Hi all,
A few months back I posted on What Hi Fi's forum (RIP) about Proac 1SCs hurting my ears. Those who helped out requested I report back with progress, and having seen a few of you around these parts, The Wam seems the right place for a follow up.
The short story: compared to when I first posted, I'm now in audio heaven. The long story is... well... long (unless, SPOILER ALERT, you look at my Wam profile). Most importantly I learned some really valuable lessons along the way.
Back in May I was battling harsh upper mids and lower treble. Listening fatigue set in early. I caught a sensitively-eared friend wincing at my system's high notes. The rig was a Space Optimised Linn Majik streamer feeding a NOS Mullarded Croft pre, a Nord power and Proac 1SC speakers - all bought blind, based on reviews and multi-forum hype. To me, the Proacs were the problem because Stereophile said they could be bright in small under-furnished rooms like mine. I put this to the WHF collective, and the response was swift.
Someone kindly suggested Harbeths or Spendor Classics, while another reported good things of Acoustic Energy actives. So I tottered off to marvellous Audio Gold in North London, who kindly loaned me a beautiful pair of used Spendor SP3-1R2s and a set of Acoustic Energy AE1 Actives. The Spendors were wonderful - like the Proacs but more of everything - but a frosty harshness still came through. Switching in the AE1s the harshness evaporated, but at the expense of the treble air I'd been spoiled with by the Proacs. It began to dawn that maybe speakers weren't the issue.
Back went the Spendors and AE1s, and I returned home to Clapton with another Audio Gold loaner. This time a mighty brick of a Quad 606 power amp - quite an effort on the 106 bus. The Quad played nicer with the Proacs adding guts and organic reality. But like the AE1s, this warm generosity ended at the top end. The 606 couldn't scour the Nord's crystalline highs. So I put in a email to Adrian at Audio Flair. A couple of days later a loaner Croft 7R power came, saw the 606 and the Nord, and conquered. Croft fans abound on The Wam so I won't go on, but for me, in the 7R Glenn has created an unassuming black box that stirs in Quad's guts and Nord's glistening highs, adds molten honey valve magic and feeds my Proacs a truth they've never yet known. The 7R was a keeper.
BIG LESSON ONE - Glistening reviews and forum plaudits don't mean a component will work in my system
Even bearing two rounds of valves, my system still had a brittle edge. A WHF forum member suggested curtains, so I feigned interior design interest and proposed softening our glassy apartment. By chance my girlfriend's mum found two heavyweights in a charity shop and, following a trip to Wickes for the manliest drill I will ever buy, up they went. Another WHF forum mentioned speaker toe in and I began experimenting, ending up with the Proacs pointed straight at the listening position rather than just angled in from dead ahead. Now things were really improving.
BIG LESSON TWO - The environment and positioning of speakers can have as much impact as big component changes
But still there was a harshness. I realised my digital rig was the sole perpetrator. My turntable was all warmth and friendliness. The Linn DSi suddenly looked suspicious. But surely a streamer from a company as worshipped as Linn couldn't possibly be a problem? Funds were limited and if I were to ditch the multi-talented DSi, I'd need a streamer or server, a phono stage, some form of digital room correction, and a DAC. Long story shortened, I brought in an iMac that I already owned and added Audirvana and a parametric eq plugin for room correction. I had a Project Phono Box kicking around, and I got a used DSPeaker Anti Mode to room correct my turntable. Then I bought in a used Chord 2Qute to take on DAC duties.
The new additions utterly destroyed the DSi. An Audirvanaed iMac bested its streamer, DSPeaker's microphone-based room correction made a mockery of its Space Optimisation in my flat and the Chord revealed instrumental timbre the Linn DAC could only dream of. The one area I'm still lacking is the phono stage, as the Project doesn't touch the preamp built into the Linn - probably my next upgrade.
BIG LESSON THREE - Multi-talented all-in-one boxes from big name hi fi manufacturers can easily be bettered by separates for similar money **OR** digital moves fast and a 2009 streamer/DAC is easily outclassed by more recent tech.
With the Linn sold and its replacements fuelling my system, everything just sounds right. I was looking to tame harshness, and I have now achieved this, but I have also gained wonderful tonal saturation, deep bass, and shimmering highs. My system finally sounds fun and movingly beautiful with any type of music. And the grand total spent? Happily almost everything cancelled out... the combined sales of the Linn and the Nord covered the Croft, DSPeaker, Chord and software, and the curtains came for free. The only thing I actually ended up paying for was £60 for that burly drill. Which leaves me with the most important lesson of all...
FUNDAMENTAL LESSON FOUR - Hi fi is not about buying expensive, well-reviewed components blind and expecting them to work together in a perfect sounding system that loves all music genres in equal measure. It's about carefully matching components and allowing each to bring out the strengths of the other by listening to what works.
Of course most of you reading (still??) this probably already know it, and maybe a few of you have been through a similar rite of passage as mine to understand it. There are clearly still areas of my system that could be improved, and I'm looking forward to ironing out its wrinkles for the rest of my life. I also feel I owe Audio Gold a return for their help. I haven't forgotten those Spendors...
Finally, a big thanks to those of you who pitched in on my initial What Hi Fi question - you sent me on a good path.
And if you've got this far, you must be as much of a hi fi nut as I am.
