I've got Mapleshade double helix on order, about a week before you guys came up with the Sakura; I'm a day late and a dollar short, once again. It's taking Pierre so long to make the jumpers, maybe he'll include the "secret sauce".
Hey, Pierre? |
Just the speaker cables, Dekay. You'll have to pry my Silver Lace IC's from my cold, dead hands. They'll be up against the T-14 bi-wires I have that stood up pretty well to Coincident's. Which is not to say they're as good, they're not.
Reading thru back posts about Mapleshade, I was struck by the accolades for the jumpers as much as for the cables themselves. Once I have the jumpers, I intend to embark on testing several other non-bi-wire cables.
All donation's cheerfully accepted. |
Redkiwi- they're about 24 gauge with a thin shield; very stiff and springy. You should visit the site http://mapleshaderecords.com/tweaks/index.html
Yes, cymbals just shimmer like mad. I played the Chieftains 'Tears of Stone', cut two Bonnie Raitt; thats not crossover chestiness, she had a cold that day, it's so obvious. Miles Davis use of the mute, amazing. The orchestral color I noted above. I could go on.
I'm just a little confused about what's the better tweak: the cables or the adjustable height chair!
One thing intrigues me about the OTA you haven't mentioned, the soft plastic RCA plugs. |
Might it be worth trying garden hose on the woofers and OTA on the tweeters? |
Hey Brulee, we're waiting! |
RedKiwi and Dekay-As you know, I've been breaking in the Mapleshade Double Golden Helix as you have with the OTA. Now, at about 100 hours, I can report that the soundstage has settled in to where I have stopped moving the speakers around every 5 minutes. There's a nice arc in front of them which curves back to the sides and is very deep. High frequency transients like brushes on cymbals are still too close to the speakers and there is a little of the shift left or right as sounds go up or down the scale. This was more pronounced with the DH Labs T-14 as well as the Coincident. I'll look elsewhere in the system (Cambridge D500SE, passive volume control, Music Reference RM-10, Meadowlark Kestrels)to solve this.
My biggest fear about these tiny gauge cables is groundless, bass is just excellent. I have the new 50 greatest Philips Symphonie Fantastique on right now and the double bass, tympani and low brass rattles the teacups. Last night, I kept playing Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue over and over because of the incredible double bass under a couple of the cuts. I even listened to her singing Ode To Billy Joe, one I usually skip (I hate that song!) because her deep, husky contralto was just mesmerising.
The mid-range and treble that won me over when I acquired the RM-10, Silver Lace and passive volume is augmented, in spades. Although brushes on cymbals, as noted above are problematic from an imaging standpoint, the sound is very alive with sharp attacks and lingering decays. Snares on or off is easy to pick out, now. And voices, oh my.
There goes track 4: marche au supplice; the tympani is way back in the hall and the English Horn nice and woody. You've gotta hear those trombone pedal tones. Blaaaatttt.
......Sorry, Sir Colin was complaining about the fan noise from the Hewlett-Packard. Just finished hearing the tutti and I have chills. Get this recording.
So now I've tried a few tweaks. I had vibrapods under the CDP directly on the 1 1/2" maple shelf. Maybe it was better, it didn't hurt. But I've always noticed that the RM-10 had a buzzy vibration you could feel when playing. Took the pods away from the CDP and put them under the amp; a definite step up in tonal clarity, I think. But, the main thing is I clearly heard the difference. Same thing with power cables. I was happy to help adopt an orphan but didn't hear much, if any difference, with the Asylum cables. Well, when I put the stock cord back on the amp, the soundstage worsened and everything was too bright.
You have to know how delighted I am to be hearing these things especially as today is birthday number 54 and these ears heard Hendrix live, big city traffic and even 80 mm. mortars.
I guess Pierre Frey is on to something. These cables will be around for awhile. |
As I was writing here about an hour ago, I'm noticing that something is different about what's playing. So after I finished the post above I slid my listening chair over behind the sofa and, bang, the soundstage is live. I think, hmm, my chair is higher than the sofa I usually listen on.
