Quote: Just prefer and enjoy the amp purity
I've been following this thread and I find the quoted comments interesting. Not disagreeing in any way, after all a lot of what we prefer tends to be subjective. However, after reading a number of posts, I'm of the opinion that we take for granted a very key component... the room....
Quote:It is my opinion, FWIW, that until the final component, the room, is addressed we will never hear the actual purity of any upstream component. I have worked with my UFO25 at some length. Tube rolling, upgrading cables and upgrading sources. The realization that I came to was that as I removed handicaps I became aware of just what the UFO25 strong suit was... transparency. It has no particular sound, so to speak. It will let you hear whatever it is that you put in front of it.
Having said that, the room will affect what it is producing, so that once again, you never really get to hear the "purity" of the amp. Not everyone can treat a room. I'm in the process of putting together my sound room and it will be compromised to some degree as I really don't want a "butt ugly room" (subjective of course). But I do want a significant degree of improvement through strategic room treatment.
My conclusion based on my experience is that often times I was compensating for the room acoustics when I was tube rolling or changing cables etc...
Did the amp sound different as I made changes? Of course it did. Did it sound like another amp? It never sounded like any other amp that I ever had but then I haven't listened to all the amps that are out there not even all the Decware amps, so I really can't say.
So what's the point that I'm trying to make? It isn't that we all have different rooms and different preferences, that's obvious. I guess it would be that we need to keep in mind the whole context of what effects what we hear otherwise we could end up coming to conclusions that in themselves are subjectively correct but objectively misleading.