On the road to audiophile experience
I am an audiophile. Ever since I was very young, I remember always perking up my ears whenever I was in the situation to hear an above-average sound reproduction. So naturally, I was drawn toward acquiring a decent hi fi system.
Now, my curse is that I have other passions, other expensive hobbies (collecting quality guitars ain't cheap), etc. So I was never in the position to allocate all my hobby budget to audio components alone. My road to the audiophile experience was a rocky one, strewn with all kinds of tradeoffs and compromises.
Despite all that cautiousness, over the years I've managed to spend a pretty penny on my audio equipment. Many of those purchases have been a blind alley, a complete waste of money, but every education comes at a cost. All in all, I was prone to believing that I do have a decent audio system. Many of my friends kept reinforcing that conclusion, so I was kind of satisfied with what I've managed to cobble up thus far.
Still, deep inside, I always felt that my system is not good enough. There was always certain harshness, certain graininess that kept bothering me. No matter what component I'd upgrade or swap, the hardened edginess, certain glare or glassiness in the sound, something unpleasant remained.
One reason I returned to turntable front end is to try and tame that edginess in sound. Got me a nicely refurbished Systemdek IIX with decent Rega RB300 tonearm and decided to fit it with Denon DL-103 cartridge. That cartridge is legendary for its pronounced 'analog' sound. Paired it with Denon AU-310 SUT, and believed I now have 'match made in heaven'.
But a little worm in my head kept bugging me. "Is this really how you think warm analog sound should be?" little worm of doubt kept asking me. And in all honesty, I couldn't help it, I had to reply "No, this is far from how I expect full analog reproduction to sound. There is still hardness, still graininess, still plenty of edginess!"
So I started going down the list of my components trying to figure out which ones are good enough (keepers), and which ones could potentially be the culprit causing this discreet, discontinuous sound. I eliminated my speakers from the list of potential culprits -- Maggies are quite revealing, but cannot be accused of not delivering continuous, liquid sound. Nordost speaker cables are also quite revealing, but cannot cause this non-liquid graininess.
My separates (DPA combo) are pretty decent as well, and I don't think they are causing this 'electronic glare' I'm hearing when listening to my system. My interconnects (AudioQuest Red River and Golden Gate) should not contribute to the electronic glare either. I'm also using Shunyata power cables on all my equipment, which I think is a decent way to power your audio system.
Systemdek is an old school workhorse turntable, and there isn't anything wrong with its performance. I've modded it per Chris's recommendations, made it almost perfectly level, and I feel that it works as advertised. Rega RB300 tonearm is no slouch either. And of course, Denon DL-103 cartridge & Denon AU-310 SUT are a legendary combo, so those components cannot be accused of producing glassy sound either.
So that leaves me with my phono preamp -- Emotiva XPS-1. That little component has been garnering a lot of positive reviews, you know the ones that claim how it punches above its weight. Still, I got the feeling that it is this little box that is muddying the waters for me. So I decided to start looking for a replacement.
I started auditioning various phono preamps that could fit within my modest budget. I did side-by-side comparisons, beginning with Creek phono, then Pro-ject phono box, Rega phono, all the way up to Clearaudio Basic +. It was an interesting series of experiments, where I started discerning various qualities that different phono boxes bring to the table. Each one was different, of course, improving one aspect of the playback while sacrificing some other aspect, and so on. But regardless of those changes, all those boxes still resulted in that grainy, glassy, non-continuous sound that I grew to detest so much. Something was amiss, that's for sure. The sound wasn't as smooth as I'd like it to be.
And then I plugged in iFi Micro iPhono 2. Right from the first second of the playback, my system was fully transformed! It's as if someone had gutted it and replaced everything with brand new components. For the first time in my life, I was hearing that smooth, silky, warm, relaxed, non-grainy, non-electronic, fully organic natural sound. Something about that box in my audio chain just fits in right, and makes every other component sing in harmony.
Finally, I can say with confidence that I've made an entry to the first rung of the audiophile sound reproduction!
Moral of the story -- as is always the case, the chain is as strong as its weakest link. In my case, the weakest link was the phono stage. I could've kept spending large sums of money on better speakers, better cables, better separates, better turntable, better tonearm, better cartridge, none of that would've satisfied me if the main culprit, the grainy Emotiva phono, remained in the audio chain. So it really pays to do a little detective work, invest some time and money upfront, in order to troubleshoot unsatisfactory performance. It is only now, once I reached this entry point into the audiophile world, that I feel I can begin to make meaningful upgrades to my stereo.
Of course, the usual caveat applies: my room, my audio chain, my ears. YMMV.
