The Best and not so good upgrades

Most have been a steady upgrade, but ones that stand out are:

Valhalla to Lingo 1 on my pre-Cirkus Sondek
Musical Fidelity V-DAC2+V-PSU1 to nDAC
Meridian 565 Z3 to 568.2mm
NAT03 to NAT05

Least special was 102-HC to 102-SC (but TBF, I did have a plan involving the SC)

Best - dedicated mains spur. No competition. A bit of disruption and mess, but cheaper than a Powerline and all sources benefited!

The Good

For me, a key factor around the perceived success of any upgrade is context. Is there a deficit in the system I’m looking to address, or is the system satisfactory, so that I’m looking for an absolute improvement? And what’s the makeup of the system and what does the upgrade do to the balance of the system? To put it another way, upgrading to component X might be jaw-dropping at one point, and merely gravy at another. With that caveat in mind, here are my most memorable upgrades, in chronological order:

  • Roksan Xerxes / RB300 → LP12 / Ittok (both with Audio Technica F5)
  • Valhalla → Lingo
  • Ittok → Ekos 1
  • Naim 32.5 → 32.5 with time-aligned boards (subjectively, about 75% of the way to the 72 I eventually acquired).
  • Naim phono boards → Linn Linto
  • Elderly chrome bumper HiCap → black box HiCap
  • Linn Linto → Naim SuperLine

Having written these down, I see that the ones that stand out most in my memory are clustered in the first half of my hi-fi journey. I’m sure the fact that parenthood dominates the second half is a factor – much less listening time – but still … ! It’s also interesting to recall that some components that were genuinely major upgrades at the time (e.g Linto) were superseded because their replacement made them seem boring (the “context” thing).

The not so good

Although I’ve had an LP12 since forever, I’ve always been irked by the cultish aspect that surrounds it. Because of that, I was always open to the idea of third party upgrades. About a decade ago I tried three of those in succession, namely the Tiger Paw Khan, the Tiger Paw Skale, and a House of Linn mat, all well reviewed by people whose opinions I respect.

All three brought something worthwhile to the table (pun intended), but in all cases I found the whole to be less than the sum of the parts, and all three are long gone. I’m still open to the third party idea, but I’d now be leery of spending money on something I hadn’t heard.

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I’m not so sure of the benefit of polling like this. The psychological bias and different opinions of scale (“huge improvement” is not a quantifiable measurement) make it very soft.

There is of course the degree of hyperbole that members are sometime given to (I move my HC a shelf down and the improvement was like spending $500,000,000,000,000 on the system - it was that good!") and the overstating of the impact of expensive changes because, in some cases, the brain/ego won’t let the change that just cost half a year’s salary be interpreted as less than worthwhile.

I wouldn’t want to single anyone out. But if the OP has really read the thousands of upgrade account, then they must recognise the very large degree to which the above scenarios come into play.

But in the interest of playing along:

  • Big upgrades: Careful setup and positioning of hifi and speakers. Placement of rugs and furniture. Preamps. Speakers.
  • Smaller upgrades: Any other box upgrade.
  • Very minor/undetectable upgrades: LAN cables.
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Over the years source and preamp upgrades always seem to give me the biggest bang per pound.

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Best = NDX to NDS/555PS DR

Gaias under my Spendors - not good. Took the ‘life’ out of the music.

Townshend Podiums user my Spendors - wonderful. Added separation between instruments and a greater musicality. Just felt right.

Swapping the XPSDR power supply for a 555PS on a 272 was a significant jump.

As was swapping the 250DR for a 300DR.

252 to 552 was good but not quite as night & day as the reviews and talk on here suggested it would be.

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Biggest upgrades:

  • Speakers and their positioning (several times, with any new speaker I’ve bought)
  • MoFi StudioPhono → Ampearl RE2030

Other upgrades:

  • Most other box upgrades

No change detected:

  • Interconnects (with the exception of the phono cable)
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I’m in a similar camp to @n-lot and @feeling_zen:

Biggest improvements:

  • speaker choice and speaker placement
  • room setup (listening position, furniture arrangement etc.)

Modest improvements:

  • Changes and upgrades to boxes

Least/minimal improvements:

  • Power and speaker cables (minimal difference)
  • Inter-connects (no difference)

Biggest upgrades for me have been:

  1. NAC82 + 2xHiCap to NAC82 + SuperCap

  2. 2xNAP135 to NAP500

  3. SBLs to NBLs

It would be hard to say which of these three had the greatest impact because they were all at different times, but they were all ‘Wow!’ moments.

I won’t say that other upgrades have been disappointing because if they had been, I wouldn’t have gone ahead with them, but those with less impact than I might have expected according to more commonly expressed views on here include:

  1. HiLine DIN-DIN to SuperLumina

  2. NAC52 to NAC552

  3. CDI to CDS2

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I’m more interested in the " not so good upgrades" aspect of this question.
We are always hearing how X has revealed more of my cd/lp/ blah blah, blah.
The less good upgrades tend to be the ones we remember.

For me it was a set of Russ Andrews wooden feet for my Rega P25 TT. Fitted as per the instructions etc. Absolutely sapped the life from the deck.
Replaced the bog standard Rega rubber ones and the sound was instantly restored.

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The Best (ever) Upgrade - MScaler/Qutest to MScaler/Dave nothing I have heard has come close.
Still running in a new 252/SCDR but love results so far

Not so good - Multiple PowerLines
Sold and bought a Grahams Hydra

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Interesting that the 500 was a big improvement and going from 52 to 552 not so big. Did you ever run the 52 with a 500?

I have 82 Supercap and 2 x135s. Would consider 52 and 500.

Thanks,

Dan

No, I got the NAC552 before the 500, so I was using it with two 135s for a short time. Maybe I had an exceptionally good 52, or maybe a Friday afternoon 552, or maybe the 135s weren’t good enough to show the full benefit of the 552, who knows? In contrast, the 500 was such a massive step up from the 135s, it was one of those upgrades that stop you in your tracks.

Of course the 500 was originally developed and demonstrated with the 52, so it ought to be a great combination. Maybe a non-DR version would work particularly well.

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NACA5 from my NAP100 in place of rubbish QED stuff. It took a few weeks, but the bass went from sounding like it was coming from next door, which is always a bonus :grinning:

Thanks very much Clive. I’ve seen non DR 500s come up for around £6500. Could be a cheaper upgrade at some point than going used 500DR which are very pricey. Can probably get £2500 to £3000 for my serviced 135s CB. Am very happy with them. Big improvement on a serviced 250CB. I’ve heard the 500DR and there was a lot more power and improved soundstage and clarity. And that was with a 252 DR.

I suspect prices for used NAP500s, whether DR or non-DR, might be dragged higher in the near future owing to the massive increase in the new price.

The biggest (single) improvement I ever heard was going from a cheapish Audio Technica MM cartridge (AT440MLB) to an Ortofon 2M Black.

The most disappointing was adding a second HiCAP DR to a NAC282. It was an improvement but not the improvement I’d hoped for. Maybe the sources weren’t good enough (although I think I had the nDAC by then, could be wrong). Or maybe it was just diminishing returns.

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My biggest Naim upgrade = 250DR → 300DR

My biggest Linn upgrade = Kore → Keel

My biggest other brand upgrade = Cyrus Phono Signature phono stage → Rega Aura

My biggest speaker upgrade = PMC Twenty5.26 → Kudos Titan 606

Most underwhelming upgrade = Lingo 1 → Lingo 2

All these worked for me. But we all have different ears and hear different things eh?

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