WC, After added hours with the Odin speaker cables, running in the "correct" direction, have things changed from your observations a day or two ago? And if so, it would be interesting to learn if the changes are due to added hours on the cables or to the direction change. Does returning the cables to the "incorrect" direction result in any changes?
Other than playing with the shield, if there is one, tying it to the '-' line at one end of the cable or the other, or perhaps a "network" on one end or the other, designating a speaker cable as "directional" sounds more like hype than anything. Perhaps a resident technical guru here like almarg could inject some value here.
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WC, What IC's are you using from Ref 10 to the amps? This is CRITICAL! |
With all due respect guys, if the Oppo comes even remotely close to the Lampi, there is something seriously wrong. |
On the 1st page of this thread, he said that the Emotiva 250 sounds as good as amps costing 10x as much. Yes, in his system at that time. But let's be honest, this was when he was very clearly a non-believer of cable differences. He has come a long way with cables, the magic of tubes at the front end, power refinements, room setup, etc. I always make note of the reviewer's system, typically at the end of the review, before I go back to the start to read all the details. This allows me to put what I am reading in context with my own experience with any of those products, if in fact I have any. And sadly he did not list his system at the time of the start of this thread. So there was no reference point. If your system is dimensionally flat, comparing components with such strengths, will be marginal at best. And evaluating bass performance requires a very large room, not a 12x18x8 room. There will be many bass nodes here, and sadly, room correction between the line stage and amp will likely destroy so much of the 3D magic that took years to attain. A system loaded with top-performing components, many which don't work well together for a multitude of reasons, and mediocre cabling will result in a midfi system at best. It is a sad reality. I heard an exact example of this in a local audiophile's home a couple months ago and the result was horrible. I heard many of those products in the past in systems with stunning performance. With WC's system now, I give his comments far more weight when he does comparisons than when he did just a year ago and before. |
Jetter, but both "digiral" playback systems have entirely different analog output stage and power supply implementations. |
jetter, I don't understand what you are saying here. I have owned the Lampi B6 for nearly 5 years and tried a number of different tubes in the Rectifier and audio circuits and after trying a number of different brands in each, I was able to tune the B6 with vast improvements. The GG DAC also supports multiple tube types for the Rectifier and audio circuit. I can only imagine that tube experiments here would be more dramatic than what I have experienced with the B6.
Are we saying that the Oppo 205 sonically exactly matches the GG in WC's system? If tube rolling does indeed make dramatic changes here, are we saying that WC's tube set in his GG just happens to result in a sonic signature exactly to the 205? Come on, this is statistically unrealistic. WC above indicates that he did hear differences in some system configurations. And then he could no longer here these differences.
The 300B tubes have a seductive magic that has to be heard to be appreciated. I have no experience with the PX-4 but just read the comments on this tube to learn about its praise.
There is so much obsession with the Nordost Odin cables here. It was not that long ago that the Valhalla cables were the top of Nordost's line. But these did not remotely come close to their competition in retrieving the portrayal of space; hyper-detailed yes, but hyper sterile as well. If the Odin is a continuation of the Nordost sonic path from the Valhalla line, the magic of the GG will never have a chance to surface in WC's system. It's time to pull all the Nordost cables out, donate them to the Salvation Army, and reconfigure the system with an entirely different cable line. And no, not Audioquest as this line is another product line that does not bring on the 3D qualities. Perhaps the Shunyata will do it.
Hopefully some courageous members here who have worked hard to achieve exemplary portrayal of space can share in this forum what cables truly outperformed the competition in their system. I have tried to suggest a few but they have been ignored for the sake of the Nordost and Wireworld products lines.
I say it again, if WC can not hear the GG significantly outperform the Oppo in the key areas of 3D and harmonics structures, there is a serious problem in his system. And I again say, put the focus on the ICs in the $2-3k price range and not this insane power cord and speaker cables at 2-3x the price of this. |
@wym2
My "3D space" comments were relative to interconnects, not speaker cables, in the context of my system at the time: Clearaudio TT/Arm/Cartridge, Aesthetix Io & Callisto Sig, CAT JL-3 amps, SoundLab A1.
