Gabriel Gold IC's are they really this good?

Jmcgrogan2 - I have not heard the GG cables, and hope to one of these days, but I have much experience with the Jade Hybrid, Stealth Indra and Dominus ICs. You are spot on about the Jade Hybrid doing depth like no IC before. It is not that the others are lacking here but that the Hybrid takes this to a whole new level. This alone makes the Jade IC the keeper. And once we hear this, it is really tough to go back to the others no matter what strengths the other cables might have. I find that the IC into the amp is where this difference really comes to play. The GG Revelation remains that last IC that I want to hear to find out for myself.

Clio09 - As recommended by the manufacturer, I hope you burn the cables in for 150 hours before sharing any final thoughts on the GG's. And I assume the 150 hours implies a signal going through the cables and not simply connected to two components. You have had the cables for a week now but how long have they been "burned in"?

I set my CDP on repeat and run this into the preamp through ICs when I burn them in during the day and night when not listening. A cable burn-in device may work here, but I assume that when a manufacturer states a certain number of hours, it refers to actual use of the cable. And thus, the CDP->Preamp cable burn-in process as described here works well.

Audiobuzz - I assure you that I was NOT mistaken when I refered to depth. I know all too well a recessed presentation. This typically refers to a significant suckout in the frequency response where one musician is far far distant from the rest of the performers. I have immediately dismissed some preamps, cables and more recently some tubes that exhibit this problem.

Last year I visited an audio dealer's home. He had Avalon speakers that were 8 or so feet out into the room. And he had recently gone through some serious efforts with room treatment devices. Never before had I heard speakers disappear like this. And never before had I heard a singer so far back from the speakers with such incredible realism. I understand that this is a key area where the Avalon speakers excel. And they certainly impressed me. But the overall system implementation had just as much to do with this success as well.

When I came back home, I could hear that I had greater decays and harmonic structure than that system, but I did not at all have the mentioned qualities here like he had. And this never left my mind.

I have since moved the SoundLab A1s another 2 feet into the room, gone through significant amounts of tube rolling with the Aesthetix and CAT gear(thanks to a tube guru friend who continues to send me box after box after box of tubes to try and often allows me to purchase the ones I like), revamped all power cords and recently incorporated a very special APL Denon CDP. Each of these changes brought on significant improvements in a number of areas. But it was only when I dropped in the Jade Hybrid ICs did my mind then return to that Avalon based system. Unlike before, musicians are now placed back from the speakers ... and they integrate so well with the rest of the musicians up near the front plane of the speakers.

Of course no cable does this on its own. But as I have noted before, I have heard a number of ICs (most notably from preamp to amp) so quickly destroy all the magic of a system up to that time.

John

The cables really take about 250-300 to fully break-in.
The cables do experience sonic changes at about 40/100 and 150,however at about 300 hours you have EUPHORIA

What actually is changing from 150 to 300 hours? Are we talking tonality changes as in a more linear tonal response or simply a more extended frequency extremes, or .......... some other sonic attributes?

There's a lot of discussion on tonality here. This was not much of an issue for me at 0 hours or at 155 hours. Tonality was nearly identical to the Jade Hybrid except for a little bit of bass shyness in the GG Rev. I too never heard any hint of brightness with the GG Rev when used between the Aesthetix Callisto, CAT JL-3 and APL Denon tube CDP products.

What about dimensionality, decays, harmonic structures here? And I do not mean in absolute terms but relative to how the cables were from the start AND directly compared to other cables swapped in and out right then and there. I heard absolutely no improvement here from 0 to 150 hours. Are there any significant improvements in these areas at the 150-300 hours? And did anyone have a reference cable whose strengths excelled in these areas to compare back and forth with the GG Rev's during their burn-in process?

Soundstage,depth of field,height of stage,detail,bass and even greater tonality and textures which these cables are becoming famous for occur after the 300 hour mark.

Wow! That pretty much covers it for a perfect cable.

I went into the GG Revelations with huge expectations because of this thread. And right out of the box, they were severely flat compared to the Jade Hybrid. The Indra that I had been using (but loaned out to a friend during this audition) was never dimensionally flat. The Jade conveys depth greater than the Indra, but the Indra beautifully preserves the decays and harmonics of the piano ...... something completely lacking with the out-of-the-box GG Rev. How anyone can describe soundstage, height, depth, textures, etc., with the GG cables with zero hours is beyond me. I guess it comes down to the system for which the cables are evaluated.

