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A few days ago @Nikhil had this year-end thread, ‘Your best audio purchase of 2019?’ I had no doubt in my mind it was my Einstein Green Largo speaker cables. We are less than a week old into 2020, but it seems I already have my answer ready for the question ‘Your best audio purchase of 2020?’
It’s true that our major purchases are around speakers and electronics, but usually we know what to expect from them so the surprise element is low. But when a cable or an accessory improves the sound of our system beyond our expectation, now that’s a real surprise!
I was looking at solutions to reduce the boom in my system and talking to some FMs, especially Hari and Prem, I realised the importance of placing electronics on platform/supports. I wanted to believe first-hand. So I first experimented with keeping a wooden platform (‘paat’ in Marathi) under my Audiolab 8200A. Convinced that there was a perceivable improvement, I started looking for an elegant audiophile solution.
Based on @prem’s reference, I decided to explore SoundFoundations belonging to FM Ali (@magma). I wrote to him and explained my need. Based on the weight (medium) and quality (medium) of my components, he suggested trying the Roller Blocks among his product portfolio. So I went ahead and ordered a set.
When the set came, I decided to put it under my Lyrita DHT preamp (while keeping the Audiolab still over the jugaad paat). The roller blocks are essentially a pair of well-machined chunky circular discs with felt on the outer side and a semicircular depression on the inside. You pair the two discs and place the metal (tungsten carbide) ball in the spherical cavity that gets formed between them. The discs don’t rest on each other, but through the ball which is free to move. You keep this assembly under your equipment as a foot. You can keep either four or three pairs to support the equipment above. (I’d suggest 3 if your surface is not exactly even and the equipment is not too heavy). So essentially the equipment is now kind of floating on these supports. The idea is that vibrations from the stand/cabinet/floor the equipment is placed on should not travel back to the equipment. So this is kind of isolation.
After I placed the roller blocks under the Tube preamp, I could note the improvement in sound right from the first track. The drums sounded a tad tighter with less boom and the vocals calmer/more composed. It was a perceivable improvement, kind of in the range of my expectations. I was happy with the purchase. An auditioning by a regular nearby audiophile friend who regularly listens to my system (as well as my wife who entertains my requests to assess) confirmed the same. In his words, the vocals now felt like the singer was in the room with us. He requested me to order a set for himself.
Buoyed by this, I ordered more sets to place under my Audiolab 8200A (used as power amp) and the Yamaha CDX 630e vintage CD player. I received them yesterday and went about promptly trying them out.
First i replaced the paat under the Audiolab amp with the roller blocks. There was immediate difference in the rhythm - it became faster - which usually makes the songs more musical. This was easily perceivable in rock drums as well as classical tabla etc. Must have been a result of the further reduced boom and improved bass definition.
And then came the real surprise! Till now I hadn’t experience much improvement in treble or any major improvement in vocals. Most of the change was in the lower registers (with its resultant effect on the clarity of other frequencies as a small byproduct). But the moment I placed the roller blocks under the CDP (a capable vintage player with TD1541A DAC), both me and my wife could not believe our ears! I spontaneously wrote to Magma on Whatsapp to communicate my elation.
What happened was that with the roller blocks under the CD player (source), the noise floor dropped - not marginally, but substantially! As a result, all frequencies showed improvement. Suddenly it was sound transformed! The bass surely got further clearer and defined, but the treble too improved - both in terms of enhanced hearing of higher frequencies and the delicacy of the treble artefacts. My system benefits from the sweetness of the tube, but I have felt it also dampened the treble. Now, the treble was in its full glory (barring some understandable some roll off owing to the speakers).
But that was not all. There was magic in the vocals (second time I used this term - the first time when I introduced tube pre in my system couple of years ago). The clarity increased and one could now understand the lyrics better. But there was improvement in the vocal details - I could now hear the sounds made by the mouth/tongue/throat movements of the singer making him/her feel more palpable/real. There was much better immediacy as I could also feel the studio room (reverb esp.) in quiet and well recorded vocals like Hariharan in Raincoat OST. These improvements were further endorsed by my wife yesterday and nephew (also a regular listener of my system) today. An allied benefit is the enhancement in the listenable volume range - I can now play at higher dB before distortion sets in and lower volumes before losing details.
