Steve Deckert
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As I set here tonight listening to the SE84UFO2 /DNA2 combo I am simply amazed... it's been weeks now with this combo and I recently updated my ZTPRE with the Anniversary mods and the stock SE84UFO2 can easily communicate the improvements! I have to say I'm pretty pleased with that!
In the ongoing struggle to realize what the hell is what and it's influence on the final sound you hear, for my entire 4' and above life, I have examined the the main players which are; room, speakers, amp, source. We can put preamp and source into the same category as they are really hard to separate. Since the room is typically 40% or more of the sound, lets remove that too. This leaves the never-ending contemplation between the sound that the source brings to the table vs, the speaker, vs, the amplifier. Which is more important?
The Zen answer is that none is more important. All must be completely equal and perfectly balanced to achieve nirvana. If one is actually better than the others it will upset that balance and nirvana can no longer happen.
Until you get to that level, what is the dominating force between the three... I would have to say, source. The source is the most important followed by the amplifier and then by the speakers. Now keep in mind that depending on the color of your bathroom tile, it wouldn't be hard to present an argument for the exact opposite which is; the Speaker are the most important, followed by the amplifier, followed by the source and. lastly the room.
An interesting reflection is that in the struggle to listen to "regular stellar Decware amplifiers" after being wrecked by the 25th Anniversary Zen Triode amplifiers, I felt the need to do 25th Anniversary mods to everything which I did. This speeded things up and narrowed the gap between the Holy Grail 25th Anniversary amp and everything else.
Now I set here listening to a stock SE84UFO2 which btw at some point in the journey I felt I couldn't listen to anymore after having my reference elevated so high... Now here I set for two weeks enjoying the shit out of it having instead elevated the source which specifically in this case was the ZTPRE.
So it really kinda proves that that the game is everything in front of the amplifier's input jack. Interconnects, preamps, gain stages, sources... The sound I am hearing right now as I write this is full on lucid. You hear it and you think you can't believe it. Now here's an interesting twist...
I have not heard the 25th Anniversary amp driven by the ZTPRE with Anniversary mods yet! Oh God, here we go...
Steve
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