I love these responses. I am also a believer in everything matters. I think some percieved differences in sound quality are very slight and may not even be happening and certainly not measurable. However, there is no denying many of us claim to hear changes where others say is impossible. Like art our own perceptions vary greatly. Synergy and the human body are things no one understands completely. I think we should all agree if we think something is happening than it just may be and even if it is not, tweaking is a lot more fun.
Good and bad w/ replacing stock preamp jumpers?
In the past several days I replaced the stock preamp jumpers on my integrated ($2800 retail) with aftermarket jumpers. I was told once by an audiophile he felt that removing the stock jumpers on my integrated (the amp in question was an expensive one-$5k) for aftermarket jumpers can change the tonal balance of an integrated, thus changing the designers intended sonic presentation. What are your thoughts on this? What's your experience with aftermarket jumpers? Also, aren't the preamp jumpers perfoming the same function as interconnects do between a separate preamplifier and separate power amp? And if they are, why do most of these manufacturers use cheap pieces of metal to connect an integrated's preamp to amp? This occurs even in some of the better more expensive integrateds? Why not provide a quality connection that could conceivably improve the sonics of the unit? I've read where audiophiles with integrateds routinely replace these cheap metal jumpers with a quality interconnect and gain improvements. It makes no sense that a manufacturer spends the money on R&D to build a quality integrated with quality parts and then compromises it with a poor quality connection between the preamp and amp when there is all this hubbub in audiophilia about better and more exotic interconnects that will take your system to the next level. If the quality of interconnects are considered by almost everyone in the audio world to be so vital to an audio systems performace why is the quality of the preamp jumper no less important? Or am I way off base here? Thanks for your perspective.
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I tried the Audioquest RCA pre-amp jumpers and could not hear any discernible difference between them and the metal pins that came stock on my McIntosh MA6900 integrated amp. For reference, the metal pins are insulated and looks a lot like these here, except they are gold plated and stamped McIntosh. I was hoping for something as it would have been an inexpensive upgrade. Alas, nothing. |
McIntosh MA6900 integrated amp. For reference, the metal pins are insulated and looks a lot like these here, except they are gold plated and stamped McIntosh. Try pure silver like the mhconley post, night and day, gold over copper (Mcintosh) vs pure silver, different you will hear it. Copper with silver clad makes a change in the mids, you might not like, clean copper or pure silver, nice change. I've done it and tinkered with a MA6900, and the surround was an MX120, on a house boat. Nice little nugget for 2 dollars worth of good copper or 15 for silver. Regards |
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