All in all, there’s a leap improvement in the sound quality and consequently, the music appreciation and enjoyment from my system. At such a reasonable cost (around 2% of the total system), such an improvement is easily the best ROI I have had so far in sound. I am ordering another pair to sit under my Cambridge CXN streamer.
If you plan to use the roller blocks, I suggest you experiment with 3 and 4 block pairs to see which gives you better results. Also play around with the blocks placement under your equipment. I tried the two front, one behind and the reversed to figure out which worked better (different for different equipment). Also, I had to go with a peculiar placement under my Audiolab 8200A which has a heavy transformer on the rear right corner. So I had to figure out by trial and error the best placement which wasn’t an equilateral or isosceles triangle, but an irregular shape. The idea is to match the center of gravity of the equipment with the center of the triangle/quadrilateral formed by the blocks. Now, this is not what SoundFoundations prescribed, but what I discovered worked best.
To summarise, this is what makes this hobby interesting. It’s not just about buying the best equipment, but optimising and improving the sound through cables, connectors, placement, supports etc. It’s an organic journey of continuous improvement that keeps enhancing the listening pleasure to the listener as well as giving the owner a sense of fulfilment. Upgrading a component should be the last resort unless one has made a terrible mistake in its selection. At least, that’s how I prefer to go about it. My Audiolab 8200A and Castle Knight 2 speakers have been constant from day one, the Lyrita DHT preamp has been steadfast over two years now.. but there have been a number of experiments tried out in the connections etc. Some succeeded, while some surpassed expectations... the Roller blocks (as well as the Einstein Largo cable) belong to this category. It’s a wonder what two well designed and manufactured pieces of metal and a ball can do to the sound!
P.S. I have documented my experience. I don’t know how much it could get replicated in other systems. My guess is it could depend on the quality of stock feet of your equipment (mine being budget audiophile range, were rubber stubs) as well as where your equipment are placed (mine are on a large solid wood cabinet) and the extent of vibration in it. Poorer the stock feet and higher the vibrations in the cabinet, better might be the improvement with the roller blocks.
It’s true that our major purchases are around speakers and electronics, but usually we know what to expect from them so the surprise element is low. But when a cable or an accessory improves the sound of our system beyond our expectation, now that’s a real surprise!
I was looking at solutions to reduce the boom in my system and talking to some FMs, especially Hari and Prem, I realised the importance of placing electronics on platform/supports. I wanted to believe first-hand. So I first experimented with keeping a wooden platform (‘paat’ in Marathi) under my Audiolab 8200A. Convinced that there was a perceivable improvement, I started looking for an elegant audiophile solution.
Based on @prem’s reference, I decided to explore SoundFoundations belonging to FM Ali (@magma). I wrote to him and explained my need. Based on the weight (medium) and quality (medium) of my components, he suggested trying the Roller Blocks among his product portfolio. So I went ahead and ordered a set.
When the set came, I decided to put it under my Lyrita DHT preamp (while keeping the Audiolab still over the jugaad paat). The roller blocks are essentially a pair of well-machined chunky circular discs with felt on the outer side and a semicircular depression on the inside. You pair the two discs and place the metal (tungsten carbide) ball in the spherical cavity that gets formed between them. The discs don’t rest on each other, but through the ball which is free to move. You keep this assembly under your equipment as a foot. You can keep either four or three pairs to support the equipment above. (I’d suggest 3 if your surface is not exactly even and the equipment is not too heavy). So essentially the equipment is now kind of floating on these supports. The idea is that vibrations from the stand/cabinet/floor the equipment is placed on should not travel back to the equipment. So this is kind of isolation.
After I placed the roller blocks under the Tube preamp, I could note the improvement in sound right from the first track. The drums sounded a tad tighter with less boom and the vocals calmer/more composed. It was a perceivable improvement, kind of in the range of my expectations. I was happy with the purchase. An auditioning by a regular nearby audiophile friend who regularly listens to my system (as well as my wife who entertains my requests to assess) confirmed the same. In his words, the vocals now felt like the singer was in the room with us. He requested me to order a set for himself.
