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Post by antonio on May 30, 2023 15:09:11 GMT
brucew268 Listen to some music and enjoy what you have. I've been messing with ethernet cables and switches, I can no longer tell the difference at my age.  Give yourself some time and then try the spikes, it may or may not make a difference.
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Post by brucew268 on Apr 9, 2024 16:13:52 GMT
Chasing an elusive HF issue Over the last month the music was sounding especially good out of the HiFi on most recordings. Naturalness and transparency were excellent. Every once in a while, though, I’d play an album that didn’t sound as good as it did in previous years, so was wondering what was causing that.
Looking around, I noticed that the mains lead to the DAC is long enough that it’s in tension against the wall behind. That is probably having a damping effect that helps some part of the frequency range and hurts another, fortunately on only a few albums. When I rearranged the mains lead to hang free, the high frequencies now were a bit ear-bleeding and in your face. So, I put it back, but it niggled.
Had it been that bad before I moved the DAC to a place that levered the mains lead against the wall? In any case, I knew that if I moved the mains lead, I’d have to compensate somewhere else.
In the end I had to make three changes to get back close to the desired sound:
Preamplifier feet: I had small 9mm hard cabinet bumpers for feet and so changed out to regular 21mm rubber tapered feet. That tamed the HF but now had too much mid-range bloom. The feet were 20mm from the edges at the corners and so I moved them closer, 9mm from the edges and that helped but had still a little too much midrange. I then switched them out with 16mm rubber feet which helped further.
Balanced Transformer damping: the balanced transformer case is a bit oversized and steel with a 36mm disc of SilentCoat for damping. I changed that out for a smaller one and have played with removing it altogether. Between the less damping here and the smaller preamplifier feet, the midrange and the HF were now pretty balanced but with more HF detail than before the start of these changes.
Wall Acoustics: With that increased HF detail also came glare, unfortunately. And I was also noting that the imaging had suffered since last week moving one of the cabinets to a spot behind my listening position. After a little experimentation, I added two more acoustic absorption panels which seems to have resolved the glare and the imaging again has good depth and specificity. |
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on Apr 9, 2024 16:20:09 GMT
Mad how all of these little things are having an effect on your listening. Once you have dialled it all in, you won't be able to change any components or you'll be back to square one!
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Post by brucew268 on Apr 9, 2024 16:29:15 GMT
Mad how all of these little things are having an effect on your listening. Once you have dialled it all in, you won't be able to change any components or you'll be back to square one! Isn't it! Quite. |
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optical
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Post by optical on Apr 9, 2024 16:33:29 GMT
Very impressive commitment and findings Bruce, as ever.
Great stuff 👍
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Post by brucew268 on Apr 9, 2024 19:20:22 GMT
Very impressive commitment and findings Bruce, as ever. Great stuff 👍 It is a bit maddening at the time though when you just want to enjoy the music... in spite of the room and your means!! |
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Post by brucew268 on May 11, 2024 8:23:47 GMT
I switched one of my DACS for the other waited 24 hours, wasn't happy and waited another 24 hours. It was worse than previous! Started checking what I might have set up wrong and in the end found that rebooting the Mutec brought things back into a normal range. I guess after a couple months and a couple swaps of attached boxes, it had become unstable and needed a reboot.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 11, 2024 8:33:40 GMT
BTW, i forgot to say, those Wago connectors use an Aluminium busbar, not copper.
I bought some and cracked one open. Definitely aluminium.
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Post by brucew268 on May 11, 2024 10:21:42 GMT
BTW, i forgot to say, those Wago connectors use an Aluminium busbar, not copper. I bought some and cracked one open. Definitely aluminium. Interesting. Their literature several years ago seemed to make a big deal of being all copper contacts and bus, but perhaps that has changed. The datasheet for 221 says the "Connectable conductor materials" are copper, and the 222 series says the "Connectable conductor materials" are copper and aluminum. But I assume that you are looking at 221 series and also that the datasheet has legal ramifications.
In any case, I think they perform excellently, both physically and in regards to the HiFi SQ result. I've also noted that numerous HiFi connectors across several brands claim "copper" but in some other places admit it is a particular alloy with the alloyed ingredients and percentages unspecified.
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Post by brucew268 on May 11, 2024 11:09:09 GMT
I switched one of my DACS for the other waited 24 hours, wasn't happy and waited another 24 hours. It was worse than previous! Started checking what I might have set up wrong and in the end found that rebooting the Mutec brought things back into a normal range. I guess after a couple months and a couple swaps of attached boxes, it had become unstable and needed a reboot. Unless it was the solar storm?! |
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 11, 2024 11:19:43 GMT
BTW, i forgot to say, those Wago connectors use an Aluminium busbar, not copper. I bought some and cracked one open. Definitely aluminium. Interesting. Their literature several years ago seemed to make a big deal of being all copper contacts and bus, but perhaps that has changed. The datasheet for 221 says the "Connectable conductor materials" are copper, and the 222 series says the "Connectable conductor materials" are copper and aluminum. But I assume that you are looking at 221 series and also that the datasheet has legal ramifications.
In any case, I think they perform excellently, both physically and in regards to the HiFi SQ result. I've also noted that numerous HiFi connectors across several brands claim "copper" but in some other places admit it is a particular alloy with the alloyed ingredients and percentages unspecified.
Yeah, 221. The data sheet as I read it was saying that copper was the connection...as in, they are made for copper. There is also an excerpt regarding aluminium wire which talks about the drop in rating, which is exactly what happens at installations when you attach aluminium busbar to aluminium wires. |
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Post by brucew268 on Aug 27, 2024 13:42:04 GMT
I used to think that better imaging was down to better reproduction of HF details, which I suppose was due to noticing the HF details on better imaging kit. But in the last year, I’ve noticed that more realistic 3D imaging involves the midrange frequencies establishing the shape of instruments and that too much HF detail actually hurts the imaging.
In my small listening room, my most recent furniture rearrangement did not leave room for the bass trap in the corner behind one of the speakers, and the resulting bass had less weight, depth, and definition. So last weekend I adjusted a cabinet and reinstalled that bass trap so that a bass trap was again in both corners behind the speakers. Not only did the depth, weight, definition, and pitch of the bass significantly improve but also the dynamics and the high frequencies.
However, the midrange seemed a bit on the cool side of neutral and the HF detail was a bit too much, which hurt imaging and the see-into-the-music transparency I’m used to. Since many of my acoustic panels lean a bit rather than being completely vertical, I decided to lean this bass trap about an inch back… which sorted it. The dynamics are not as amazing as when vertical, but the transparency and realistic edges and tone of the instruments are better. Happy.
In general, I’ve noticed in this small room that whether acoustic panels are angled and by how much makes a significant difference to the sound presentation, allowing for a lot of “tuning”.
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Give yourself some time and then try the spikes, it may or may not make a difference.
