Pleonastic Ephemera

2.17.2004 posted by William 21:23 link

This post is going to be about my stereo system, so consider yourself forewarned. I bought a pair of Mission m71 speakers and a Pioneer receiver two Septembers ago. I placed the speakers inside storage cabinets built into the wall about 8 feet off the ground, pointing out over the room. For a whole year that was the entire system, with input supplied by an optical cable connected to my SoundBlaster Live. The improvement over my previous computer speaker setup was apparent in clarity of sound, especially high end, and in lack of distortion and high volume, but it was overall less than I had been hoping for, and I didn't really know why. I was especially baffled by the fact that my CDs didn't sound any better than my mp3s. Over the summer I had the chance to listen extensively to a better setup -- Mirage Frx-3 speakers correctly placed, classic Yamaha tube amp, Onkyo CD player -- and it was a revelation. This was the sound I had been looking for. Everything was fresh and crisp and pronounced. Some of my CDs, the ones produced and engineered really well in the studio, sounded completely new. I was amazed at how much more sound was present in songs that I thought I knew backwards and forwards. So the lessons I learned were 1) speaker placement matters much, much more than I thought and 2) garbage in, garbage out, meaning basically that a computer CD drive designed for reading data CDs doesn't do a great job with audio. Since then I have upgraded my system piecemeal in an attempt to better realize its potential. In the fall, I watched Craigslist for a few weeks until I found a good deal on a used CD player, so I paid $25 for a Sony CDP-315, which I think cost $120 or more new. I bought some decent interconnect cables. CDs suddenly sounded much better. I placed my speakers in roughly the correct configuration, and got decent staging, although room limitations were a problem until Craigslist led me to some cheap speaker stands. My strategy is now to upgrade whenever I see a great deal on Craigslist since I can't afford brand new components at the level I want. This weekend I took it up a notch when I saw a $400 Marantz CD-63 mk II CD player for $100. The W took me out to Astoria and back I came with my new baby. Yeah, but does it really sound better? you ask. After a couple days listening, I'm convinced it does, and I think it will sound better still when I pair it with a higher quality receiver, since a system is only as good as its weakest component and I'm still using the Pioneer. But, of course, without a blind listening test, I can't even really be sure I can tell the difference. If you made it this far, you probably already know the truth of what I'm going to say, but anyway: if you've ever sat down and listened to a favorite CD (with headphones on because it sounds better than your boombox), I mean just listened, didn't read or anything, because you liked hearing the music so much, then you should really try to hear your CDs played through a good setup. You'll be amazed.