Andrew, I only tried this with the CT-1 Es. Speaker wire without doubt. Next preamp to amp. A digital cable is next. Finally, on source to preamp, I give a slight edge thus far to digital. |
Charles1dad, this will be very interesting. When I had the Troy in, I noticed that the sound was quieter, more involving, had a more defined soundstage, was sweeter, and more dynamic. Most of these characteristics apply to what I hear from the HF cables also. I would presume that they would apply to the HF Wave Guide Power Box also.
I suspect you will be in complete awe. |
Charles1dad, I misunderstood you. I thought you had a WGPC already. |
Ddraudt, the Ultimate waveguides are used in the small one and the Ultimate Reference in the large one.
Charles1dad, I will soon have a Waveguide Power box. I reviewed the TriPoint Grounding box some time ago and recently learned that it is replace by an improved model. I loved the Troy, but could not afford it at the time.
I don't think they are not incompatible. The troy has nothing directly to do with the signal or the ac. I may get the new Troy for review or even just to try.
I would not hazard a guess as to which would have the greater impact.
You know that Tripoint does have a very expensive ac filter. |
Charles1dad, when I get a hearing of both, which may be soon, I can make at least a personal judgment. I did love the original Troy. |
Charles1dad, when I get a hearing of both, which may be soon, I can make at least a personal judgment. I did love the original Troy. |
Ddraudt, I wish I had been in College Station and been able to join the listening rather than waiting a week to hear one. |
Ddraudt, I have been around for a long time also, since the late '50s. I too am at a loss for words even after HP wrote a new vocabulary. I have already had marvelous improvements recently not only with the High Fidelity cables as to leave me realizing how deficient my sound was even four years ago. I have come to totally reject those who would have us be satisfied with good music and the belief that we will never get a perfect reproduction. The HFCs and other things make me realize that I have gotten much closer to "real." It is absolute thrilling to hear great recordings that will never be heard again except as reproductions that actually sound real.
In addition to realism, I am hearing more instruments and great tumbrel accuracy, and I might add more mistakes, lip smacking, etc. All of this ad to sitting very close to the performers in seats or in recording venues where I would be unlikely to be. If the WGPB adds as much as have the latest of the HFCs, I will be tickled to death.
I thought your post conveyed excitement; screw anything else. |
Did someone post or can someone post pictures of the WGPB? |
Ddraudt, so I heard.
It seems to be called the Wave Guide Power Center now. |
Charles1dad, do you have both the Troy and the WGPC now? I'm anxious to hear your experiences. I think I'm getting the WGPC today. |
Powder1, fortunately or unfortunately, the CT-1U speaker wire is clearly superior to the CT-1E, AND the CT-1UR is considerable better yet. And each and every step up comes with much longer breakin. And each step will reveal faults in your system or minor changes in it that may be better or worse. |
Nglazer, having had two of your three cables, I am confident about what you will hear, but I also know people have different tastes. |
Chris_launder,I too had been using balanced cables. Fortunately, my preamp, Exemplar XP-2, had both balanced and single ended inputs and outputs. I compared what I thought were excellent balanced cables with the single-ended CT-1s, then CT-1Es, and then CT-1Us versus the balanced cable. I now am completely single ended. It is an open question for me as to whether or not the HFCs in balanced will be greatly better than the single-ended ones. |
Theaudiotweak, what does "...not constrict this product's design path with the high impedance presented by isolation products," mean? I would think that StillPoints technology of converting vertical into horizontal motion would work better to keep motion from below out of the component. |
I now have a WGPC Ultimate Reference, which now has about 14 hours on it. After about a half hour, I thought that it had the characteristic HF attributes, namely defined bass, sweet and extended top in, and great easy and clarity. I had four StillPoints Ultra Fives lying around. No, I don't just have a box of them sitting here. They had been under my line stage which now has Ultra Minis under it. I put them under the rails extending front and back of the WGPC. My initial impressions were quite favorable, but supper called.
About two hours later I returned to play more music. I sat in awe most of the remaining evening and hesitated to go to bed. Since these use Ultimate Reference wave guides, I expect a long break in. |
Nglazer, I tried the dac to linestage first and linestage to amps second. I thought the line to amp made the biggest improvement.
