Dear people - finally a more serious report from my side. But let's say, I finally dare to;
Via two other attempts, I think it was 4 days ago, Wednesday) that I landed on this configuration :
A:B-W, B:B-W
This seems pretty basic as it resembles the indeed native Blaxius interlink. And to be clear : I use the Blaxius^2 for Analogue Interlink only.
Thus, the inner shield in use as it always was used for the original Blaxius(^1) and the other two shields, Middle and Outer, not connected anywhere.
Why did I attempt this configuration in the first place ?
Well, because I got scared because of a too strange "manipulated sound" otherwise. Just the theory of an analogue cable which filters (to what idiot degree and what/where actually ??) and that I just couldn't believe what was all happening. The familiar music became too unrecognizable and I just could not see where the truths where.
The most dangerous part in this was the sheer fact that I couldn't see where it went wrong. But I mean, once you hear such profound up to even complete new instruments in a lead in, what to think for real, you being assured that it really is not a different version (master) or anything. Next you can reason out that possibly this new instrument is now audible (and not even softly !) because something else has gone. Say an overwhelming choir which otherwise was there. Take it out and suddenly a complete violin section comes forward. But you don't miss violins and in fact you don't know whether you miss anything at all. It's just (your) theory again.
This Wednesday became the by far best few hours of playback in my history. It did not matter what I played, it played with
music. So this is what happend foremost. Music music music.
This is such a strange phenomenon because it can't be described except for that it is so. But in this case, and I already touched the subject in an earlier post, I think I can definitely recognize what is "making" the music : vibrato;
Suppose we compare a 1980's drum/rhythm machine with a real drummer, then I think we cal all recognize that the drummer is more real because he makes minute faults in the timing. And this could even be on purpose throughout (like each hit on the beat 10ms too late which is what I myself would be able to do), but still varying a few ms per hit. And I know, the more modern rhythm machines back in the days could incorporate such variance, but still. Static robot-like stuff.
Same with all the music you are used to. Well, I bet you.
Now we have this Blaxius^2. And a first technical merit it shows is that it shows 10 times more of everything. 10 times FWIW of course, but more to an idiot degree. It does that in each of the 3 configurations I tried thus far and let's say that the "native" config I showed you above gives me a mental healthy feeling. More at rest, so to speak (and btw with a different sound than the other two configs).
Like my very very first observation and I recall also the very first remark about the sound in the first post in this topic, I keep on seeing the "vibrato" throughout. But this really goes wild and weird at some times.
Let's say that vibrato on a violin is just the longitudinal movement of the finger on the string. Mind you, the finger is not really physically displaced on the string, but the hand moves and this displaces the area where the finger touches the string, with that making the string shorter and longer (maybe for 2mm only). Well, unexpectedly I have no remarks on the violin, but now you know what I mean.
Now we head to the cello and upright double bass. If you hear this, your ears will drop off (so be careful please). Here, the player doesn't move his hand as with the violin player, but he may merely displace the string laterally. Say like an electric guitar play does (the violin type of vibrato can't work for the guitar player because of the frets). And the bass player appears to be doing that all the time. Not that I really noticed before ...
So this vibrato element is in everything. Now compare with the rhythm machine again and see how things suddenly achieved a level of being alive vs being, well, what ... digital playback ?
Maybe I must refer to something stupid as Ben Liebrand and his Iconic Groove album. This is I think his best album and less of a "mix" album, although it is still that. But the key of such DJ like recordings is that those guys tend to do all live. At least they can because they were born to do that.
And why always Dutch (for many many years by now) being good at that ? I don't know. Anyway, this album now is completely unrecognizable. E.g. the track "Love" (from originally Donna Summer with "I feel love") is suddenly so full of finesse that because of that reason it is much more "complicated" to recognize it throughout. It's much more intelligent now. Possibly this is because your focus is now completely elsewhere, namely on what all happens in that track for "sounds". But the most strange : this is now so "lively" that it is made by a human while before it was made by a computer. This is a complete contradiction of course, because it *was* made by a computer (knowing how these guys work).
I think I now touched 1.5 example, but I am completely full with them after 4 days of listening to it.
This vibrato thing is thus key, and it shows in everything where vibrato can be. Of course the guitars, but foremost also the voices which are suddenly full with sensitivity ans messages, roaring synthesizes which btw should roar (I have a couple of them myself) but which appeared to be so-so in aftermath and ... well, everything. How is it possible.
