Jimbos Audio ramblings

[Macca]

It does look a bit like your just drying some towels mate.

Of course he bloody is.

[Jimbo]

These guys were very useful moving another panel into place.

2F83F4C8-51B5-41D4-BC23-01AEF147D56D by , on Flickr

[brian2957]

These guys were very useful moving another panel into place.

2F83F4C8-51B5-41D4-BC23-01AEF147D56D by , on Flickr

Jumbo and Jimbo Nice panel BTW. Size and position relative to speakers please. In otherwards piccies or it didn't appen

[Jimbo]

So this afternoon I thought I best fire up the digital system which is a rag bag assortment of cheap as sh*t gear thrown together with a bunch of wires and cables that are equally cheap as sh*t. The whole set up cost £125 + cables so beyond budget system build.

Sat here this afternoon after warming it up for an hour or so and it sounded almost acceptable as long as you fed it with top notch mastered stuff.

I wonder what my guest will make of it tomorrow evening?

[brian2957]

Yup, this will be interesting

[Jimbo]

Yup, this will be interesting

I have also reconfigured the room mate and will post pics and full analysis over the weekend after tomorrows session.

[brian2957]

Look forward to it James

[Wakefield Turntables]

yep, nice to see how you've been getting on.

[Jimbo]

So I had an interesting and enjoyable evening with my guest on Friday. I had decided to reconfigure the room without the sofa between the speakers as I know this is not considered the "Audiophile" thing to do. During the day I had been evaluating privately what I thought regarding the removal of the sofa and my conclusions were that it had some positive but also negative effects. When you walk into my listening room with it in place you can just tell the extra damping factor so it is not insignificant to remove it.

On the plus side my bass gained better definition, articulation and punch but the downside was a general harder sound to the music in the room and a more forward presentation that could sound too much especially with digital material. I popped the sofa back in last night and I think I prefer this set up as I am not particularly a bass head and like more clarity and control in the midrange and top end where I believe all the action should be. But going forward it was considered that I need to add a lot more treatment to the walls which was what I was planning anyway with about 5-6 more acoustic panels lined up.

We listened to my ultra budget digital set up first and to be honest it sounded ok on well mastered material but it was improved significantly once we removed a whole load of electrical noise from the system. I did know that any spurious electrical noise was damaging to digital audio and it is something a lot of manufacturers have been investigating and combating over the last few years. Believe me do anything you can to remove as much of this from your digital system as possible and you will be amazed.

Vinyl took over in the second half of the evening and for me it elevated the listening experience significantly as it had better soundstage, imaging, macro and micro detail, resolution, transparency, naturalness........ I will leave that there.

Good to have another pair of ears listen to the system but always very difficult to make lots of comments because they do not know what is contributing to what ie amplifier, speaker, cable , cartridge...... which bit is influencing the sound most. Impossible to tell unless you know all the equipment intimately. And secondly your system is tuned to you ears and liking in your environment so you may hear it differently to them. At best a session like the other evening can enlighten you to each others taste in music and only touch on their taste in equipment as it is so difficult for them to get their ears/head round the room and equipment. You can only make general comments of the overall big picture/sound as it were.

So many times I have borrowed equipment off friends and listened to it my room and because it is hooked up to a different system in a different room it will often sound very different to how they hear it in their system/room. It may not play nicely with your kit or it may sound superb but obviously very personal taste.

The room set up for the listening session without the sofa.
8BB4CD52-7EF8-4BAE-8B4E-842DD907E95F_1_201_a by , on Flickr

[Barry]

Nice write up Jim. Well done!

What were the sources of electrical noise that you removed? SMPSs?

By the way, I love the look of your living/listening room (but I have to say the appearance of those hawser-like speaker cables would annoy me greatly).