HAVE CABLES EVER TAKEN YOUR SYSTEM FROM SOUNDING JUST OK TO SOUNDING GREAT? Experiences ?

My experiences trying interconnects and speaker cables was 30 years ago and they made big differences for me. This was back in the days when you could take home cables and try them for a week at a time. My speakers have had tendencies to be a bit forward. So, to have my system open up and be revealing without being too aggressive has been a balancing act. The most “transparent” cables (Cardas, Siltech) could make my system overly aggressive. Once I settled, I’ve never felt tempted to try again. From my perspective, getting the components I own to play at their best is the icing on the cake. If I was still unhappy, I needed to upgrade electronics.

More recently, I have been amazed at the benefits of upgrading my digital interconnect and the power cords for my preamp and DAC. Relatively cheap upgrades the changed my perspectives on equipment I already owned. I had been talked into avoiding those upgrades as being needless and I was wrong.

@calvinj, my experience was a specific case of reducing the transmission of as much RFI and EMI as possible coming from my Chord Mscaler going into my Chord Hugo TT2 DAC through the use of a design specific interconnect. If you can lower the sonic floor to where it is inky black with dead silence the better one can hear the layering and clarity in the music.

@adasdad funny you metntion that. That’s exactly what Hans does with the infigo cabling as well as the electronics. That’s the basis for everything we do. The more quiet the background the better the music. The better the silence between the notes in my system I can hear everything in a fast Ahmad Jamal piano run.  Sounds amazing.  

@adasdad by reducing the noise floor in the cabling and equipment you have a better listening experience. That’s the premise that we base everything we do on.  My system does that from the dac all the way to the amp and cabling. 

I recently started using UPOCC silver cables from Zenwave. I started with the new D4 ICs and the difference from my prior cables (TPC Iconoclast) was another level. So was the cost. However, there was much more musical resolution, image placement was much more accurate, the soundstage grew, and music simply became more involving. And I did also compare the Zenwaves to the Iconoclast UPOCC copper (I still own one of these) and while the difference was more subtle relative to the TPC cable, the Zenwave still shined in every way. These cables allowed my components to sound like they should to me, in an invigorating and musical manner.

I've also been trying some different power cabling over the last year as well. Audioquest Tornado and Hurricane, Triode Power Labs, and a few others. I have had both the Zenwave PSR silver power cable on my preamp and the copper PCR cable on my Pass amp as a trial for about a month now (I last week placed my order for 3 Zenwave PCs) and again, another level of resolution and musicality. The silver PCs are highly resolving and engaging, while using the copper PCR cable on my amp left the resolution in place, but added a bit more body (the eerie sensation of feeling a solo cello resonate musically is the sort of body I am talking about for instance).

One other interesting thing to me in my system with the new cables. Music that I really enjoy but was not that well recorded became more engaging with the new cables. Of course well recorded music sounded even better than before, but I find myself playing more music that is definitely not well recorded and being drawn in - more foot tapping and finger drumming!

I couldn't be happier with the Zenwave cable upgrade.