Anyone HEARD the qol 'signal completion' device?

I've read both new reviews and after having been able to listen to a QOL for a few hours, I don't agree.

I found QOL effects seductive but not more realistic. Spatially, it does perceptually enlarge the sonic stage but more by pulling apart the center and compressing placements toward the left and right extremes than by actually enlarging it. Anything left in the center suddenly has a lot of space around it, whether that's natural or not. Front to back dimensioning is more of an actual asset but here QOL makes you a first row listener regardless of what would be natural for the performance or consistent with your habits if listening live. It also presented height dimensioning too large to be authentic in almost every case. And human voices sound like they originate from three-foot throats resonating into 16 foot chest cavities. In fact overall this was the most distracting aspect of QOL -- its in-your-face presentation even when a more distant perspective is natural or known to be in the recording itself.

Tonally, I heard QOL introducing seductive distortions to natural sound that are easily enjoyed for being ultra-vivid, but saturated of tone and texture beyond what's heard from real instruments even up close. I thought QOL sound was highly entertaining and so of course its greatest advantage was Blu-Ray cinema sound. There is some merit to the observation that phase coherence renders aural events more revealed and precise. But again it forces a guitar-is-6-inches-from-your-ear experience with string plucks and wood resonance that no one hears other than the player, and even then he or she doesn't hear THAT from a playing position.

So on balance I believe reviewers, so often unmoored from the sound of actual music played in real spaces, are seduced by the magnified and overwrought presentation rendered by QOL, rather than judging its contribution to convincing fidelity. It is a highly entertaining contribution through aberration, and I can see it making some category of modest systems more engaging through a kind of hallucinogenic euphonic bloom. No doubt fun for some. But if you already have a tonally truthful, realistically resolving system, my advice is to put $4,000 into more music or something else on the gear side that's genuinely advancing of musical truth. QOL is a funhouse mirror for your recordings. You have to seriously consider how long it is before that gets old.

Phil

Wow. Thank you for taking the time to write that review. Was your audition in your own system? I've heard some of the things you describe, like the much larger than life vocal presentation, in poorly set up systems with very good components. I leave thinking the owner or dealer should really spend more time to properly place the speakers and listener in the room. They also usually need to consider room treatments. What you describe is very distracting if the goal is to capture what is on the recording. Of course, that is not always the goal.

This thread is a year old now. Do the early adopters still own their devices?

Peterayer, I still own and enjoy the QOL. It is important to bring your speakers closer together to capture the center image properly.

If you want a really good read, take a gander at Jim Merod's QOL review on Positive Feedback. Jim is a guy that, shall we say, likes to "show off". The kind of guy that you might refer to as "really likes to hear himself speak".

Here is a snipet for your amusement:

"So, let me close, temporarily once again, since this explaining stuff and being inclined toward ideas and inspiration, maybe a speculation now and then, is real work cuz ill-considered questions make a guy want to crawl into an ice house on a hot day with a keg of Harp's lager or Boddington's ale along with V. S. Ramachandran's most recent book to ease the tug of imbecilic sophmorisms that music (at the outset) was supposed to dissolve... or confound ahead of time. Jim Merod"

Yeah, that's some good s&*t right there.

Shakey

Peterayer,

I heard QOL in two systems, one of which I wasn't familiar with much of the gear. The bulk of my time with it was in a meticulously built system in a Rives-designed room, and I was highly familiar with the gear. This was a six figures system of very high resolution, accuracy and convincing tonality. While my comments derived from this audition, my responses to QOL were same hearing it through an unfamiliar hifi too.

I should add that the owner preferred listening with QOL in the loop though he hears what I noted and whether just entertaining or real to him, he likes it. For me QOL was mostly euphonic splash which was a distraction from sonic realism. I can understand why a friend who heard it thinks it has value adding tone to hifi powered by lean solid state amps.

Phil