For the first hour or two they will sound great, then they go south for a day, only to come back much better. After about three day, they will pretty much stabilize but will gradually improve. If you move them at all, it will take at least three hours for them to come back. Make sure you have them on fully and make sure the wave guides are not touching each other. A blow in card works fine to keep them separated. Don't treat the connectors with anything. They already are. |
Audiolabyrinth, me too. I had a long talk with Rick about the benefits of the StillPoints Ultra Fives that are really about converting vertical motion into heat, not really direct grounding. I really have no experience with the Star Back Stage technology, but I have much experience with the StillPoints.
Thanks for clarifying the situation. |
Ddraudt, today I'm packing up the HF WGPC and taking it to Texas. Last night after listening again to it, I put back the Kemp Power Source on four StillPoints Ultra Fives. It had been on three. I know from much prior experience that four is far superior to three but is also a real pain as you need to adjust the one that is not in contact to be in contact. This is a very common occurrence. I also found that those under my line stage needed to be raise for contact. I think this had also be affecting the performance of the WGPC at the end as the line stage had be moved slightly by the heavy pc.
Frankly the Kemp sounded quite good with four Ultra Fives and with the line stage sitting properly on all four. I need to make sure on installing the WGPC in Texas to do it properly. Once I get this done, I will invite you over for a listening.
Nglazer, make sure that your Wave Guides are not on metal or anything other than in the air or on ceramics or touching each other. |
Audiolabyrinth, I remember long, long ago when two audio friends in NY showed me the impact one of the routing of wires in a line stage and later of the benefits of two or more transformers in an ac filter being at right angles to each other. I guess any current flow has a magnetic field associated with it and that this field when it varies induces current flow within wires near it.
If the ac filter moves, there are induced signals within its circuit. If you can drain this vibration or absorb it by converting to heat, you don't alter the signal. |
Audiolabyrinth, I didn't mean to offend you. I don't believe I am talking about changing the electrical characteristics of the cable. I am talking about induced magnetic fields around cables carrying signals that can in turn affect the signal in adjacent cables. If you can dampen the shaking of cables you can reduce these induced signals. |
Audiolabyrinth, I am not counting on balanced, but would love to have them. Given the extra size needed for the single-ended ones, I hate to think of the size of the XLRs. I also hate to see the price increase for them.
I have had balanced cabling that did nothing and others such as the Exemplar silver Portals where the balanced were clearly better. Since both my BMC M2 amps and Exemplar XP-2 allow use of both balanced and single-ended, I will get to test this again. |
Theaudiotweak, I can understand that the mechanical impedance at the point of spikes, but what it would be with StillPoints Ultra Fives seems ill-defined. The base is 3 inches in diameter and the top is somewhat smaller. But the top ceramic ball would be very small and what vertical motion there would be there would be gone by the bottom of the ball pile would be gone. Also that on the bottom of the pile would be gone by the top. |
Theaudiotweak, all I really know is what I hear. I have not heard the Star Backstage but nothing I have heard surpasses the StillPoints, and I have tried many, many vibration solution, including the Halcyonics active systems, plus boxes full of brass footers of varying sizes. |
Agear, he still does. I have never even seen any of the Star gear. Do you have it? |
Well, Tom, now I know which Tom you are thanks to your mentioning the endpin. |
Nglazer, well spoken review! |
Audiolabyrinth, I cannot imagine what you are talking about in saying that nobody talks about the presentation. Soundstage, realism, and a sense that you are at the recording event are all mentioned. I also don't understand why you want the soundstage just between the speakers. In both of my systems the sound is high, wide, deep, and involving. But it is the ease of the sound, the sweetness of the top end and the definition and profoundness of the bass as well as the detail capturing. I continually hear things that I never heard before in the recording that I wonder if even the recording engineer ever heard. |
Audiolabyrinth, I prefer to hear the sound stage before me as though I was standing about where the mics were. Of course if the mics pick up the high frequencies correctly and your system reproduces them correctly, you are going to hear the music as you would standing close to the mics.
What I like most about the High Fidelity cables is their ease and detail, which captures decay of the notes and subtle portions of the music.
I can find no definition for the word "presatation." |
Ddraudt, do you want to come over next weekend? I have the WGPC in the system. |
Ddraudt, I have just begun experiments with it. It is plugged into the wall and two other devices feed off it. One is the HB Designs Acrylic PowerSlave with all analog device plugged into it and the other is a Japanese device with all digital devices plugged in. This allowed a simple with and without the WGPC.
