Settings and a lesson

I recently changed major components in my system. New amplifier chips PS capacitors etc., also added decoupling caps in the signal path and new bass drive units in the speakers. Many things changed all at once.

So they all needed burning in. But since these changes were made the sound has had a hard edge a glare to it that was not there before it just did not sound as good less detail also. Obviously this was caused by the new components wasn't it? maybe adding decoupling capacitors? Add to that PA which makes the system sound better - overall result confusion better in some areas but overall not as good, SQ just not right. So I left the system running for many hours to burn it in but it still did not sound right.

So I thought that it was all to with PA and SFS size all the other settings that can be changed in XX. I ended up with SFS of 430 Q1=20Q1F=10 and hey presto some improvement those hard edges and glare reduced - I had to be on the right track. So was this the answer?

Well no - not even close. And today I found out why. I took the amplifier out to make a couple of changes - just tidying up no changes that would make any difference to SQ. It was then I noticed that the speaker terminals on the back of the amp were all loose (arrgh what a thing to admit) - meaning that the speaker wires were not clamped tightly. This was because I had fitted caps over the terminals when I made the above changes to the system and unknowingly had loosened the terminals (don't ask you will just have to believe me on that). So I tightened all the terminals as a matter of course and thought no more of it.

Oh boy when I sat down to listen SQ is back to where it was and more (with PA)- it sounds fantastic. I mean really the best it ever has and some.

But the interesting thing is that when I was not happy with SQ I made big changes to XX settings thinking they were the cause. I played with SFS increasing it to 430 increasing Q1F to 10 etc so with a big latency. And yes the big problems with SQ were significantly improved. But after many hours listening it was clear it was not a fix.

So now with everything working properly I have just been playing with settings in XX and it is clear that whilst they do change the SQ they do not change it (for me anyway) in any fundamental way. So now I am coming back down to lower SFS settings and Q factors i.e. reduced latency and the lower latency settings sound better to me.

I may be completely wrong on this but it does seem to me that increasing the latency does not changed the basic SQ but it does provide a "smoothing" effect (and these effects could depend on the amount of resource of the PC etc so complicated). Well maybe or maybe not but the really important thing is that big changes in latency now do not really impact on the superb SQ I now get.

And through all this the humble GainClone sounds just superb. It would be interesting to hear Mani's Sauermann amps at some time I am sure they would be better but it would be interesting to at least get some measure of just how good these GainClones are relative to the best kit.

P

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