And yes, how is it possible that last night we watched Peter Rabbit (which is anime) and that I couldn't prevent myself from crying just because of the sensitivity in the voices of those rabbits. So mind you, indeed it is so that Blaxius^2 operates in the movie domain just the same. Obviously. Same DAC, same speakers with amplification, and Blaxius^2 is in between DAC and speaker(s). And now stupid rabbit voices draw tears ?
That.
That and so much more I can't explain.
Numerous times - no, throughout, I once again notice how I can't stay away from fully interpreting the lyrics. This has been up before and it is a logic thing to happen, but it is only a logic thing to happen when throughout all *is* better. I emphasize the "is" because it should not be subjective once it is so that we can hear better what's being said.
Said ?
That's the whole thing perhaps.
Told. So what I seem to notice is that what's being said follows from what's being told (the
message) and that in itself is related to all the intonations, support by the feeling which is put into the play as a whole but which again is derived from what the individual instruments do). Because of the support of the instruments, we interpret better what the message is and from there we just "hear" better. A mind thing. But working oh so well.
Example of the above for those who know it (will only be a couple of Dutch) : Doe Maar with "Nachtmerrie". This is about a guy who has a nightmare that he's back in school again. The bass guitar - played by Henny Vrienten who is also the lead singer and which could be crucial for my essay - sings about this nightmare, meanwhile putting an idiot level of vibrato into the bass guitar that now comes across as woiingwoiingwoiing as in a kind of head hammering or Hitchcock like suspense (which latter btw was from the same era as this Doe Maar track). Of course this extreme vibrato has been in there all the time, but I never heard it. Now it is
about it. It is this suspense thing.
And indeed, now I write about it, the sound of suspense is something I heard really more than once the past days. Maybe you recognize how this is done with Hitchcock et all, it's (if you ask me) a stroke over the high key strings of a piano. Easy to do with a wing because it is always open. I never heard it before that I can recall. And now several times in a few days ?
The crux could be : do I now suddenly hear this because the sounds are able to express it, or do I hear this because first something else is incurring for it. I mean, if someone strikes those strings I will be quite OK. But if I am waiting for a million birds to show up in front of my window and
then I hear this sound, I'm dead.
There is another thing I should mention;
Generally my ambient music does not work (out) any more. It depends a bit on what it is, but I feel there's too much of a shift downwards (frequency) to let it still excel on what it was selected for : higher frequency melodies and sounds. Two things which occur to me here :
1. My mood goes vastly south (downhill) when one after the other ambient track just is worth nothing much any more and looks to be at the A-B position in the player;
2. With the normal music I never see lacking anything while my mood goes up north rapidly again and that even up to the extreme.
I am very unfamiliar with that as it should be the other way around but I guess that the normal music is now so good that I could prefer it infinitely. And oh, say that 25% of the time I play that anyway, but usually something is going to disturb at some stage, and then it is easy to fall back to the ease of ambient. Ease ? maybe not because it is the most complex music of all, and it is there where now something doesn't go right. But, I am at my third Blaxius^2 only, plus I am alone, so far (help !).
To counter attack the above "lacking of something" (if I am right on that to begin with), yesterday I had the too far out idea to add mid to the "sound scape" in general.
Say what ?
Yeah, add mid. And with the Blaxius^2 I have no idea how to do that, as it seems mostly about how to avoid too much bass (which could be the same). Anyway, no idea and no input from others as of yet as well.
And so I came to the scary idea of now changing my Lush^2 to a more "mid" presentation, because the Lush^2 coincidentally seems all about : how to avoid too much mid. And well, the experience with the Lush^2 is already there to some extent and the configs which clearly bring too much mid are among it. And indeed, in the past week I already had virtual nightmares about combinations with the Lush^2 in general (it is too outrageous to even think about it) but since I now seen to have a clear objective with it (more mid), why not try it for an evening.
The complexity of it all is that nothing lacks when listening to normal music (up to not perceiving a difference at all with some types), also no mid, while it is the ambient which seems to lack all of it. Really strange.
Or ...
Or it should be so that the high frequencies of ambient eat the current for the mid. It still is so, of course, that we are doing very strange things to an interlink. In Dutch we say "je weet nooit hoe een koe een haas vangt" which seems equal to : you never know how a cow catches a hare.
Peter