What single change made the biggest improvement in your system?

[Digital_Thor]

No, the room is more important. Symmetry, placement, bringing down RT60 with absorption, dsp to even out room modes.

Ok ok... They can share that space, right?

 

[Snarfie]

Buying a 35,- euro measuring mic in combination with Mathaudio Room EQ downloadable for free. Never encountert such changes.

 

[JeffS7444]

Measurement-based equalization of speakers and headphones has been huge, and quickly dispelled any notion that I needed to break-in my system for best sonics. In the case of Behringer DEQ2496 equipped with measurement mic, you can actually hear the tonal quality of it's pink noise change in real time via it's auto-EQ feature. Not as fancy as newer systems which use a series of brief "chirps" for even greater measurement accuracy, but a dramatic improvement versus no eq nevertheless.

Vinyl: Not a must-have in itself, but it can be a handy way to access older recordings. Combine that with SJPlot measurement software, CBS test record STR100, Parks Audio Waxwing DSP phono preamp and aforementioned Behringer DEQ2496 (as third-octave RTA). The combination lets me separate the music from the noise to a degree which would have been a fantasy not so long ago.

Remastering / remixing of favorite recordings: At it's best, it can significantly upgrade the sonics.

 

[90sNintendoKid]

For me, in my experience, the biggest improvements I’ve experienced is when I used RTA and periodic pink noise to optimise speaker position and mlp position, EQ (your A1 Evo Acoustix and Dirac ART), multiple subwoofers and using speakers with good directivity (Kef, Polk XT20s etc).

Also, I guess this might be controversial in this forum, using nearfield and mlp moving mic method measurements with Magic Beans True Target to create per speaker target curves and doing full range EQ.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

There are three things that made a dramatic improvement in my system. When I was playing vinyl and reel to reel tape I bought a high end Shure cartridge from a stereo store that was going out of business. The difference was shocking. Another thing that made a big difference was speaker upgrades with adding a sub-woofer being the most dramatic. The third thing was learning how to do room calibration. My listening setup has always been kind of a "good 1 watt amp" kind of thing, small rooms. Decent 40wpc amps have always been strong enough that ear splitting volume came about half way through the travel of the volume control.

 

[jhaider]

Interesting topic!

What upgrade did you expect to transform your system but didn’t?

Ca. 2004 maybe, replacing a set of entry level KEF speakers (Q15 LR, I think the center was called Q95c or something like that) with 8” Tannoy duals. I gained sensitivity and headroom but those cheap KEFs with press-in thin plastic baffles (either these or the RDM line were Andrew Jones’s last KEF speakers IIRC) were more refined.

Second, ca 2012, going from entry level AVR power (Anthem MRX 300) to a good and massive separate amp (Sherwood Newcastle A965, which had a glowing review of its design and performance by Dr. David Rich). Not sure it did anything different.

Was it a case of diminishing returns, poor synergy, or just expectation bias?

First and last. There’s no such thing as “synergy,” though the opposite (mismatch) can be real.

On the flip side, what upgrade actually did surprise you with how much it improved things?

My first equalized multisub system, ca. 2005 or 2006, set up using Dr. Geddes’s methods. The EQ and measurement capability was crude by today’s standards—Velodyne SMS-1 with their MIC-5 multiplexer for spatial averaging—and a huge part of the system budget. Subs could only be individually adjusted for level and phase, and PEQ was global. But that setup was the start of a shallowly-up sloping pleateau, and arguably the bass fidelity I’ve been able to get since then, despite mid 5 figures spent over time on elite drivers, custom cabinetry, and high power amps, didn’t really jump up materially until Dirac ART.

Going from “matching” (which is to say mismatched) LCR to properly identical front speakers, fall 2021. The “timbre matched” set was JBL 708i L/R + JBL Synthesis SCL-3 center, which used the same compression driver and horn design. The identical set added a third 708i for center. This works so well I don’t anticipate a change unless something breaks.

Using CBT speakers for side/rear, also fall 2021. No sound quality dropoff compared to the previous setup, and the big problem (localization to the speaker when too close) resolved.