A few months back I posted on What Hi Fi's forum (RIP) about Proac 1SCs hurting my ears. Those who helped out requested I report back with progress, and having seen a few of you around these parts, The Wam seems the right place for a follow up.
The short story: compared to when I first posted, I'm now in audio heaven. The long story is... well... long (unless, SPOILER ALERT, you look at my Wam profile). Most importantly I learned some really valuable lessons along the way.
Back in May I was battling harsh upper mids and lower treble. Listening fatigue set in early. I caught a sensitively-eared friend wincing at my system's high notes. The rig was a Space Optimised Linn Majik streamer feeding a NOS Mullarded Croft pre, a Nord power and Proac 1SC speakers - all bought blind, based on reviews and multi-forum hype. To me, the Proacs were the problem because Stereophile said they could be bright in small under-furnished rooms like mine. I put this to the WHF collective, and the response was swift.
Someone kindly suggested Harbeths or Spendor Classics, while another reported good things of Acoustic Energy actives. So I tottered off to marvellous Audio Gold in North London, who kindly loaned me a beautiful pair of used Spendor SP3-1R2s and a set of Acoustic Energy AE1 Actives. The Spendors were wonderful - like the Proacs but more of everything - but a frosty harshness still came through. Switching in the AE1s the harshness evaporated, but at the expense of the treble air I'd been spoiled with by the Proacs. It began to dawn that maybe speakers weren't the issue.
Back went the Spendors and AE1s, and I returned home to Clapton with another Audio Gold loaner. This time a mighty brick of a Quad 606 power amp - quite an effort on the 106 bus. The Quad played nicer with the Proacs adding guts and organic reality. But like the AE1s, this warm generosity ended at the top end. The 606 couldn't scour the Nord's crystalline highs. So I put in a email to Adrian at Audio Flair. A couple of days later a loaner Croft 7R power came, saw the 606 and the Nord, and conquered. Croft fans abound on The Wam so I won't go on, but for me, in the 7R Glenn has created an unassuming black box that stirs in Quad's guts and Nord's glistening highs, adds molten honey valve magic and feeds my Proacs a truth they've never yet known. The 7R was a keeper.
BIG LESSON ONE - Glistening reviews and forum plaudits don't mean a component will work in my system
Even bearing two rounds of valves, my system still had a brittle edge. A WHF forum member suggested curtains, so I feigned interior design interest and proposed softening our glassy apartment. By chance my girlfriend's mum found two heavyweights in a charity shop and, following a trip to Wickes for the manliest drill I will ever buy, up they went. Another WHF forum mentioned speaker toe in and I began experimenting, ending up with the Proacs pointed straight at the listening position rather than just angled in from dead ahead. Now things were really improving.
BIG LESSON TWO - The environment and positioning of speakers can have as much impact as big component changes
But still there was a harshness. I realised my digital rig was the sole perpetrator. My turntable was all warmth and friendliness. The Linn DSi suddenly looked suspicious. But surely a streamer from a company as worshipped as Linn couldn't possibly be a problem? Funds were limited and if I were to ditch the multi-talented DSi, I'd need a streamer or server, a phono stage, some form of digital room correction, and a DAC. Long story shortened, I brought in an iMac that I already owned and added Audirvana and a parametric eq plugin for room correction. I had a Project Phono Box kicking around, and I got a used DSPeaker Anti Mode to room correct my turntable. Then I bought in a used Chord 2Qute to take on DAC duties.
The new additions utterly destroyed the DSi. An Audirvanaed iMac bested its streamer, DSPeaker's microphone-based room correction made a mockery of its Space Optimisation in my flat and the Chord revealed instrumental timbre the Linn DAC could only dream of. The one area I'm still lacking is the phono stage, as the Project doesn't touch the preamp built into the Linn - probably my next upgrade.
BIG LESSON THREE - Multi-talented all-in-one boxes from big name hi fi manufacturers can easily be bettered by separates for similar money **OR** digital moves fast and a 2009 streamer/DAC is easily outclassed by more recent tech.
With the Linn sold and its replacements fuelling my system, everything just sounds right. I was looking to tame harshness, and I have now achieved this, but I have also gained wonderful tonal saturation, deep bass, and shimmering highs. My system finally sounds fun and movingly beautiful with any type of music. And the grand total spent? Happily almost everything cancelled out... the combined sales of the Linn and the Nord covered the Croft, DSPeaker, Chord and software, and the curtains came for free. The only thing I actually ended up paying for was £60 for that burly drill. Which leaves me with the most important lesson of all...
FUNDAMENTAL LESSON FOUR - Hi fi is not about buying expensive, well-reviewed components blind and expecting them to work together in a perfect sounding system that loves all music genres in equal measure. It's about carefully matching components and allowing each to bring out the strengths of the other by listening to what works.
Of course most of you reading (still??) this probably already know it, and maybe a few of you have been through a similar rite of passage as mine to understand it. There are clearly still areas of my system that could be improved, and I'm looking forward to ironing out its wrinkles for the rest of my life. I also feel I owe Audio Gold a return for their help. I haven't forgotten those Spendors...
Finally, a big thanks to those of you who pitched in on my initial What Hi Fi question - you sent me on a good path.
And if you've got this far, you must be as much of a hi fi nut as I am.
Last edited by a moderator:
