Kubala-Sosna Sensation

I’ve been to the mountain top...it’s pricey and precipitous up there! Recently got a pair of Pangea Balanced Premier XL interconnects for a budget system I was putting together and I figured why not check them out on my main system. Absolutely astounding...simply put, the Pangea’s allow me to experience my local Philadelphia Orchestra in my listening room. They are a large part of what I’m hearing and I must say, the sound is just fundamentally correct and musical across the frequency band, from lowest foundational notes to the airiest crystalline highs...they allow the warmth and dynamic contrast to bubble up and feed your soul with musical manna!

Your post is not remotely relevant to my very specific question.

Understand that Kubala cables are silky lubricated sounding and mushy sounding that pair well with soft tube jobs. As far as which Kubala version you go with here is the low down:

"The Kubala Realization is to have the Kubala Imagination and Kubala Anticipation after the Kubala Temptation of Kubala Emotion that yielded the Kubala Fascination that gave you the Kubala Elation of relieving the Kubala Sensation to your Kubala Constipation."

I had a full loom of Emotion when that was the coin of the realm, and did upgrade one interconnect-- at the earliest stage- to Elation- it was profoundly better in my system, which is a horn based, SET system.
Why not reach out to Kubala and see if you can try a piece, or he can direct you to a dealer who will provide a temporary loaner so you can do so? When I was living in the NE, it wasn't a big deal. Joe actually came over a couple times with my dealer. Nice guy- low key. I still use his cable. Works really well with the Lamm SET and Avantgarde Duo combination I run.

Ronres

I am unable to answer your specific question as I have not compared the two cables you are asking about. I can offer you my opinion regarding the Kubala Sosna Emotion series. 

First thing is you should know about me as an audiophile, I am very picky and will not settle for good, in my opinion, it must be great. A lot of my friends laugh at me because I will buy a piece of gear, it might be a preamp, it might be a pair of speakers. I’m in the industry and one of my closest friends owns a hifi store so He gives me what he sells for his cost. If a piece is supposed to be great I will buy it and put it in my system and make sure it is completely broken in before I make any decisions. This may take 6 months, it might take 18 months. Like I said, if it’s not great because chances are I got it at cost, I will sell it.

I have found out over the last five years that there is a lot of gear out there that is supposed to be great and turns out to be mediocre at best (in my opinion). In the last five years I have tried a lot of products and wound up selling most of them. There are just two products that I just won’t get rid of because I feel they are truly great. One of them is my Pass Labs XA30.8 class a stereo amp. That amp is just a giant killer. The other “keeper” product is my entire loom of Kubala Sosna “Emotion” power cords, speaker wire and interconnect. No matter what I put at the front end of the system or what speakers I am using it always sounds so “right”. From top to bottom, for me, it just has no weak points. It is very natural sounding and does everything you would expect from a great cable Most importantly it ALWAYS remains so musical. It is also one of the most well balanced cables I have heard. Now the “Sensation” is supposed to be better but The “Emotion” is so good I have no desire to try it. I hope that helps you and good luck with whatever you choose.

Scot

Hello,
I have fairly high end equipment, Audionet Max amps and Pre G2 with Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC.  I would categorize my system as true and revealing in a wonderful way.  Do not say over-etched. Wires (are) were all Audience AU24SX, which I demo'd along with Audience Front Row cables and also Synergistic PC's.  So now I got three demo KS Sensation to try!  Two interconnects and speaker cables with jumpers.  Well, a couple of things.  First, even inserting one Sensation cable tuned things quite a bit.  The sound is definitely fuller, with larger soundstage and more ambience.  There is just 'more going on' with the Sensation.  Female vocals are very different.  With the AU24SX, the vocal is much more light and airy, less musical weight, and more  'by itself'.  With the Sensation, the midrange is much more filled in, the bass more organic (Old Yes) and the overall presentation is warmer.  Both sounds are nice, and it took much A/B comparison (I used a Y splitter to two preamp inputs from the DAC so I could switch back and forth readily.  By the way I also did this with the AU24SX vs the Audience Front Row; here I thought the AU24's delicate nature was smoother and less fatiguing.  But with the Sensation, it is like you get the benefits of the extra information and ambience, without the glare or grain that 'hurts my ears'.  This possibility definitely exists with my set up, vs Tube gear or perhaps Pass amps.  I was truly hoping to prefer the (slightly) less expensive AU24SX, but now that I have hear them....oh well.

fastfreight
whom is your KS dealer/retailer? Thank You for sharing your impressions and thoughts.

Happy Listening!

Hi jafant,

Bill Parish, GTT Audio.  Super nice guy.

Audionet, Mola Mola, KS, YG

Thanks!  Ken

fastfreight
Thank You for the follow up.
Happy Listening!