sundries: Mark Grant HDX1 interconnects and digital coaxial cable, plus Mark Grant 6mm UP-LCOFC Van Damme speaker cable. MCRU 'Ultimate' mains leads. Lehmann clone headphone amp with vintage Koss PRO-4AAA headphones.

    Tube Distinctions digital noise filter. VPI HW16.5 record cleaning machine.

    Speakers: Tannoy 15MGs in Lockwood cabinets with modified crossovers. 1967 Celestion Ditton 15.


    Protect your HUMAN RIGHTS and REFUSE ANY *MANDATORY* VACCINE FOR COVID-19!

    Also **SAY NO** to unjust 'vaccine passports' or certificates, which are totally incompatible with a FREE society!!!


  6. #16
    MartinT Guest

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    I think I've said elsewhere that you can take a single instrument like a sax or a trumpet and have someone play it in your listening room. The visceral nature of the sound produced has to be heard to be believed. It is immediately sobering when you realise how far your system is away from being able to reproduce the sheer complexity and scale of the sound created. However, I want that sense of scale, or as near as I can approach within reasonable means.

  7. #17
    Join Date: Jan 2008

    Location: Wrexham, North Wales, UK

    Posts: 110,012
    I'm AudioAl'sArbiterForPISHANTO.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by MartinT View Post
    I However, I want that sense of scale, or as near as I can approach within reasonable means.
    +1

    Marco.
    Main System

    Turntable: Heavily-modified Technics SL-1210MK5G [Mike New bearing/ETP platter/Paul Hynes SR7 PSU & reg mods]. Funk Firm APM Achromat/Nagaoka GL-601 Crystal Record Weight/Isonoe feet & boots/Ortofon RS-212D/Denon DL-103GL in Denon PCL-300 headshell with Funk Firm Houdini/Kondo SL-115 pure-silver cartridge leads.

    Paul Hynes MC head amp/SR5 PSU. Also modded Lentek head amp/Denon AU-310 SUT.

    Other Cartridges: Nippon Columbia (NOS 1987) Denon DL-103. USA-made Shure SC35C with NOS stylus. Goldring G820 with NOS stylus. Shure M55E with NOS stylus.

    CD Player: Audiocom-modified Sony X-777ES/DAS-R1 DAC.

    Tape Deck: Tandberg TCD 310, fully restored and recalibrated as new, by RDE, plus upgraded with heads from the TCD-420a. Also with matching TM4 Norway microphones.

    Preamps: Heavily-modified Croft Charisma-X. LDR Stereo Coffee. Power Amps: Tube Distinctions Copper Amp fitted with Tungsol KT-150s. Quad 306.

    Cables & Sundries: Mark Grant HDX1 interconnects and digital coaxial cable, plus Mark Grant 6mm UP-LCOFC Van Damme speaker cable. MCRU 'Ultimate' mains leads. Lehmann clone headphone amp with vintage Koss PRO-4AAA headphones.

    Tube Distinctions digital noise filter. VPI HW16.5 record cleaning machine.

    Speakers: Tannoy 15MGs in Lockwood cabinets with modified crossovers. 1967 Celestion Ditton 15.


    Protect your HUMAN RIGHTS and REFUSE ANY *MANDATORY* VACCINE FOR COVID-19!

    Also **SAY NO** to unjust 'vaccine passports' or certificates, which are totally incompatible with a FREE society!!!


  8. #18
    Join Date: Jun 2010

    Location: Essex, United Kingdom

    Posts: 899
    I'm givingyouaprettygoodclue.

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    I don't think that my listening is always the same day-to-day and suspect that differences which I perceive between minor changes in my system hardware are sometimes down to whether I have a cold (or at least the status of my sinuses / inner ear that particular day) or am tired or simply my general mood.

    Sometimes when comparing turntables, arms and cartridges I resorted to recording 20 second sections of tracks onto CD-R then transferring these sections to a new CD-R along with recordings of the same pieces from the other equipment. Listening to them without gaps, with the CD-R jumbled so that I didn't know without checking which was from which source, helped me to be certain of the differences that I was hearing. Clearly I lack golden ears and had too much spare time.

    Pete

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