In just under tow and a half years, my system has been completely upgraded, including the interconnects and speaker cables.

My system consists of a Moon CD 5.3 CD player, Electrocompaniet EC 4.8 preamplifier, Electrocompaniet AW180 Mono power power amplifiers, Focal Electrica 1027 BE speakers, Chord Anthem 2 interconnects (CD play to preamp) Chord Chorus 2 balanced interconnects (pre to power amps) and Chord Epic speaker cables.

This has lead to a significant improvement in sound and the way that the system handles mediocre recordings but there are still a handful of CD’s that sound awful, sounding very closed in.

I know that there was a lot of press surrounding the quality of Metacilla’s last release and that this apparently sounded awful, even of high end systems. Does this mean that such recordings can never be enjoyed irrespective of how much money is thrown at a system/

I would be interested to hear from anyone as to how their system handled poor recordings and whether they feel that these recordings could be made enjoyable by spending £20,000 plus on a system.

I think mines generally OK, before I treated my room poorly recorded music really would upset room nodes and modes but since taming the room i've found much more of my collection is listenable, the better the resolving power of your kit allows you to hear more of how something was recorded, how is drum kit is being played, how hard it had been hit, isps while singing, breaths taken by vocalist, its those little clues that make a good system great, I don't find much of my collection that unlistenable as to what I did before and I don't listen to the most refined of music at times.

I've upgraded most of my kit in the last 2 years as well. The music that springs to mind for me is The Jayhawks albums. They were always a bit thin sounding and strident in the treble. As my system has been getting better I've found it digs up more of what's on the discs and opens the sound up a bit. The same is true of my Aztec Camera albums. They're never going to be great sounding recordings but I find them more listenable now with the better system.

In one of the hi-fi magazines I subscribe to, the writers say that a good system will make audiophile recordings ‘sing’ and highlight the best bits of a poor recording rather than the weaknesses. My own thoughts are that a revealing system will highlight weakness in recordings but others may be of a different opinion.

The upgrades have resulted in a system which is very revealing due to its much improved resolving power. With the recent change from Nordost Red Dawn to Chord Anthem 2 interconnects between my CD player and preamp, I am able to hear detail that was not audible before. The system does get into the heart of the recording and most of the CD’s which were problematic sound much better but a recently purchased copy of the Foo Fighters “The Colour And The Shape” sound very compressed.

I'm afraid the better my gear gets it highlights the trash even more......catch 22 methinks !!

yeah but we freaks have enough to think about without being up and down every two minutes to tweak the tone....you know you would js !!!
Your one of the vta adjusting brigade JS.....no offence but what would you be like with yet more knobs to play with ??



I don't believe I wrote that last bit......sorry mods!