The most important and basic aspect of all.

Autor

Beitrag

Savyasaachi
Inventar

#1 erstellt: 18. Apr 2010, 11:06

in an audio system is sadly left by the wayside by most of us I feel. Till about a year ago i was only concerning myself with auditioning different equipment individually. However, i've heard and read about the importance of synergy in a system since long before but like most audiophiles had been too busy just chasing gear.

Couple of days ago when i went over to my friend's house to listen to his headphones and compare mine with his, I was surprised mine were sounding so off and dull. I just couldn't believe it. I left his place thinking, " I should sell off this headphone". So it was a pleasant surprise when i came back home plugged it into my system, riffled through the same music i listened to at my friend's place and a big wide smile spread across my face. The very same headphones were (correction..IS

) sounding glorious! I was so taken aback that i immediately spoke to my friend about it and he came back tome with one word.. SYNERGY!!

I just wonder if most of us are just missing this aspect all the while knowing how important it is to get to aural nirvana.

I wanted to share these thoughts as it came a revelation to me. I can say that I am extremely happy with where my system is currently. Can you?

[Beitrag von Savyasaachi am 18. Apr 2010, 11:08 bearbeitet]

Kamal
Stammgast

#2 erstellt: 20. Apr 2010, 16:43

Synergy or system matching is Crucial.
I have come across so many systems consisting of components which command a lot of respect on their own but fail to deliver the best they are capable of in a ill matched system.
Apart from synergy, system set up is crucial too-
this also can make or break a system.

Manek
Inventar

#3 erstellt: 21. Apr 2010, 03:14

Just like big names in a band put together but shows no magic.

But lesser known individuals in a band may out perform the big names as a group.

Manek

Arj
Inventar

#4 erstellt: 21. Apr 2010, 04:16

Would completely agree on the synergy aspect. actually to a large extent `omponent combinations are actually com promises and the minimum the compromise the more the synergy.
in the overall synergy of the systems, in my experience, 2 stand out
1. Amp-Speaker
2. Speaker- room

while (2) can be argued to be more critical, it is one compromise which can be mitigated to a large extent by placement/treatment while (1) is absolutely critical to get right to get the best out of both.

while there are other synergies like pre-power/cables/ source-pre etc i would feel they are of a much lower impact (Unless of course they are the bottleneck) than the above 2.

I guess this is the exact reason why we even have fights around the "This equipment is better" nature !

Echoing along the point manek has brought out, I would guess most equimment manufacturers, in order to make those more "interface friendly" and work with other components design them with compromises and any system designed well to work as 1 system would far outperform a mixed and matched system.
perhaps the reason why all Linn/Naim systems were so popular and raved about

[Beitrag von Arj am 21. Apr 2010, 04:22 bearbeitet]

bombaywalla
Stammgast

#5 erstellt: 21. Apr 2010, 13:03

Arj schrieb:

Echoing along the point manek has brought out, I would guess most equimment manufacturers, in order to make those more "interface friendly" and work with other components design them with compromises and any system designed well to work as 1 system would far outperform a mixed and matched system.
perhaps the reason why all Linn/Naim systems were so popular and raved about

Arj, I'd like to disagree on this.

IMHO, to make a piece of gear work with any other gear in the market, the designer should be making his/her unit to have the least compromises. If it has a lot of compromises, it rules out use w/ many other components.
For example, (some brand names will be used to illustrate the point BUT it does NOT mean that these manuf make bad equipment. I had to name some names to make my point. So, apologies in advance to owners of these brand names.) the ARC Ref 3 preamp has 600-Ohms o/p impedance & it does not work well with power amps with 10K input impedance (even tho' 10K is 10X larger than 600-Ohms). If this ARC Ref 3 pre had 100-Ohms or lower o/p impedance, it would not have been an issue. 100-Ohms o/p impedance is less of a compromise than 600-Ohms 'cuz lower o/p impedance for a voltage source is always better. Another example, the older Threshold amps have a 2K input impedance in balanced mode which makes it very difficult to mate a preamp to it!! While this might be a better way to make a balance power amplifier (according to the designer's notes) but it sure does put a crimp on the owner's ability to try out various preamps & forces him/her to Threshold preamps.
Similarly, I've read many posts wherein Linn & Naim gear was taken out of the Linn or Naim stack & mated with some other brand only to produce very lack-luster sound.
I believe that Linn & Naim make a lot of design compromises in their various gears such that it only sounds the best in a Linn or Naim stack-up. It's my opinion that both are using the "2 wrongs make 1 right" philosophy. I would say it appears Naim is more the violator than Linn as I've read & heard some Linn gear out of the Linn stack-up & it did sound pretty good. The Linn gear was more towards the top-of-the-line hence expensive.

Arj
Inventar

#6 erstellt: 23. Apr 2010, 06:00

Hey B'Walla, my assumption was that manufacturers like to make their component(s) more capable with interfacing with any other component in the market..i could be wrong here,
Although making them specific to their own components (like Pre-power) might sell both but audiophiles who like mix/match may not really prefer those.

There could be some High end specialised manufacturers who ake the best component and leave the worry of interfacing to the buyer..