 

[IngMishael]

At some point, most of us have bought into something that was supposed to be a game changer only to realize later the improvement was subtle, system dependent, or maybe not there at all. Other times, a smaller or less hyped change ends up making a bigger impact than expected.

So I’m interested in your real world experiences:

What upgrade did you expect to transform your system but didn’t?
Was it a case of diminishing returns, poor synergy, or just expectation bias?
On the flip side, what upgrade actually did surprise you with how much it improved things?

For context, I’ve been experimenting a lot with measurement based placement and DSP tweaks vs. more traditional component upgrades.

Curious to hear what others have found especially across different systems and listening priorities.

my 4 corner Bass traps I DIYed and a rear wall floor to ceiling absorption panel and ART

 

[skillzmcgavern]

Acoustic treatment, similar to IngMishael.

 

[Ahbeesee]

HouseCurve enabling quick mmm measurements feedback loops to real world changes that would have taken much longer in REW. Thus allowing me to tailor the built in eq options in my JBL 305 L/Rs and my Kali In-8v2 center as well as my diy diffusor to the frequencies needing cancellation / a boost. Going from something like the situation in my kitchen with its roller coaster response to a well-behaved room for well-behaved loudspeakers where modes, SBIR and speaker reaponse etc are seen as a system.
Edit: and being encouraged by HouseCurve to plug the ports of my center speaker and to experiment with only half plugging the ports of my JBL; all ports interacted strongly with my ceiling mode - of which you can still see benign traces in the unsmoothed average reponse of the room. Very gently plugging the L/R ports provided the smoothest overall bass response in the room - smoother than either fully open or fully plugged. Benign local variations remain - example attached - , but the point is the average quality of the room - which is largely, but not fully related to the quality of the average - , as people are watching movies, listening to music or the radio in different spots.

 

[Bjorn]

Considering mediocre speakers can sound really good in a great acoustical treated room but the best speakers will never sound particular well in a poor acoustical room, it is clear the room and the acoustics are the most important factors.

Speakers are second and after that I would say integration of subs and tweaking of the response comes.

 

[SteveC]

To borrow a line from The Bard of Avon, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stereos, but in ourselves..." The single change that made the biggest improvement in my system was realizing that I enjoyed the acquisition much more than the results of the change, and that usually there wasn't much of a difference. I was regularly changing excellent equipment for other excellent equipment and enjoyed spending my money, but after a certain point I wasn't getting better sound and finally i stopped enjoying the hunting and the spending. Since then not much has changed. A few years ago KEF was cleaning out their stock of the original R3's so I bought a pair and some stands. Aside from a new stylus nothing has changed in the years since I bought the KEFs. So, the biggest change was in my head, not in my system.

I'll add that in my opinion there's nothing wrong with buying and selling equipment and trying out a lot of stuff. If it makes you happy and doesn't hurt your personal relationships, for heaven's sake do it!

 

[101geo]

A combination of moving into a house with a 11m x 5m listening room and getting my first high end speakers (For the time) some big KEF Reference 4.2's. I had space to move speakers and myself away from the walls. Final tweak was getting a pair of Threshold power amps, bi-amping them gave close to 500wpc which is what the big KEF's needed (I had a Quad 606 previously) That was a long time ago, more recently, upon discovering ASR, I decided to get a Topping D10B for my office, replacing the pc's internal DAC, feeding a pair of Behringer 2031's. Wow!

 

[Dan]

Dsp and room treatment, no doubt. I’ve always had good speakers and equipment but I was totally ignorant about the effect of the room. I moved from a house that must have had a good listening room by sheer luck to a new home. Total disaster sound wise. My local dealer recommended the McIntosh unit with lyngdorf room correction and that blew my mind. Then I wised up and researched room treatments and hung vicoustic absorption/diffusion which cleaned up the reverb and upper end.

I was very happy with these improvements for a long time then curiosity got the better of me and I acquired the BACCH4mac audiophile edition with ORC room correction. This has been the biggest improvement I’ve ever experienced in my 2 months with it. I know it’s been beaten to death here but it really is revelatory. Like crack for audiophiles addictive.

