Appreciate your honesty. Reviewers are now "influencers," and they're relentlessly positive. Critical reviews are super helpful and most of these folks won't do that. There are notable exceptions, but there's a gear-churning machine out there and we're paying the price.
I appreciate that! I know it is extremely hard to buy equipment today with so many people deceiving the audiophile into thinking that only the most expensive equipment is the best equipment.
@@theempiricalaudiophile3729 What I find sad is people of way above average intelligence participating in intellectually dishonest or hyperbolic folderol to do...what? Get subscribers on a silly internet channel? Is that what their honor means to them? And then to engage in this kind of circle jerk with other influencers...it's pathetic.
Thank you for expressing facts ...........of a lifetime experience , other music lovers and me do share that experience. I would ask a quastion , .............What tube type did /does CJ use in their tube dac ? In one player I use CCA Siemens and in the other 6GC7 GE and RCA .........both sound fine and musical ...curious about the tube choice of your CJ dac. People do not seem to understand taht what is good is also timeless.......we live in a created state of mind where you are always made to belelieve to buy new = better .....and people fall for that trap.
Image and soundstage actually come from your speakers and room not the electronics, tho how the electronics interact with your speakers can change it, but it may seem the opposite has better soundstage with a different spkr room set up.
Not true, amplifiers can give you a different sense of soundstage too. I quote from John Siau of Benchmark, the makers of the most accurate amp in the world, the AH2B "Stereo depth is very dependent upon a precise phase matching between the right and left channels at all frequencies in the audio band. Differential (left/right) phase errors will blur the location left to right and especially front to back. Left to right positioning can be overridden by left to right amplitude differences. Depth can only be conveyed by accurately preserving the phase response in both channels all the way from a stereo microphone pair to the pair of loudspeakers. You also must be seated in the sweet spot to hear depth. Many very fine studio recordings have absolutely no depth because the left/right stereo image was entirely created with pan pots. The left/right positions of the musical voices are entirely determined by the left/right amplitude differences. Some fine examples are all of the tracks on Steely Dan's "Two Against Nature". This CD is a great recording but it has absolutely no stereo depth when played on a system with an accurate phase response. Systems with a poor phase response may give these tracks a false sense of depth. This false sense of depth is easily identifiable because each musical voice will fill the entire depth instead of locating to a specific distance behind the plane of the speakers. If you want a good explanation of depth and a good demonstration play tracks 4 and 5 of "The Ultimate Demonstration Disk" from Chesky Classics. In fact, the entire disk contains tracks that have wonderful stereo depth with pinpoint focus of location. These recordings were made with stereo microphone arrays and the stereo images were simply captured (not created with pan pots). It is now possible to artificially create stereo recordings that have depth. DSP techniques can be used to place a musical voice anywhere in a 3-D space. This 3-D space can then be rendered by a pair of stereo speakers or by an array of speakers (Atmos). 3-D position is determined by phase and amplitude. Left/right phase errors will expand the size of each musical voice (blurring its location). Whenever a musical voice is mixed to the phantom center of the stereo image, this image is easily blurred by differential phase errors. If the high frequencies seem to come from the speakers instead of from the phantom center image, this is an indication that there is a left/right differential phase error at high frequencies. I have some recordings that are essentially mono in stereo. In other words, the entire mix is dead center. Phase errors immediately destroy this phantom center image by moving some frequencies away from the center and toward the speakers. Some of the tracks on Eric Clapton's "Old Sock" CD are useful for this test." There are harware like the FOZ SSX Soundstage Expander from Black Ice Audio that manipulates phase, reverb, time arrival of certain frequencies to give you a sense of spaciousness. All this can be delibrately done on an amp, be it the power or worse, the pre section. Those ridiculous hall/church/arena modes on AVRs of yesteryear? All in the pre section. Also, it is knowmn that noise and distortion can give you a better sense of depth (think tubes).
Nope ... image and soundstage do not come from any part of a home system. Look at the circuitry, there is absolutely nothing there to create it. They are literally burned into the recordings themselves by mixing and mastering engineers. Think about it, if that came from you amps and speakers, how is it that they're all different? That said... it is entirely possible to sabotage that floating stereo image through bad speaker placement or poor seating position.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 That I can agree with. Kinda what I was getting at. It's all dependent on how it's recorded, that's where the information is. But speakers and how they are placed is what alows that information to be realized. What I've found over the years is the electronics such as the amp cannot alter the "phase relationship" between the channels. Where you sit and spkr placement can. Tho if it's not recorded well, no system can "add" the info. All an amp does is increase the signal that's there, or not. Now I do think that different freq. responses of amps can affect the sound from the speakers which can affect how the sound reflects in the room, but it's nothing inherent in the circuitry that creates soundstage.
@@AbsoluteFidelity Ah, yes and no. While I agree phase relation between right and left is important, that's in, or not in the recording. That is only as accurately as possible recreated by spkrs and room reflections and sitting pos. Nothing inherent in amp electronics can change this. Now diff. amps due to diff. tonal qualities can affect sound from the spkrs, which can alter how it reflects. All that stuff about weird processors that "fake" info has no bearing on a straight 2 channel system. But an amp that in your system may not seem to image as well, in an other spkr room set may seem better. Amp A and amp B given exact same tonal properties, freq. response etc. will be the same. Read D. Blakes reply and mine to his. I do agree with him.
@@AbsoluteFidelity The stuff about image being created with panning also goes back to recording, not the amp reproducing it. Sure left and right amplitude in playback affects it, but are we talking good equip or a diff brand cheapo amp for each channel. I get real apprehensive of terms like "the most accurate amp made". At exactly what and then some proof compared to other amps. Again the only thing that actually reproduces the soundstage is spkr and room interaction and your position in it.
Lets see, from my windows media player, which is compressed, my desk top pc goes into a very old 10w per ch. Superscope integrated amp and then some 5 inch + 1 inch GNP bookshelf spkrs and I can hear it fine. Sounds like maybe his mike wasn't back on or it was recorded then they decided on a longer space before vocals come back in. It's definately being sung and not spoken. Even on this old stuff my computor goes thru I can tell that.
I had to try the Doors song Riders on a storm at 5 min 40 seconds time stamp using a phone timer and I did also here it in a faint way listening to. first pressing vinyl record with altec 604-8 k and a schiit phono dac into a pioneer sx1080. Just saying no dac just analog play back.
I can't lie my Linn Klimax kontrol preamp isn't so analytical as the premier 10 Preamp that I just got🙄...also no remote isn't fun...so to me the CJ Premier 10 is just good...nothing more...
These days most "reviewers" are actually Touts ... what we now call Influencers. They have little or no actual background with the equipment they promote. They aren't in the game for consumer protection or guidance... they're in it for the money, just like any other salesmaker. Bottom line... Online subjective reviews are *advertising* .
I realy like a deep soundstage , far away even behind the rear walls.........no a fan so much of up front presentation. ( to me it's audiophile marketing ) Real life and in nature is the best teacher . Listening fatigue is the first indicator to me something is not realy right .......even with very expensive and impressive high end ( and overpriced ) gear.