I always wondered what the trade-off was between the sloped baffle for time alignment and the speaker firing up at an angle. Well, with my ears at 50"!, everything came together. No sound is coming directly from the speakers and the soundstage is wall to wall. The purity of voices and instruments has to be heard.
Did I spend a lot of money in vain? I put back the DH Labs T-14 and the image lessened and the magic diminished. It's still a pretty good buy, though.
So here it is. For now, this is the best music I've ever had at home. $300 for the speaker cables and less than $5000 in the system. I hope the OTA gives as much pleasure. |
I was getting the same peripatetic (!) image with the mapleshade but it seems to have settled down now. At one point, Max Roach's drum kit moved right across the stage and the trumpets, trombones and tuba of the Cleveland Orchestra sounded like they were going and coming from the bathroom. I forget which movement, tchk-boom. I don't think I have as many hours on mine as you guys so the OTA must take longer to burn in. The similarities between what you describe and what I'm hearing from the double-helix are startling. I guess geometry is what's happening.
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I was getting to the point where I was going to suggest trading speaker cables for a few weeks, double helix for OTA but now it sounds like you wouldn't want to part with it. There goes another $600. Anybody else want to split a set? |
I wonder what the wide variance in soundstaging charcteristics of most cables says about how they effect the increase/decrease in various parts of the frequency spectra. Given that we all continue to use the same electronics and speakers, what else could be going on but that?
In my own case, switching from silver-coated copper (DHLabs) to pure copper (Coincident) yielded a warmer sound with a slightly wider soundstage: clearly, more low freq's. Also a marked forward movement of the image: more mid-range or perhaps recessed treble? Double Helix raises, broadens and deepens the image while describing an arc which is somewhat forward between the speakers and curves back behind them towards the wall: I have no idea what is going on with the frequencies here! If the OTA is so forward as to mimic headphones, or "fill the room with sound" as Dekay has written, there must be some drastic frequency related effect on reflected sound.
I wonder why I've never read about using one of those zillion dollar spectrum analyzers to record these differences? Is anyone aware of it? Do cable manufacturers play with tonal shifts to achieve certain imaging/tonality? Or is it all serendipitous, "that sounds good, let's produce it?" |
After much soul-searching, study and prayer, I have decided to reveal the fact that I am an AUDIO MORON. I'm sure that both the members that take my opinions seriously will be shocked, but there it is.
All during this discussion of the OTA cables and what I intended to be a sidebar, or op-ed, if you will on the Mapleshade Double Helix I was breaking in, I mentioned the imaging problems I was having. Both Dekay and Redkiwi had noticed something similar with the OTA but their cables settled down and mine (the Mapleshade) didn't.
Two days ago I decided that perhaps one of the channels was out of phase so, and I know you'll find this hard to believe, I actually LOOKED AT THE SPEAKER POSTS to see. Sure enough, the left speaker had the leads reversed. (sound of hand hitting forehead rather loudly)
Oh, the shame, the ignominy! How could I return to the forum and waste more time? At first I continued posting as if nothing had happened. But my crime was a cancer eating away at me. I HAD TO CONFESS. But to do so would bring ridicule and dash any hopes of ever achieving that elusive goal of the set of steak knives.
Finally, I realized that someday, someone would find out the aweful truth which would spread out across the internet. I had to reveal my stupidity and hope that my betters would treat me with mercy.
You will, won't you? Please?
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Dekay was good enough to send me a couple of feet of the OTA to try as jumpers. I'd been thinking from this thread that it was about the same gauge as the Mapleshade. WRONG!
If you think of stranded 22 gauge wire and then consider ONE of the strands, that's the OTA! And those guys at the Frankfort show used it for power cord?
I also wanted to pass along to Dekay, Redkiwi, Brulee, Caterham, et.al., how the Mapleshade is configured. There's been some discussion of twisting, not twisting. An 8 foot pair is 16 feet of twisted pair with one wire cut in the middle. Those two cut ends are connected to the + and - posts with the other returning to the amp. In other words, it's a single wire cable with another wire wrapped around for, I guess, RF rejection.
It doesn't seem like it would be possible to tightly twist the OTA but I thought someone might like to try this configuration. |