@eziggy
I was a huge Magnepan fan and then sold them around 2000 or so. Then I wanted them again so I went to the Minneapolis dealer a few years later who had a store full of all the Magnepan and ML speakers. He gave me easily 3 hours of his time one afternoon as the store was not busy. One by one, he rolled in each ML speaker he had to compare with the Maggie 3.5 and then later the 20.1. There was not a single ML speaker that did anything for me compared to even the Maggie 3.5; the ML sound was just not my thing.....too sterile! All electronics were ARC which is what I had at that time. Even when I heard the CLS back in the early 80s at a Tucson dealer, my response was rather neutral. By 2004/2005, I heard the SL A1's that made my Maggie 3.5 sound like kiddie toys and I never looked back.
I guess I would have to say that NBS Statement ICs 15 years ago was the start of my discovery of 3D presentation, but that was significantly improved upon by Purist Dominus, then onto Stealth Indra, Silent Source and the awesome Jade Reference Platinum/Gold. Once I moved on from the Dominus, and I started to hear phenomenol tonal coherency and frequency extreme extension, I was no longer willing to give this up for cables that only excelled in the 3D performance. Once you hear it all, you want it all.
The link so critical here is from line stage to amp(s). Such cable differences between the DAC at the time (Manley Ref) and the Io phono stage into the Callisto, were nowhere near as dramatic which showed a pecking order that is quite different than what many others here report as the cables from source to line as being more critical. Every time I had money to spend to update a 1-2m IC in my system, I compared it every where. And the greatest differences were always into the amps.
As for speaker cables, after hearing my system fully loaded with KS Emotion, and then a mix of this and Dominus, I started to seek out a speaker cable not so expensive. I recall the Coincident cables, the top model at the time, was very tonally coherent. A Purist dealer sent me a huge box of various speaker cables and I discovered that the midline Opis model was outstanding with my system. It was neck and neck with the Coincident and half the price and much less than the Dominus and KS. I then compared the Opis a few years later to the Jade Audio speaker cables which just added a a little more extension on the top. But the Opis is one of those awesome values I have come across along the way. It is a keeper.
With all my cable listening efforts here, speaker cable differences with the JL3's and the A1's were just not all that dramatic. Huge differences in piano decays, tracking a musician moving around the stage, etc., were not huge like comparing ICs. So again, my experiences don't track with so much that is shared here. And except for a couple speaker cables that had serious peak/valley tonal issues and were immediately dismissed, most speaker cables that I tried were "acceptable"; this was not at all the case for ICs.
I have since moved the A1s upstairs with a project to do a HT setup with all electrostatic speakers. SF Amati Futura speakers are now mated with the JL3's in my basement music system. The system rack has been pushed to the side of the room so now my IC quest has started from scratch as I need a RCA cable 4-5m long for the amps between the speakers. I have 2 long Transparent Audio ICs to arrive in a few days. These are the latest Ref MM and Ref XL. From all I have read, these could be stunning with the Futuras being heard like never before. And then I can investigate the justification to try a speaker cable at a much higher cost than I have considered trying in the past.
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@zprrI have no experience with Wireworld products. A few months ago I saw what looked like a most impressive Wireworld speaker cable pair on consignment at a local audio store. I was very tempted to try them out, but I needed to stay focused then to try different amps with my basement speakers and to also find longer pairs of ICs. I am now set with the amps as I fired back up the CAT amps and found much success with an RCA Transparent Audio cable this weekend. But I am already eager to try the next TA model up the line.
I shuffled furniture, moved pictures on the walls, removed a bookcase, removed a rug off a wall, and now the room is more lively than before. So perhaps after I tame the room a bit, I will be ready to try speaker cables, and perhaps the Wireworld products. As for Nordost, I heard a friend's system with all the Valhalla and I did not like it at all. Ultimately he abandoned that too and created his own cable line. That was the top Nordost product at the time and I feel that if I do not like a company's top product, the designer(s) and I have a different set of preferences and so I typically move on to audition other product lines. So it is highly unlikely I will audition Nordost unless someone came over and insisted I give them a try. |
@eziggy,
I try to be careful with the words I use when I describe component or system auditions. Some words off limits for me are, accuracy, transparency and truth. A favorite word used by many is synergy but this can be more seen as a means to compensate one component's flaws with those of another. Two products might have wildly different tonality but when mated together result in a "neutral" or "accurate" system result. I experienced this mistake when I had a cable designer visit my home 10 years ago and one by one we replaced each cable in my system with one from his line. When we got to the final IC, and inserted his IC, the sound took a goofy turn for the worse. But upon putting his speaker cables in, the sound came back into check. It was very clear that I had done a mighty fine job to mix products with serious complimentary flaws to result in "system synergy".