With was definitely superior with all the properties of the HF cables but to a far greater extent. The soundstage is very wide, deep, and high, it is very detailed with no doubt as to how wide and where the marimba is, where the audience member who is coughing is including how far away from the performer, one can easily hear the decay of the notes in the hall, and the timbre of instruments is right on.
I want to move on to skipping the use of other devices in ac filtering, but having only eight outlets on the HF WGPC is a limitation.
I do wish the Hubbell 5362BLK duplexes without cryogenic treatment were used. I wish all could be zapped on the SR Tesla Coil.
Presently, I am using the spikes that come with the HF WGPC on an Accapella isolation base. I will soon be trying the StillPoints Ultra Fives. |
Nic10pin, this is not a good week to call him as the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest starts on the 11th and HF is in the show. But after that just google High Fidelity cables and contract them. I have a one meter pair and can see that it is possible to take out about a foot of cable.
Bare in mind that the wave guides get bigger and longer on the top cables, so it would be easier to make shorter cables on the CT-1 standards than on the soon to be released CT-1 Ultimate Reference cables. |
Dave, I always love to have people come listen; it helps me validate what I've been hearing. While I know of a guy in Washington with more than ninety SP Ultra Fives, I know full-well that you are not thinking entirely of Ultra Fives. You dampening of the wave guides certainly did work. Thanks for coming over to Aggie Land.
Today I'm going to put the HF WAPC on SP Utra Minis. Ceteris Paribus (all things held constant) is alway so difficult to assure evaluations. |
Tsushima1, is it really possible to use single ended cables between balanced out and balanced in? I use single ended phono to XLR cables as my phono stage only accepts balanced. |
Tsushima1, I have the capability with my Exemplar XP-2 line stage and BMC M2 amps of both balanced and single-end ics. I had truly excellent Exemplar Silver Portal balanced and charged cables everywhere and once had the same Silver Portals single ended cables. The balanced were clearly better. I should say, however, in the past I had found little or no gain with balanced.
Since this I have gone through CT-1s, CT-iEs, and CT-1Us. All were, of course, single-ended. With the possible exception of the original CT-1s, the balanced were bested by the HF single-ended.
I really find the XLRs for the HF balanced cables seem hard to conceptualize. Let's hope for them to come along. |
Audiolabyrinth, I think the only real problem with thee High Fidelity cables is which can you afford and like best. Apart from the standard CT-1s, I have had full loom experience with the Enhanced and Ultimates, and soon will get Ultimate Reference ics to join my Ultimate Reference speaker wires. In my experience, the Enhanced were a major improvement over the Standards and the Ultimate References, I suspect, will be a giant jump over the Ultimates, judging from the improvement with the Ultimate Reference speakerwires.
I should also say that each improved level of these cables comes with a substantial time needed to settle or break in. With the Ultimate Reference speaker wires we are talking about months. And all these wire hate to be moved at all and take time to recover.
But they are great! |
Charles1dad, yes, there are too numerous cables to try them all. I hate to think of how many I've owned or just tried. I was confident that the Exemplar Silver balanced Portals were it for me until I heard the first High Fidelity CT-1s and their speed, detail, dynamics and involving character. As I have said so often, if you are happy, don't try other cables, dacs, preamps, etc.
For me, however, I will keep listening to other cables, dacs, etc. There is no question for me that my system has greatly improved these last several years. |
Charles1dad, I think there are only three HF WGPCs out and only 8 Troy Signatures in the US. I guess that is pretty rarified company. It really is a shame that these are both expensive for either parts or labor. Miguel of Tripoint even got me to polish my StillPoints Ultra Fives, and it made a very nice improvement. |
4orreal, my initial exposure to the High Fidelity cables was through a pair of both the CT-1 Standards and the CT-1 Enhanced. But beware, the Enhanced take several days to sound their best. Even if the cables you receive are used, they will take some time to get back to their well-broken-in status. |
Hifial, I will guarantee that all brands have not been mentioned. I will also guarantee that no one here has heard even 10% of all the brands. I also will guarantee that there will never be any brand that is viewed as best by 10% of audiophiles. So what is the benefit of listing which brands were compared? |
Audiolabyrinth, why is it your business? |
Petieboy12003, it is not a secret girls' club; it is just irrelevant what cables I was using. Our opinions expressed here are just our opinions or personal experiences. Were we to have all members of Audiogon to listen to 100 types of cables and vote what they heard, I suspect there would be little or no agreement. Without thinking very hard as to how many different sets of cabling I have had, I came up with fifteen different ones. These were used with 27 different speaker system in eight different listening rooms. Is any of this relevant? I think not.