I was always a cable and other tweaks skeptic (thank god), but I’ve been through multiple preamps and DACs that of course made no difference. I wish I knew about ASR before those expenditures but such is life. I know guys that basically admitted to me that they put themselves into debt with equipment swapping.

 

[sweetsounds]

What upgrade did you expect to transform your system but didn’t?
Was it a case of diminishing returns, poor synergy, or just expectation bias?
On the flip side, what upgrade actually did surprise you with how much it improved things?

This is going to be painful, a long history of an expensive hobby.

Best upgrades:
- Upgrading speakers to Magico S5 Mk II
- Room treatment: bass traps, carpet and ceiling cloud
- Moving to a dedicated listening room with proper placement
- upgrading the DRC to BACCH+ORC

Noteworthy, but small:
- isoacoustics Gaia speaker feet
- PSAudio AVAA, measurable improvement, but not hearable
- ifi DC blocker, removed some hum from my amps

Utterly useless:
- changing DACs to SMSL and Topping, no difference to the built-in DAC
- Highendnovum Resonators. While the reverb effect is measurable, it's not worth the money.
- $15 eBay Schumann resonators to impress the voodoo believers (look nice though )
- power line noise filters (though measurable on the line, no impact on the sound)
- Schnerzinger cables at the price of a small car (never bought them of course, only got them borrowed)

 

[Apesbrain]

Switching from physical media to streaming. I listen to much more music now.

Adding a DSP function to my server. After filtering EQ to flat, I can dial in whatever emphases I like.

 

[Johnboy1964]

At some point, most of us have bought into something that was supposed to be a game changer only to realize later the improvement was subtle, system dependent, or maybe not there at all. Other times, a smaller or less hyped change ends up making a bigger impact than expected.

So I’m interested in your real world experiences:

What upgrade did you expect to transform your system but didn’t?
Was it a case of diminishing returns, poor synergy, or just expectation bias?
On the flip side, what upgrade actually did surprise you with how much it improved things?

For context, I’ve been experimenting a lot with measurement based placement and DSP tweaks vs. more traditional component upgrades.

Curious to hear what others have found especially across different systems and listening priorities.

 

[dweeeeb2]

Overall enjoyment of the music - I went mono with one speaker. I move around for a majority of my listening and mono provides the most stable experience. I can sit anywhere without feeling like I should be sitting in a MLP.

 

[Johnboy1964]

At some point, most of us have bought into something that was supposed to be a game changer only to realize later the improvement was subtle, system dependent, or maybe not there at all. Other times, a smaller or less hyped change ends up making a bigger impact than expected.

So I’m interested in your real world experiences:

What upgrade did you expect to transform your system but didn’t?
Was it a case of diminishing returns, poor synergy, or just expectation bias?
On the flip side, what upgrade actually did surprise you with how much it improved things?

For context, I’ve been experimenting a lot with measurement based placement and DSP tweaks vs. more traditional component upgrades.

Curious to hear what others have found especially across different systems and listening priorities.

Changing rooms.
Back in the late eighties when I still lived with my parents I had put together a pretty decent vinyl playing system. This unfortunately was crammed into my 4 metre square bedroom and it sounded pretty decent if you kept the volume down.
My parents went on holiday leaving me with the house to myself for two weeks so I moved the equipment down to the living room. This room was more than double the size of my bedroom and the sonic improvement was dramatic. Suddenly there was stereo soundstage, bass definition and all those things that the hifi reviewers talked about. If I had spent a small fortune on equipment upgrades and produced the same improvements I would have considered it good value for money.
Sadly after two weeks I had to shift it back upstairs.

 

[Rick63]

Cleaning the wax out of my ears.



























Oh, and buying a pair of Ascend Sierra LXs!

 

[jcarys]

True, just remember if you want to push subwoofers in small cabinets, then you very quickly need loads of juice. But for casual listening we could all live with way less.
I just choose the amplifiers that fitted my pre-emp so that my gain structure was optimal, and then I forgot about it and went back to 'polishing' the speaker, which I think we all agree pretty much is the important thing.... Thank you Floyd

This was back in the 90s, I hadn't even bought my first sub at that point. But I always buy self-powered subs, so I never have to think about amps for them.