In 1981 I heard the outstanding Accoustat 2+2 speakers at a so cal dealer. These are the 8-feet tall doubly stacked flat panels that were 2 feet wide as I recall. Oh my, this was impressive. I few years later I heard the ML CLS at a Tucson dealer and the impression was not at all the same; it was very disappointing. And then a couple years later, I heard the Stax electrostatic speakers at a Phoenix dealer. Oh my, that sound too was incredible! These were 5-6 feet tall, maybe 2 feet wide and flat panel. Was the curved panel design of the ML the culprit of my conclusions? Maybe, but I clearly was not anti-electrostatic speakers. It just showed me that not all electrostatic speakers are created equal.
I used the word, sterile when I heard the ML speakers line in Minneapolis 15 years after that. To me a sterile sound does not imply accuracy, but rather it describes that the minute I hear music from that system, I have no feeling that I am at a live event; there is no emotional connection maybe because of fatigue, dimensional flatness, compressed dynamics, unnatural tonality, etc.
Isn't what we all seek here is to sit down in front of our music system and escape to believe even for a short time that we are listening to the real event? The ML experiences did not bring this on for me. If this is what people describe as truth, they can have it. And the Minneapolis dealer was using his top ARC products at that time. I do not recall the source. But a change to the Magnepans, and yes, some exaggerations with bigger images than reality, but for me, there was a pull for me into the performance.
And then in 2005, I heard the huge SoundLab U1 and A1 models. Never before had I experienced an electrostatic speaker as this. And surprise, surprise, it was curved but it was tonally coherent, most impressive clarity and dynamics (with the CATs) and had outstanding portrayal of space. I truly was unprepared for what I heard and this has everything to do with why I own these today, for over a decade.
Perhaps the latest ML line addresses the concerns I had with their products years ago, but I have no desire to change what I have unless I am ready to significantly downsize my speakers or systems. |
Some people just know how to put a system together. |
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WC, In the latest Absolute Sound edition, Robert Harley writes about his new custom listening room. This caught my attention as I prepare to have a custom home built with a key effort also being a listening room. So I thought this article was relevant to your project in progress as well. There is much detail about the materials, wall construction, etc., and his ability to play as loud as he wants at all times of the day and night, and not to disturb his family/neighbors. Hopefully there will be some tips/ideas for you to discuss with the contractor before things get started. |
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WC, It's been cool to read about your evolution here. It was just a year ago or so when you thought it was crazy to spend much money on power cords. And now look at those you have purchased. The same can be said about other cables you have purchased. Only through trying such cables for ourself, do we realize the bias we had before we bought such cables would soon be reversed.
And the issue of DACs directly to amp or first through a line stage. This is another area that a number of us here concluded 15+ years ago - that we preferred the result with the line stage. A manufacturer of a past DAC I owned wrote on this site that he added the volume control to alleviate the need for a line stage, and that his method was the way to run with that product. After I tried with/without the line stage, the line stage in the loop was much preferred. Maybe there was a tiny bit of detail lost, but with "my" line stage, the result was a "bigger" presentation with greater dynamics contrasts, and far more harmonic structure. Which is "right"? Who cares, if we prefer it. I had the same experience with the previous DAC I owned with a volume control. And of course, the specific line stage model here has everything to do with the outcome.
I have experienced a similar benefit with phono step-up transformers that can be configured for 2 gain settings. Those few extra db of gain at the step up bring on a bigger presentation than if I use the volume control on the line stage to achieve the same sound level in the room.
For phono or a DAC, the extra gain or buffer stage is doing something that perhaps one of the techie gurus like @Almarg could explain here. I have read the comments of many preamp designers that the volume control itself is critical in the end result of their product. Perhaps volume controls in many DACs are not up to the same caliber as those in the upper tier of line stages?
WC, contrary to a few people here pushing you to remove the Ref10 from your system, you knew it brought magic to the end result even with the faults it had. On your next endeavor, for a line stage and amp pair from the same manufacturer, I hope you can try a set with tubes....at least the line stage with a tube rectified power supply. You have not experienced such a product yet. It will be a game changer.
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