What single change made the biggest improvement in your system?

[Purité Audio]

ASR.
Keith

 

[boswell]

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.

How did you get mono? I have a need to do this but have heard a variety options and of course each have issues.

 

[jeffbook]

For me it was the following:

1. Linkwitz DIY speakers and information on speaker interaction with rooms on the Linkwitz Lab website (all posted prior to his 2018 passing).
2. A measurement mic calibrated by Cross Spectrum Acoustics.
3. ARTA and REW software for acoustics measurements and DSP filter generation for room correction below the Schroeder frequency.
4. miniDSP products to implement active crossovers and the above DSP filter generation.
5. Proper L and R speaker placement relative to listening position to optimize side wall reflections in my rectangular room.

 

[Shinano]

Speaker placement took a setup that I was trying to dial in (not mine) from not very impressive to quite good (the speakers were too close and not toed in at all). EQ changed headphones and audio in a big way for me, as instead of buying speakers/headphones that measure neutral, you can get rid of small variances in worse speakers/headphones and make them neutral. It is a great feeling when you have a low distortion DAC feeding a (somewhat, at about .04% THD, but that's at 180 watts of output) low distortion amplifier, which feeds low distortion headphones, and are all as neutral as possible. You can finally think "so this is what it's supposed to sound like!". Another thing that changed everything greatly was figuring out average SPL to listen at a loud, but safe for long periods volume (about 75-80db average). I always thought a movie theater was too loud, but after looking up how loud the average SPL was (about 85db from what I found), and realizing that fell in a safe (ish) range, after measuring amplifier output at the binding posts, and accounting for speaker sensitivity and listening position, set it to 85.4db average, which is quite loud! After that, I realized that I could up my headphone volume a bit to get to a 75-80db average. I was concerned for awhile about listening volume but once that was put into perspective, my headphone listening is much more enjoyable!

 

[JeremyFife]

Two things spring to mind: my Genelec 8030Cs made a massive difference and give me joy on a daily basis.
Arguably a bigger improvement was finding ASR in the first place: fundamentally shifted how I think about hifi, for the better.

 

[DoctorRobert]

Interesting question. With different rooms in my apartment there are different answers.
For my living room:

1. Moving. The same setup that I always struggled with in the living room of my previous apartment sounds so much nicer where I am living now. And yes, the new living room is much larger.
2. Replacing my front speakers (Audio Physic Yara 2 superior for DALI Fazon F5). This was a bit of a surprise catch. I replaced them mostly for their looks. The white paint of the Yaras became yellow to an extend that it started to bother me. I was expecting a minor step back, but much nicer looks, but I ended up liking the DALIs much more than their predecessors.

For my office room:

1. Adding a sub with the use of REW + Equalizer APO. I followed the process from a Youtube tutorial suggested somewhere here. Together with a pair of KEF Q100s, I am quite happy here as well.
2. As a trivial one, adding a opto-isolator to the USB-connection of my SMSL A100. That connection was unusable until then, for noise and a bad hum.

For my home cinima room. This is probably the hardest one. I struggled and fiddled here quite a bit. The room is relatively small, which means more room modes, and less placing options. Therefore I am not so sure about the order:

• Replacing some larger stand mount Polk speakers (I really cannot remember the the type) for KEF Q100s and later KEF R3s. The Polks sounded really brittle to my ears. Since then I found out that I prefer speakers with a slightly muted higher octave. But the Polks were impossible to tame. I was expecting fuller sounding speakers based on their relatively larger size, but they were just horrible.
• Applying OCA's EVO1 AcoustiX to my system. For now everything seems to be nicely in balance. Using Audessey MultiEQ with the app introduced gains (mostly by telling Audessey not to try to improve stuff above Schroeder) but I am definatly happier now.

 

[Satanica]

LOUDNESS Compensation (JRiver Media Center).

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Volume#Loudness

 

[john61ct]

LOUDNESS Compensation (JRiver Media Center).

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Volume#Loudness

Since this is built into the player software, does that mean this implement cannot be deployed on a pass-through basis, as with VST plugins?

 

[Satanica]

Since this is built into the player software, does that mean this implement cannot be deployed on a pass-through basis, as with VST plugins?

If I understand you correctly, then no it cannot be used with "pass-through". Internal Volume of JRiver MC must be activated.

 

[john61ct]

I understand the local Volume must be used to get variable LC.

By pass-through, I mean when not using the JR software to render audio, as a player

but running audio signals through it, as in from a turntable through an audio interface, just using the host for DSP functionality.

EDIT I have found this is done via "WDM driver", only on windoze

 

[Dialectic]

BACCH4Mac.

Going back to classical music played back without BACCH processing is unimaginable to me now.

 

[dweeeeb2]

How did you get mono? I have a need to do this but have heard a variety options and of course each have issues.

I’m jumping about at the moment. Sometimes I simply check the mono output on my WIIM Streamer, other times I down mix in my miniDSP Flex HTx.
I personally preferred how it sounded when I stacked my L and R speaker on top of each other (top speaker flipped on its head to minimise distance between tweeters) and used stereo. But it looked a bit too crazy for the wife. So mono through one speaker is where I’ve ended up. Does it sound as good as stereo from a MLP : No. But I prefer how it fills the room.

 

[dualazmak]

Sorry to be a little bit out of the scope/title of this interesting thread.

At least in my case, "no single change made the biggest improvement" but "optimal combinations/accumulations of changes in step-by-step progress lead me to better/best total sound", as you can find the Hyperlink Index here and here for my project thread.

Since we are in Audio Science Research Forum, I believe all the people are well aware of that "on each step in our progress, we should not change multiple parameters/factors at once".

In case if you would change two factors at once, there is high possibility of pros/advantage and cons/disadvantage would cancel-out with each other, and therefore we have no improvement at all or even we have a worsening the result.

Edit:
And I essentially agree with the nice point kindly given here by Keith of @Purité Audio saying;
"You must hear equipment in your own room in your own system, compare unsighted (close your eyes) if there isn’t an immediately apparent difference/improvement.
To go further, _if there isn’t a significant improvement then don’t change anything_, the largest gains are speakers and room."

 

[Todd k]

finding ASR.

 

[Stinga]

Listening to @peng and @shady larsens advice, both guys have been so helpful to me!

 

[mglobe]

In order of decreasing magnitude, although I might change my mind and put the knob first.

1: Speakers — Upgrade from R3’s to used Reference 1 Metas
2: DSP — first MiniDSP Flex DL which then got upgraded to Trinnov NOVA
3: Wireless volume knob

 

[111db]

4-way DSP multiamping with measurement-driven adjustments. Components are stones. DSP is the mortar that gives them coherent structure.

 

[Tell]

ASR.
Keith

To me ASR hasn't really made that much of a actual difference to my hifi, but it has confirmed so many of my beliefs about audio I've had for years and tried to argue on other forums but have gotten so much backlash. I almost thought I was alone, but ASR came to the rescue! But yeah, I've still learnt a lot here, there's so much knowledge

 

[EJ3]

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.

Moving to a home less than 1/2 the size of the previous one did the opposite: made the system very difficult to get the sound even 1/2 way decent.
But it sets me up for a future dedicated room (and having the money needed to make it happen) in a somewhat larger home (not as large as the previous one) down the road.

 

[JG2020]

Converting my ATC SCM40s to 2-way active (woofer and midrange-tweeter).