I described my findings with Steve who was baffled as nobody had ever before described these cables this way right out of the box. Hmmmm. He suggested I wait for 150 hours which I did, and again, the presentation was flat as can be. Thinking it was all in my head, I took the pair to a friend's home, and the first word out of his mouth? .... you guessed it: "FLAT"! I never told him anything about my findings ..... we simply dropped these in his system which was connected with Jade Hybrids at that time.

So we can talk about all the improvements in bass and reduced treble brightness, but none of these issues did I experience with my previously mentioned components. There are always some balancing acts that we have to do with aligning tonalities, what is often refered to as "synergy", but there was nothing I could do to bring back the decays and harmonic overtones of piano and voice with the GG Rev's. Playing one set of strengths over another with various tube changes in the CAT and Aesthetix gear could not bring back the 3D that instantly returned upon going back to the Jade Hybrid.

So even though I prefer the Jade Hybrid, the Indra is just a hair behind.....the GG Rev did not work out here at all. In all fairness, the Jade and Indra are $1000 more on the A'gon market. So as Bob writes about how far beyond the GG Extremes were over the Indra, and the Rev's at yet another level of performance, this was simply not the case in my system.

Clio - it's interesting that you tried the Jade Vermeil and prefered the GG Rev. The Vermeil in my system has some issues with the reduction of portrayal of space, but not as severe as the GGs. For lower cost systems, a direct shootout between the Vermeil and Extreme would be of value.

As for how a cable is changing overtime, it is hard for me to imagine how accurate such memories can be. I have heard my system sound significantly different from one night to another where no system changes occured. Without the ability to quickly swap in a reference (for me, the well burned-in Jade Hybrid), going by memories of how something sounded 2-3 days ago is a little too much of a leap in faith.

I wish I had been told of the 300 hour mark instead of the 150. I likely would have held onto the GG Rev for one more week of burn-in to find out how they might fare. But in all honesty, with virtually no improvments at the 150 hour mark, it is highly unlikely a miracle was to occur after 150 more hours. Had I experienced some improvements along the way, I may have had a different view on the situation.

For all the high praise that this is THE cable to beat all else, my experiences with the APL-Denon/Callisto/CAT/SoundLab setup resulted in a far different outcome. Thank goodness there are many products to choose from for our music system.

John

Audiobuzz: Your concerns are fair and yet any conclusions you make are wrong. You can insinuate all that you wish. If you pay attention to some of my comments early on with the Jade Vermeil and Gold cables, you will see that I had some concerns with these. I, along with many other potential Jade customers, talked to JD (at Jade) about these, and this had much to do with the later Hybrid model.

The point of my post was that for quite some time, the claim was that 150 hours was the magic burn-in time for GG cables. And my experience indicated that there was no benefit here at all. NONE! I did not rely on any memories from days before; I simply returned to my reference cable at each point of the listening audition. What might happen at 300 hours, I have no experience. But to claim that any magic occurs from 0 to 150, at least in my system, well, it never occured. And in all honesty, Audiobuzz, I was quite disappointed.

To get a product for less $$ with greater performance is one thing I am constantly on the lookout for. One recent such experience was how significantly the Running Springs Haley PLC outperformed the Sound App Line Stage at 1/3 the cost.

Another point to my post was that in my system, the Indra was also far far ahead of the GG Rev. This was quite the opposite to Bob's experience. We clearly listen for very different attributes or the strengths/weakeness of our systems are very different.

After hearing the ARC SP-8 almost 25 years ago, I have chased decays and portrayal of space as my priorities in sonic attributes. I am very critical about any component's performance in these areas. And once I hear how a given product excels in these areas, giving up any of this is mighty tough.....essentially impossible. In my setup, the Jade Hybrid is the top performer, followed by the Indra and Purist Dominus. Perhaps one of these days I will drop in a Purist Anniv and do another shootout, but for now, the Jade Hybrid is my favorite....but it is not perfect.

I have no loyalties to any company, electronics, cable, speakers, etc. Anyone who has followed my ARC->BAT->Aesthetix, Magnepan->SoundLab, NBS->Purist->Jade/Stealth, etc., paths, can easily see that I continue on the road for music system refinement.

As for anyone trying to push any business to Jade, all you have to do is read the many posts by JD on his cables. He hides none of his design. They are yours for the making if you're a DIY kinda guy. Tell me any other cable manufacturer of this performance level where this exists.

So Audiobuzz, rather than use your imagination as to any of my motives to put JD up on a cliff-side mansion overlooking Monterey, I suggest you give the Hybrid a try and determine for yourself how it might perform in your system.

John

John

Clio09 - Yes, I was kinda late with trying out the RS products. The Haley was a nice step forward in adding more clarity to the system. It impressed me so much I suggested to a couple friends to try it out. And they too were equally impressed.

