Is it the speakers?


I while back, I commented to the forum about the current speakers i recently purchased (audio physics Caldera) and how the sound was different than my previous mains which were Klipschorns. About 1 month later, i am still a little perplexed why some LP's sound thin and some have a sound similar to what i remember. One of the responses highlighted that a driver i replaced needed breaking in and after about 50 hours of listening, I do see that as part of the issue. Another comment was the Amplification (i am using a Yamaha AV style reciever as part of a home theater system which is rated at 800 watts (about 125 per channel). I have not addressed this yet but i will be auditioning a couple of new dedicated stereo Preamp/amp combo's. Finally, I had put a spare ZYX airy3 cartridge on my maplenoll vs my usual Universe but historically that had change (i do swap from time to time to rotate my cartridges).I had not seen this big of a change but that yet was another change. However, last nite, I got a major "AHA" moment when after listening to a Moody blues album, i put on Allen Toussaint (bright mississippi) on and my jaw dropped. I had always liked the album for its clean sound, depth of soundstage, and love the music period. However, this was such a change in what i had historically heard from my setup which included the Klipschorns. I have heard Allen play probably about 20 times, some in very small venues like the old tipitina or Warehouse in New Orleans so i know his live music well. TOnite he was in the house. THe fullness and sharpness of each note on the piano, the subtle background cymbal and tamborine was just amazing. The faint scuffle of the tapdancer on one of the tracks was unreal. I am now thinking that the resolution of the Caldera system just is showing some of the weakness in some of the recordings versus not necessarily a bad match with my amplification. Have others had a similar "aha" moment when changing components or am i just one scotch (macallen) over the line?
oilmanmojo

Showing 1 response by mikewerner

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Good for you to bring this up.
What I hope is that more of my collection sounds good when I "upgrade" a component.
Too often we get hooked or charmed by a particular presentation. This or that sounds really good, avoiding the other "poorly recorded material."
What I have found is the "poorly recorded material" in my collection is not really poorly recorded, but instead it highlights a weaknesses in my system.
Using these recordings as a way to gain insight into my system's flaws has been very rewarding.
For example, I had a pr of Snell E speakers with rear firing aux. tweeters. These really made piano music ringÂ… lots or "air." Well this was good on some recordings and not so much on others. It was a distortion that was complimentary to some types of music.
Or, take a bass shy system. Would you listen to the organ works of Bach? Probably not, but transcriptions for guitar may sound fantastic!
So, if something sounded great before you change a component and then not so great after, either you have removed a distortion or added one. It can be hard to tell and is not obvious!
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