When a good thing becomes too good

[Natural Sound]

Over the years I have worked slowly towards improving the signal path in my system. AKA, taking the bottlehead path. It has been fun most of the time and aggravating at others. Here is something that I knew about decades ago but now I'm starting to live it. The better I make the signal path the more revealing my system becomes. Source material that once sounded good to my ears now sound terrible. But the really good recordings sound spectacular and often magical!

I guess its time to upgrade my source again. The way things are moving it will probably be a new DAC. My current DAC is limited to 16 bit material (24 bit HiRez recordings are down-sampled to 16 bit.)

I guess that my search for the "perfect sound" continues. I've come close a few times but I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever find it.

 

[Grainger49]

If the recordings that got worse with improvements were vinyl, you may need an upgrade cartridge.  It makes the signal and you might be hearing limitations that the cartridge has.  As I have improved my digital sources I have gotten more from CDs.  But I don't remember CDs that became flat and uninvolving that were not to begin with.

That has been my experience, yours may be different.

 

[4krow]

I also wonder if it wouldn't be a good time to try a new source such as HD downloads. Or the other way with tape as a source. For me, even streaming was a good change even if it didn't have all the quality, I didn't ignore it because it was able to introduce me to new music.

 

[Chris]

And it is dependent upon the types of music and when they were recorded and most importantly for WHOM they were intended for.... a top system will sound FABULOUS with Claire Martin but will never make a Cinderella (80s rock band) or a Van Halen diver down (even the band admitted it was a terrible production) album sound worth a darn,  the problem is , I enjoy BOTH... the more revealing a system gets, the more awesome Claire will sound and the more forward and nasty my beloved 80s rock will sound.... I think it is just finding a balance between your types of music and all their respective recording qualities, your gear and your ear.... I love resolution, but like everything else...there is a limit where you can reach the TIP of the mountain and things start to slide... so back up and stop there and just enjoy.... so far the best sound i have gotten with cds, is ripping them on my hard drive (amazing improvement in low level detail)... so i agree , the next jump in sound quality lies in a hard drive and yes a TOP dac.... this is just my experience though...