We’ve proposed that the act of detaching sound from your loudspeakers is a result of all the elements that make up your system including the speakers, amplification chain, source, and connecting wires.
To prove this point I made a simple experiment. I bought a low-cost system: A $150 Sony 2-channel receiver and wired it up to a pair of Elac bookshelf speakers with zip cord to see just how detached the sound might be. Just set up in my office I streamed through Bluetooth one of my favorite test tracks, the Rutter Requiem on Reference Recordings. It played alright, but all the sound of the organ and chorus were predictably trapped in the Elacs.
In its place, I inserted the far more expensive ($599) Sprout100, and voila! Now the choral members escaped the confines of the Elacs to extend a few feet beyond and nicely detached. I replaced the zip cord with a low-end Audioquest something or other speaker cable (I can’t keep up with Bill’s naming schemes) and now we gained depth and greater width.
And, on and on.
The point of this story is that detaching sound from the prison of your loudspeaker is more than just wishful thinking. To get everything you can pulled from the wooden boxes that make sound in our living rooms we need more than just a good pair of speakers. It’s all the ingredients in the mix that matter.
It’s a good thing Amazon takes back returns so willingly.
