Tboooe, did you audition the Acoustic Reference interconnects and what were your impressions?
I'm working my way up with help from the Cable Company; right now I'm with the Vortex and the Accelerators (in combo: CDP to Pre with Vortex, Pre to Amp with Accelerators) and liking what I'm hearing so far, so I am very interested in the ARs... thanks, and enjoy the music,
Ed |
Tboooe, by next weekend I will have an opportunity to audition through the Cable Company (CC) a pair of XLR Acoustic Reference interconnnects (cdp to pre) against the CC borrowed Votex (cdp to pre) Acellerator (pre to amp) combination. I'll also try the Acoustic Ref (cdp to pre) and Acellerator (pre to amp) in combination as well.
To answer your question:
I upgraded my speakers, and the cdp suddenly was much too bright, granular, fatiguing, and sometimes harsh... "Treble Trouble."
I have Kubala and Sosna Fascination cables all the way around: SCs, ICs, & PCs, and previous to the speaker upgrade I was very satisfied.
But with the speaker upgrade, the link from cdp to pre (the pre is tube) was not desireable.
I tried the Kubala Expression to see if it addressed the issue: a little bit...
Leica_man here on Audiogon and the CC guy (Joe) recommended working my way up the SR interconnects, particularly the Tesla series... and it has been quite the revelation... greater and greater degrees of improvement in all respects... addressing the glare problem and so much more musciality that it's frankly astonishing!
:)
I'm freakin' because "rumor has it" the the new SR PCs are going to be killers at all price levels!
Well... if my budget is going to get "killed," it might as well be with a smile on my face!
Ed |
Tboooe, LeicaMan... the combination of the SR Tesla's: The Acoustic Reference ICs between the cdp and the preamp, and the Acellerator ICs between the pre and the amp have finally made my day...
glare, granularity, brightness... banished.
And what is in place is a nicely dimensioned soundstage with marvelous midrange, etc etc... Finally! My upgraded speakers (which began this quest) sound great!
Thanks to everyone who suggested trying the SRs... well worth the time and trouble! |
Leica_man,
Right now, I'm listening to an antique amp'd system w/ monobloc tube amps being fed by a pair of single ended SR Tesla Acoustic Reference ICs... the rest of the cabling is Kubala-Sosna Fascination XLRs from the cdp to the preamp and Fascination SCs to the Tannoy DC3s...
and I have never heard this system sound as good as it does today.
I've fed it the early Dave Matthews and John Mayer albums with results of astonishing listen-ability and depth.
The whole experience, regardless of music genre, is very, very suprising in a very positive way. I'm looking forward to putting SR Acoustic Reference SCs on it later this week.
IMHO skepticsim about audiophile equipment and especially the cabling aspect of audio-philia is always a smart thing, but trying the SR Teslas is even smarter.
My advice: borrow them from the CC, hook them up to your system putting the active shielding plugs at the source-point, attach the active shielding MPCs, plug them in observing polarity, leave them plugged in, play them over several days, do not move them, touch them, screw with them in any way, and within a week you will hear remarkable things.
All the best to everyone,
Ed |
About the SR Tesla Precision Reference PC...
The existing vocabulary for describing the "pre and post Tesla experience" seems to pale before the actual experience of hearing music through these Tesla cables.
The Precision Ref PC on my system does all of the extraordinary and excellent things we have come to experience with SR Tesla... just stunning in many ways.
The imaging of the music as a result of the PR PC is like nothing I have experienced before... the change is direct and immediate and very positive...
it's quick, liquid (and at the same time: coherent and tight without smearing), detailed and very musical. In my experience usually musical and detailed and precise do not converge, but with the SR Tesla it does.
imho, "the problem" with SR's Tesla line, as well as the prototype power conditioner, and the Enigma is that an audiophile vocabulary that describes the Tesla audio experience doesn't seem to be available as yet, much less the comprehension of what "Tesla language" would communicate to those who haven't heard music through the line and related equipment.
Good listening to everyone! |
tboooe... the Precision Reference PC is feeding a McIntosh MC352 two channel amp...
I agree with joey's comments and evaluations made earlier today...
this Tesla stuff is the real deal...
the promise made by cable manufacturers decades ago has been realized by SR... nice work!
I'm tempted to check out the Hologram D on the CDP... |
Tbooe...
I agree with your sense of vertical layering in the sound stage. I had the same experience/observations/conclusions when I listened to Ted's system at SR a couple of weekends ago.
As you wrote,
>>the SR cords tend to create a vertical layering of the sound. For example, I hear the vocals on one level while hearing the guitars a foot or two below. Interesting.<<
What interests me both in this thread's users of Tesla cables and my own experiences with Ted's engineering and products is how some aspects of synesthesia seem to be occurring, recurring, and remarked upon...
"...I teach my eyes to hear, my ears to see..." (Roethke)
I find this convergence of senses fascinating... this is not surpising in live performance (because it's there in front of us), but this increasingly visual interaction of the auditory experience in recorded reproduction in two channel through SR cables does surprise me ...