Buoyed by this, I ordered more sets to place under my Audiolab 8200A (used as power amp) and the Yamaha CDX 630e vintage CD player. I received them yesterday and went about promptly trying them out.
First i replaced the paat under the Audiolab amp with the roller blocks. There was immediate difference in the rhythm - it became faster - which usually makes the songs more musical. This was easily perceivable in rock drums as well as classical tabla etc. Must have been a result of the further reduced boom and improved bass definition.
And then came the real surprise! Till now I hadn’t experience much improvement in treble or any major improvement in vocals. Most of the change was in the lower registers (with its resultant effect on the clarity of other frequencies as a small byproduct). But the moment I placed the roller blocks under the CDP (a capable vintage player with TD1541A DAC), both me and my wife could not believe our ears! I spontaneously wrote to Magma on Whatsapp to communicate my elation.
What happened was that with the roller blocks under the CD player (source), the noise floor dropped - not marginally, but substantially! As a result, all frequencies showed improvement. Suddenly it was sound transformed! The bass surely got further clearer and defined, but the treble too improved - both in terms of enhanced hearing of higher frequencies and the delicacy of the treble artefacts. My system benefits from the sweetness of the tube, but I have felt it also dampened the treble. Now, the treble was in its full glory (barring some understandable some roll off owing to the speakers).
But that was not all. There was magic in the vocals (second time I used this term - the first time when I introduced tube pre in my system couple of years ago). The clarity increased and one could now understand the lyrics better. But there was improvement in the vocal details - I could now hear the sounds made by the mouth/tongue/throat movements of the singer making him/her feel more palpable/real. There was much better immediacy as I could also feel the studio room (reverb esp.) in quiet and well recorded vocals like Hariharan in Raincoat OST. These improvements were further endorsed by my wife yesterday and nephew (also a regular listener of my system) today. An allied benefit is the enhancement in the listenable volume range - I can now play at higher dB before distortion sets in and lower volumes before losing details.
All in all, there’s a leap improvement in the sound quality and consequently, the music appreciation and enjoyment from my system. At such a reasonable cost (around 2% of the total system), such an improvement is easily the best ROI I have had so far in sound. I am ordering another pair to sit under my Cambridge CXN streamer.
If you plan to use the roller blocks, I suggest you experiment with 3 and 4 block pairs to see which gives you better results. Also play around with the blocks placement under your equipment. I tried the two front, one behind and the reversed to figure out which worked better (different for different equipment). Also, I had to go with a peculiar placement under my Audiolab 8200A which has a heavy transformer on the rear right corner. So I had to figure out by trial and error the best placement which wasn’t an equilateral or isosceles triangle, but an irregular shape. The idea is to match the center of gravity of the equipment with the center of the triangle/quadrilateral formed by the blocks. Now, this is not what SoundFoundations prescribed, but what I discovered worked best.
To summarise, this is what makes this hobby interesting. It’s not just about buying the best equipment, but optimising and improving the sound through cables, connectors, placement, supports etc. It’s an organic journey of continuous improvement that keeps enhancing the listening pleasure to the listener as well as giving the owner a sense of fulfilment. Upgrading a component should be the last resort unless one has made a terrible mistake in its selection. At least, that’s how I prefer to go about it. My Audiolab 8200A and Castle Knight 2 speakers have been constant from day one, the Lyrita DHT preamp has been steadfast over two years now.. but there have been a number of experiments tried out in the connections etc. Some succeeded, while some surpassed expectations... the Roller blocks (as well as the Einstein Largo cable) belong to this category. It’s a wonder what two well designed and manufactured pieces of metal and a ball can do to the sound!
P.S. I have documented my experience. I don’t know how much it could get replicated in other systems. My guess is it could depend on the quality of stock feet of your equipment (mine being budget audiophile range, were rubber stubs) as well as where your equipment are placed (mine are on a large solid wood cabinet) and the extent of vibration in it. Poorer the stock feet and higher the vibrations in the cabinet, better might be the improvement with the roller blocks.
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