System Plateau - Ideas?


The last time I plateau’d was
Rega RP6 (Ortofon Black) > Musical Surroundings Nova II > Line Magnetic 518ia > DeVore O/93 

2 changes, more recently:
1. Switched amplification to
DeHavilland Ultraverve III (Dueland Special) > FirstWatt Aleph J
2. Also replaced Ortofon Black with a Hana ML.

Overall very nice, but I feel I’m missing a bit of “edge”.
One direction I’ve been leaning is single driver (researching Omega). Another direction would be rethinking amplification. Has anyone plateau’d here? What did you try?

Of course, everything sounds perfectly fine as is :)

Cheers,
John
dotchaos
Do you still have your LM tube amp lying around by chance?

What do you mean by missing "edge", does that mean you are missing more detail or snap or resolution somehow...

Also, noticed you went from nice tube to nice solid state amplification, and while both are nice - they are different in sound and presentation as you well know having owned both of these very nice amplifiers.

Past few years I hit that spot again myself. Went back to rotating in SS vs. Tube amps again, and landed back at tube amps for one simple reason - the ability to make changes on the fly. Re-trying a wide variety of different input/driver tubes allowing for quick change of sound. While the J2 amp is super nice, you’re kinda locked in, it is what it is, and maybe some IC cable swaps to mess with tone a bit. Cable changes can be fun with SS amps too, a whole topic in itself of course. With your LM amp or other tube amps, you can try and rotate in different caps and different tubes to keep it interesting versus having to buy new speakers or other expensive components.

Some spend decades simply rotating tubes and coupling caps in tube preamps and tube amps for different flavors of sound. With your J2 it’s not like you are going to pop in different JFETs or different transformers, pretty much have to go with what Nelson picked, which also makes that a great amplifier - catch22. :) Don’t let go of that J2 though, keep it if you can. Always fun to rotate a nice ss amp back in too. Different flavors of ice cream! Just wanted to share you are not alone, many of us do the same... kinda what audiophiles do perhaps. Have fun.  :) 


Aftermarket power, Interconnect, and Speaker cables. Also for source, i.e. phono or USB
Overall very nice, but I feel I’m missing a bit of “edge”.

When listening to someone standing right in front of you talking, do you feel you are missing a bit of an "edge"? Just how much of "a bit of an edge" do you hear in real live music? My bet is, whatever that is, you're already hearing about a hundred times as much.