QOL Audio's "Signal Completion Stage" Review"

[shindostevesan]

For those unfamiliar with this device, check out QOL's website and/or Robert Harley's review which you can easily find online.

I have been auditioning this product for the past two weeks. It is inserted between my pre-amp and amp in the system below. I will give you some of my own impressions, but cutting to the chase, I agree with Robert Harley's assessment. This is a game changer.

What if I told you that upgrading your pre-amp, let's say, to the next model in the manufacturer's line would open your soundstage in every dimension, add air and solidity at the same time, and give every instrument a more natural timbre, especially the human voice? You would no doubt be interested. But if I said I had a tweak that could do all the above, especially a tweak that involved a new, patent-pending technology, you would be skeptical if not decidedly uninterested. Well, this product, I believe, warrants coming to the table with a clean slate. Although it's technology is explained in QOL's website, I don't have the background to analyze it's merit. I can tell you it works entirely in the analog realm and works with the phase part of the audio signal. I can also tell you it works, not in some subtle way that you can only detect say 65% of the time in A/B tests, but in a way that elicits a "Wow" every time it is turned on or off (there is a remote control for the unit that allows you to do just that).
Accompanying your "Wow" will be a noticeable increase in gain, which I knew from Harley's review to expect. (This is not amplification of signal says QOL, but a natural by-product of the technology's impact on phase.) You will have to adjust that gain to get a true A/B comparison. But you'll hear such an improvement in your music that it will laughable to continue to A/B. To be honest, this degree of enhancement made me more than skeptical at first. I strained to hear hi fi effects, some sense of "processing" going on. Nope, couldn't hear it. The soundstage and the music was simply enhanced, to the point that I really didn't want to listen without the QOL turned on.
After two weeks and 60 plus hours I have heard no downsides--in fact, I think the unit is improving, getting quieter as most electronics do with burn in. The only quirk I've found is that the QOL does not enhance every recording equally. Some recordings get the full measure of it's technology--especially, I've noticed, older live recordings which become uncannily live (Monk's Live at the Jazz Workshops for instance). Other recordings will realize the tonal and ambient enhancements without as much of the soundstage effect. (Harley attributes this to the way the recording is miked.) But I haven't found a recording that I prefer without the "Signal Completion Stage" at work.
One caveat. I am 61 years old. I don't know how old Robert Harley is, but let's say he's in his fifties. Maybe QOL works better for those with reduced high frequency capacity--maybe its impact wouldn't be so great for a listener in his/her twenties or thirties. But I assure you, to this listener's ears QOL makes the listening experience considerably more pleasurable, bringing the music in closer proximity to real. And this in a system that I thought sounded pretty darn real before.
I've got two weeks left to return the device--which honestly I thought I was going to do after first reading about it. As of now, no way. Do I think it is worth the price, $4K? Would I pay that to upgrade a component to realize these benefits? If I was in upgrade mode, you bet.
Sounds to me like there is something new under the audiophile sun.

[prepress]

I believe Robert Harley is 60, based upon an editorial in a recent TAS.

I read the review also, and even though I'm not in the market for anything other than a new equipment rack (Quadraspire, Salamander, or Billy Bags), it's got my attention. I've read the qøl review a few too many times and actually wonder if I should consider it. Did you listen to the oscilloscope demo on BSG's website at all? That was amazing. I'm not even a hard-core hobbyist and I thought it made a clear difference. There's no place in the setup for it at the moment, plus it's almost 4K. Being only 9 years out from retiring (God willing) I have to be careful about large discretionary stuff like this. But I won't rule it out just yet.

My dealer has one in his system (Magico Q5s, Clearaudio $150k table with top of line Clearaudio cartridge, etc). He has access to best of best out there and loves the QOL. He let me listen to a lot of music and I was able to bypass at press of a button. I was amazed at the difference. Its effect is the following:
- uncorks every frequency and sound....like removing heavy blankets off the speakers
- it takes huddled instruments and voices and tells them all to take 3 steps away from one another - soundstage widens and heightens. Bypassing takes it to what i call huddled shrunken head syndrome.
- increases stage depth by 2-3x
- only downside, in this system where sound was already detailed and one-two clicks to cool end of spectrum (dealer is committed to "true to source material"), it created a little bit of too much high frequency info on balance for my ears.
- but benefits outweighed that one negative. Benefits akin to introducing really good tube preamp (holographic imaging) with really good silver wiring (detail retrieval). My audience interconnects do the same thing with the sound...more transparency/clarity and bigger soundstage. But QOL is that on steroids.

I plan on demoing it in my system.

[Face]

Originally Posted by shindostevesan

Accompanying your "Wow" will be a noticeable increase in gain, which I knew from Harley's review to expect. (This is not amplification of signal says QOL, but a natural by-product of the technology's impact on phase.) You will have to adjust that gain to get a true A/B comparison.

This was my first impression too.

There was an increase in soundstage size in the rig where I demoed the unit, but would have to hear it in my own rig to give an in depth review.

[Still-One]

I like the 30 day trial period. I am interested and may try it this summer.
Jim

[dmnc02]

Originally Posted by dpod4

My dealer has one in his system (Magico Q5s, Clearaudio $150k table with top of line Clearaudio cartridge, etc). He has access to best of best out there and loves the QOL. He let me listen to a lot of music and I was able to bypass at press of a button. I was amazed at the difference.

I would not want to make a judgement based on the built-in bypass without first making sure it is completely transparent. From what I have read in another forum, this might not be the case. That being said, I have not heard the QOL myself and I am interested in other people's impressions.

Originally Posted by dmnc02

I would not want to make a judgement based on the built-in bypass without first making sure it is completely transparent. From what I have read in another forum, this might not be the case. That being said, I have not heard the QOL myself and I am interested in other people's impressions.

The dealer had compared bypass to no QOL in chain and he said it was true bypass.

[bzr]

We shall find out wont we.

[DesW]

Interesting Review here

D

BSG Technologies QOL "Signal Completion Stage"

[bzr]

Originally Posted by DesW

Interesting Review here

D

BSG Technologies QOL "Signal Completion Stage"

Hmmm, wish the editor mentioned the gear it was used with.