I very much like the sound I'm getting right now with the HF Ultimates and Ultimate Reference speaker wire. It has taken close to two months for the Ultimate Reference cables to fully breakin. What I am hearing is excellent timbre to instruments, very precise sound stage locations, deep bass, and excellent involvement in the ambience of the recording venue. Can you duplicate exactly what I have experience? I think not, but even without my full system, I think you would be impressed by the HF cables. |
Charles1dad, in many ways the WGPC has High Fidelity cable character to it. It has the transparent clarity to it, once broken in. I have been using it without extra concerns with vibration isolation. I made every effort to give my reference unit and it equal footing, which ultimately was to just put both on my wooden floors on their special feet.
It was only after about two months that I got the WGPC's full worth. Now I have learned that there are improvements coming for the unit that may entail my going through another break in period. |
Jazzonthehudson, thanks for understanding my not really wanting to spend my time enumerating all the cables that lead up to my comments on the High Fidelity cables. I've been at this hobby since 1968 with high end stuff and since 1959 with kit systems or better. Frankly, when I first put in one pair of the HF CT-1 Standards, my attention was immediately gathered. It was like looking through a freshly cleaned window after years were I assumed all windows were dirty. Since then on hearing a full loom of the Enhance, then Ultimates, and soon I hope, the Ultimate References, I have opened the window entirely.
Personally, it is enthusiasm that most impresses me in reviews, not the names of component with which the reviewed item is to be compared. Right now I would love to hear the Crystal Absolute Dream cables, but given their price, I dare not ever hear them. I was so warned by a friend who has heard them. I must admit, however, that he uttered the dreaded alert words for me, "very musical." I want real not musical. |
Charles1dad, I agree with the vocabulary problem. But so often I find that many listeners are happy enough that their music reproduction is not stressful, edgy, or distorted and can be listened to for lengthy amount of time as "musical." Having achieved a very convincing soundstage with perfect timbre to instruments and dynamics, or in short realism, I won't be happy anymore with what I had with my Shindo Labs turntable, arm, and cartridge vinyl. Also old tube electronics does satisfy me anymore.
Perhaps we are just using a different vocabulary. |
Chatnoir, while I can understand what people characterize as "thinness" initially with the CT-1 Standards, in reality it is just a short term breakin characteristic and is a vivid example of the clarity and transparency of the HF cables. And the CT-1Es extend that clarity and transparency downward but only after about 24 hours of playing.
Each level of the HF cables adds more and more transpareny and includes more of the lower frequencies. But each takes more and more time to reach their best. My CT-1 Ultimate Reference speaker wires suddenly jumped a great deal after two months of use. This is a problem for the manufacturer and for dealers, but not for the patient customer. If you can hear these at a friends or someone with well broken in cables.
All of these cables had an initial two days on the BlueHorizons cooker. Anyone who thinks a cable cooker yields sufficient breakin has not experienced what I have. |
Iblieve, I have limited experience with the original CT-1 standards and have only heard the CT-1 Ultimate Reference speaker wires. But roughly speaking I think each step up the High Fidelity line yields great improvements in the bass control and extension. I am not saying that the Enhansed has poor bass, but the Ultimate Reference has a bass that I never heard before. I didn't think it was on recordings. I should note again that I have yet to hear Ultimate Reference interconnects. |
Leicachamp, no that is not normal. I would call HFC about this, or take them back to the dealer. But remember it is not normal. |
Chatnoir, since the High Fidelity concept includes the idea that the magnetic conduction influences component inside and since they make a phono cable with a DIN connector, I would say get one of the digital cables and the appropriate BNC to female RCA adapter and give it a whirl. |
Chatnoir and Agisthos, This weekend Rick said he was going to make a USB cable. He did say that the would not be magnets in the actual USB plugs, however. He didn't say when it would be available. |