Keep in mind that my comments on cables are relative to others that I have owned that excelled in the key areas important to me. One thing I find is that to get the top-most cables in these areas, I often have to sacrifice that last bit of detail and extension on the top. And this is one of the Hybrid vs. Indra issues for me. Both of these cables and the GG Rev. have very similar tonality, with the edge in my system going to the Indra for that last bit of coverage on the top. None of these cables ever exhibited a brightness or listener fatigue.

Concerning a recessed soundstage, I have the SoundLab A1's so that they are nearly 7 feet into the room. They are near the side walls but almost 10 feet apart center to center. I now have a lot more clarity going on behind the speakers vs. when the speakers were only 5 feet into the room. The row of 5 ASC tube traps placed behind the speakers last year was a major step forward in bringing on clarity to the mids and trebles as well. Next thing to try is some treatments on the ceiling.

Speaker positioning I find to be critical for image placement, but generally not in how decays are portrayed .... and this latter attribute was what I had issues with the GGs. I'm not much of an imaging fanatic but with the latest round of improvements, I have gained much here for free.

I'm with Bob, there's much to share without us getting upset with each other.

After I had the GG Rev's for a week, and reported my initial and final findings to Steve at GG, I figured that I would only share this information with a few close friends who were also on the hunt for the next level of refined ICs. But, reading the continued "greatest on earth" comments here was driving me nuts as my experience indicated otherwise. It was time to share an opposing view - 5000 happy customers vs. Jafox.

I was well aware of the backlash to come, especially since my current reference cables were made by a man here in Mpls whom I befriended 2 years ago. The concern for bias is fair, but it does not at all change the sonic results of the cable shootout. The only reason the Jade Hybrid came into the discussion was because this was the cable that I directly compared to the Rev. at 0 hours, approx. 70 hours and then at 155 hours. But the results would have been the same had I used the Indra or Dominus. And I have no friends at Stealth nor Purist.

What's the value of these forums if everyone reports the same thing? Let's just praise the next product as Class A and grab our folding chairs and head to the beach. And how can one component outperform everything else in every sonic attribute? I like a lot of products out there but I am well aware that each one has a weakness that another product conveys in a much more natural manner.

My 7/9/07 "hint" to get further detail on the 3D attributes of the GG cables only resulted in more of "the best cables on the planet" comments. With the repeated comments that the GG Extremes were so far ahead of the Indra, and the Rev's were yet another level of improvement, I simply had to share here that things were quiet different for me.

So why are my results so very different than the rest of the GG users? It has nothing to do with flavors of ice cream, nor synergy. We are not talking about tonality changes here where one person likes a peak in the mids or a valley in the trebles, etc., to compensate for tonal linearity flaws elsewhere.

As for my own taste - I like a chocolate mint; the flavor lingers on for another 2-3 seconds or so rather than immediately being lost.

I have heard many "high end" systems that have incredible resolution but are very flat in presentation. For such systems, nobody will ever hear my reported differences between these cables. For such a system, one can throw in a Cardas Golden Cross IC to bring on a little more mids emphasis but that's about it; no cable here is going to suddenly turn a Yamaha upright into a Steinway Concert Grand and push it 8 feet behind the speakers.

I had taken note of the system components used by some of the GG praisers here. Some of these components I have compared to my own, in my system and at the homes of others. Posting such information is of value as it gives us context for the component under evaluation. The trick is to get an idea as to how that reviewed component might perform in our own system.

If a product gets a high rating in a system that most likely outperforms our own system, will we be able to reap the benefits of the more refined product? ....or will this refined product only show up the flaws in our system that was pieced together to compensate for flaws elsewhere? - what is often referred to as synergy. A visit by Joe Kubala (Kubala-Sosna) to my home nearly 2 years ago made it very clear that I was guilty of this with a "balancing act" between a pair of ICs and speaker cables. Ultimately both of these cables had to be replaced at once or any cable replacing either of these would be blamed for being a flawed cable. I learned a lot that day.

And what if a product gets a high rating in a system that most likely is outperformed by our own system...will that highly praised product take our system to even higher levels of performance? .... or will our system only show the flaws of that product? .... or does the other system simply not allow for differences to be heard that are clearly conveyed in our own system? There's a lot more going on here than simply praising a product as the new King.

Clio - If you're interested in some information on PCs I have used with the Haley, I can email you some pros and cons on some Stealth and Dream State PCs I have been playing with. The sad thing is that these PCs cost more than the Haley itself but what they do is quite impressive.

John

Wow, John......what a heck of a report. Much value here. Thanks.