(ramble, ramble!)
some aspects of the imagination (the image-making portion of our mind)is at work here revealed in plain sight (as in "hidden in plain sight").
btw... nice people, Ted and Elliot... very kind and generous with their time and very patient and thoughtful with questions and comments.
I am very interested in your thoughts and evaluations of the Tesla PCs you are auditioning. |
Tboooe and PC people...
I've just played two separate systems with T2 & T3 Tesla PCs for well over a week, and they are simply amazing...
yes, highly, highly system dependent... one of my systems likes the T2 and the other doesn't... another of my systems likes the T3 and the other doesn't... no matter... what those cords do is really remarkable... even when I don't like what I'm hearing (say putting the T3 on the digital sources vs putting it on the amp) I know someone else will like what they hear... these cords are that good... not only do they address a number of annoying issues... glare, harshness, flat dynamics, etc etc... but they bring so much more to the musical experience... borrow some from the Cable Company... experiment... I think you will be pleasantly astonished.
I know I was... put my order in today!
Happy listening |
Elinor... I agree...
with an opportunity available like the Cable Company, I cannot imagine anyone selecting (much less buying) cables without having lived with them for a few weeks...
and especially listening to the Tesla's against any other possibilities out there.
In my experience each cable in the Tesla line does something *significantly different*...
one line, such as the Accelerator or Acoustic Reference, may not work for you, but another probably will surprise you into the recognition of the possibilities within your system...
and you will know right away... not in a few weeks...
my experience has been... if you like what you hear in the first hour or two, you'll like it in a few days/weeks, imho...
and if you don't like what you hear right away... you probably won't like it any better later...
these cables are very decisive and very interactive with other elements in the system... fun to experiment with because of the immediate recognition factor... happy listening! |
Hi L_M... well that review supports my point I made much earlier...
one serious listen to SR Tesla's and you are left fumbling and grasping for words...
("words, words as if all worlds were there" Robert Creeley)
to describe the experience of finally hearing recorded music... transcendent through Teslas... as virtually live...
|
Andy... good to read your report. Keep us up to date. Yeah, I've heard the Enigma myself and have been simply astonished... no other words for it.
Anyone else out there have one willing to give their sense of the thing? |
Just a moment to rave...
don't mean to bore everybody with further exclamations about these remarkable SR products...
but...
I just bought a pair of Tesla Accelerator speaker cables and...the difference between the Accels and my other SCs is quite significant.
I now have one pair of Accel ICs (XLRs), a T2, T3, and Accel speaker cables... each addition makes/has made such a difference!
I'd say the biggest difference these speaker cables have made simply has to do with the sensuous sense of music... everything about the music has opened/opens more...
Less of a sense of music coming from the speakers...
more the sense of music and its performance and performers being present in the room and it filling the room rather than it coming from two specific speakers.
Another thing, I like the much more defined and refined quality of being able to hear the slight separation (air), the edges of similar guitar notes and vocal notes, the slight and often very pleasurable distinctive edges between vocalists in a duet (for example)or a vocalist and similar piano notes and bass notes... it's the pleasing edges (not "edginess"), the outermost boundaries of each instrument's or vocalist's notes... that bring so much more to my enjoyment of music nowadays...
So much more transparency and musicality... |
I also acquired a T3 UHC for my amp, so now I have a T3 on my CDP, a T2 on my preamp, and a T3 UHC on my amp... startling experience in the bass (wow! wow!! wow!!!), and this just one more Tesla PC really cleaned-up and tightened the higher edges of things.
The soundstage is really deep and three dimensional now; voices and instruments seem to carve their space into the soundstage... just amazing what this stuff does!
The more Tesla is on the system, the better and better things are. Now I need a Tesla IC XLR for the CDP to preamp, and I will have Tesla's all the way around... looking forward to it... just a matter of time and $!
:) |
yeah, I agree. I really wonder why they haven't eaten the lunch and dinner of "the other guys." Major changes, all to the positive, each time a new cable enters the system. |
Jazz 59... I think what Jmo says is what Ted might have said to me in the past regarding moving up the Tesla SC pattern. I have a very similar cable selection, so I am interested in what you find out... perhaps a call to Ted at SR would throw everything into sharper focus. If you do call, let us all know what you learned!
It's also my impression that the Tesla PowerCell at this point in your system pattern might be an important alternative.
:) |
Jazz_59,
My understanding of the PowerCell is that it will handle Euro and US current no problems. I could be mistaken... again, check with Ted.
I called the SR lab a couple of days ago because I was curious about some of the same points of information, and Mike said that Ted was on his way back from the right coast (SR business meetings), so that might explain the delay in reponse to emails.
I'll give SR a call later today (from the left coast) and post something either later today or tomorrow.
Ed |
.
Thanks Ted for the update and the clarifications... both now and in the past...particularly on the power cords, the PowerCell, and the Enigma... and good to hear that you have found solution to the scarcity of particular tubes for another version of the Enigma!
. |
