Important tips for very good sound in audio systems!
- To get the best sound to your ears choose the shortest path in equipment
and cables! Headphones are the shortest path to the ears and do not have the
positioning and reflection problems of loudspeakers in a room.
- Power cables to your equipment are AC power phasing dependant, therefore
if it is possible, do try turning the plugs 180° in the power outlet to see
if the sound quality changes !
- DVD Audio quality is better than CD audio quality, but the ratio of good
recordings to bad or to extremely bad recordings is very small! I guess that
it is less than 10%, so do not blame your equipment. First try a known good
recording, when it sounds ok, your equipment is ok! MP3 coding and decoding
puts sound into a bottle with a small neck. Most MP3 recordings that I have
heard have low quality sound with the hard 'CD' effect. This is only a problem
presently with MP3. so, My thanks to the tone engineers who belive in high
quality sound with high definition.
- Cables definately do effect sound quality. But to hear the difference,
you have to have good equipment. Do not trust your ears. Your brain influences
your hearing at least 10 % which is more influence than most cables have. The
standard hearing curve for Normal hearing is very unlinear, with more than
12 dB difference according to the loudness and frequency of the sound on the
ears. To work around this, put your best recording in the player and start the
recording. Set the loudness to a level that sounds ok and leave it there. Does
one cable set sound better or only different? Exchange the cables and try again.
Leave at least an hour between and repeat. Good cables are more powerfull, have
more depth, the sound stage is larger and the different sounds are simply more
accurate. Music instruments, with wideband resonance, such as piano, guitar,
drums etc, have more resonance and the sound is simply more real! The easiest
difference that is most noticable is timing. Cheap cables have bad timing.
All instruments that are hit, like drums, top hats, etc. sound as if the sticks,
hammers etc. are wrapped in cloth. The sound has stretched out timing, and is
unreal and without the live feeling.
- By comparing equipment and cables, do not listen for hours trying to hear
differences. You will only get 'head influenced' results because the ears and
brain will get tired! If a difference is not at once noticable, do not push it,
go away and try again later. I have fallen into this trap quite often! Listening
early morning and later evenings is best, because mornings your ears and brain
are functioning better. Evenings after resting is also good while usually AC
power is cleaner after 9:00 PM
- Price of equipment can influence sound quality but you can buy very good
cheap equipment as well as not so good expensive equipment. I once listened to
the most expensive equipment in the world and was not impressed. Another time,
and another place, I listened to a high end chain that was the best that I have
ever listened to. My system comes very close to that one now and I have spent
very much time improving it, since I had that listening experience. I guess
my costs up until now at around Euro 20.000, but my equipment today has a
cost of around Euro 5,000 and the sound is of extremely high quality.
- Excellent sound quality for relative small cost: As startup in the upper
sound level, I recommend our HPA- headphone amps together with a DAK1-HE cable
set and a DVD player with a price above Euro 150. Connecting a good headphone
into this system will sound excellent for a cost of around 500.00 Euro.
- Most of the highly praised headphones do not come up to the sound quality
of my system with speakers. So why do I like headphones? I like Headphones
because they usually have more life and are much more fun. They also do not
disturb the neighbors when I listen a bit louder! Headphones have an extremely
wide sound quality. I have a cheap Sennheiser PMX 40 that sounds excellent,
but only when I press it onto the ears, although not having a hand free, can
be a problem. I have my favorites and they come mostly from Philips. I cannot
recommend the ones that I like because Philips has changed models almost as
often as I change my stockings, but try them out anyway. As I bought my most
loved Headphone from Philips, it was sold as XXL product. I think the ??? 8900
is a follow up model. I have listened to really cheap headphones which were
very good. So, sorry but you have to try headphones out. No matter which one
you like best, it will be highly praised or labeled as junk in the Internet
forens, which is no help at all! The main thing is that you like them and
that they come close to the sound quality of Amity products.
- My home system is a Panasonic DVD S75 playing through Amity DAK1-HE cables
direct to Amity MB1 Monoblocks. The MB1' s have each a volume control which I
set for best loudness and balance. Their outputs go through Amity SPKCAB
cables to Amity 5-Way Speakers which have an added metalband speaker on top
pointing to the ceiling. They go up to 40,000 Hertz. The bass speakers are
'vented' on the back and give a fantastic sound stage and go down to 10Hertz.
The AC power plugs are phased in a 6-outlet strip which is rewired and filtered
for up to 20Amp through to the plug in the wall. This system has the second
best sound that I have ever heard.
- Which headphones do I have, in order of which I love the most and most
often use? Philips SBC HP 890, and 1000, Sennheiser HD600, PMX 40, HD590,
and Philips SBC 3161, SBC HP 140. Which headphones have I heard and can
highly recommend? AKG 601 and 701, Grado RS1 and RS2. These two manufactures
have extremely fine definition (AKG) and extremely clean low frequencies (Grado). A
mix of the good character from both would be the perfect headphone!
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