Virtual Dynamics -- what has it beaten?

Just got off the phone with Rick at Virtual Dynamics. He says that the problem I'm experiencing is a phasing problem where one cable is out of phase with the other in the biwire setup I have. This manifests by cancelling some frequencies and accentuating others. Where two signals of opposite phase and equal amplitude will cancel each other and two signals of equal phase and amplitude would be additive. There are of course all manner of points in between. This will mostly manifest in the bass and midrange where signals overlap each other as they are close in frequency.

Rick is going to send me out a biwire pair of Audition speaker cables which should fix the problem. I will keep you posted. Told you these guys were good didn't I.

I received a VD Audition package a week ago and am still waiting for it to burn in a little more before making any final comments. As Gunbei says, these sort of things are system dependant.

My initial impressions: I like a lot of what I hear but... I still don't know if they are the end all be all. VD markets the Audition package as a synergistic package with their cabling from top to bottom. Sounded good to me and the price was certainly right.

I started off with the PC's on my CDP, pre, and amp. I put the Audition IC's between all the above and because my speakers are capable of biwire, I put the Audition to the bass contacts and my Harmonic Technology Pro-11's to the mid/treble contacts. After initial break in of a couple of days I noticed that bass was excellent and soundstaging was excellent. The only thing missing was the air and shimmer on high frequency sounds. On the highs that did make it through, the sounds decayed too fast from what I know to be true. Good, but not good enough.

I tried switching in my Harmonic Technology Truthlink cables between the pre and the amp and that returned much of the missing high freqency sound but with a loss of detail that I was getting from the Audition IC. I didn't like the sound of this. Switched back the Audition IC between the pre and the amp. After a little more time it seemed that the highs were getting a little better with this arrangement but something still seemed missing.

Today I switched the Pro-11's to the bass contacts on my speakers and the Audition speaker cables to the mid/treble contacts. The high freqency returned again and things sounded pretty good from top to bottom. In fact the treble seemed a little too much at times and I generally like a fair bit of treble to balance the bass. Tried with just the Auditions but the bass seemed to lose some pizzazz so back in went the Pro-11's to the bass. Problem now is that soundstaging isn't quite what it was before. Perhaps it's a little more realistic. For instance now when a drum kit is sounding from both speakers and has elements in the center they sound like they are in a similar plane front to back. With the Auditions on bass and the Pro-11's on mid/treble the drums on either side sounded in the same plane but the combined sound between the speakers sounded way off in the background.

One other thing: when the Audition speaker cables are on top and the Pro-11's on the bottoms I have to turn the volume up on my pre to get the same relative volume level. My volume control gives a digital numeric readout and is finely adjustable.

The Virtual Dynamics cables are all very well constructed. The IC's and speaker cables use WBT termination. The people at Virtual Dynamics are great to deal with.

Obviously I still have to let the cables burn in a little more and probably have some more mixing and matching to do to get the sound just the way I want it.

I bought the Power 3 and Power 1 power cords initially. The P3 has a defect I noticed after the purchase of my preamp when I was switching PC's around. VD was going to exchange it and I was going to purchase an additional Audition PC. Pricing was stating to get close to an Audition package so I traded the defective P3 and the good P1 towards the Audition package. I did compare the Power 1 to the Audition PC's and the Audition PC's are definitely more transparent than the P1 and with firmer bass and more revealing highs with greater detail. My advice to anyone considering the purchase of the VD PC's to buy in a the Audition level at least.

Are there better cables? Certainly. Are they available at a price I can afford? Probably not. These are days of ridiculous prices for some cables and some are snake oil and some not. My Auditions do provide mostly better sound compared to what I was listening to a week and a half ago. But, am I at the end of my cable journey? I don't know.

I will report more once the cables are fully cooked and I can render a more accurate evaluation. I do intend to try the Pro-11's yet without the Audition speaker cables just to see what I get. But as it sits at the moment, in my system, the Audition speaker cables by themselves are not enough.

Comments or recommendations welcome.

leme,
Thankyou for your comment. The problem isn't one solved by swapping the + and -. In a biwire setup you will have phase relationships with the mid/highs and the bass. If using two different cables on the same speaker of two different lengths you will get phase errors according to Rick. As it sits now with the Auditions on the mid/high and the HT Pro-11's on the bass things sound pretty damn good. This is with the Audition cables on everything else as well. 3 PC's, 2 IC's. I will have more to say once the Audition biwire speaker cables come.

Slipknot1 - the performance vs. the cost on the Audition package is excellent in my opinion. I'd like to hear what the Nite cables sound like but alas I haven't won the lottery yet. =;-)

Another thing: My preamp has absolute phase inversion which inverts the phase angle 180°. This has the effect on some material of extending the soundstage way back. This can be done from a switch on my remote. Interesting but I don't use it too often.

Well, I owe a bit of an apology to Rick. I was for a little while of the opinion that I spent "THAT" much for cables and although they sounded good there was no magic. I was thinking that if Gunbei is pleased as punch with his cables then why am I not. I'm a computer tech and am used to troubleshooting things so I went about reducing everything in my system to it's simplest configuration. I noticed that I was getting a fairly loud buzzing from the transformer in my amp when my pre was turned on. This buzzing of the transformer at 60Hz and all of it's harmonics was probably responsible for the lack of authority and tonal balance across the spectrum. Problem was that while I had the pre plugged straight into the wall I had the amp plugged into a computer grade surge protector used as and extension cord really. My place was built in 1960 and no one dreamed back then that anybody would need so many power outlets. I plug the amp and pre into the 20A circuit reserved for my AC unit and "tada"! Bass is back with authority and the highs sound great and there is a excellent overall balance. There is still a slight sibilance on some female voices but part of the problem may be the recordings. On the whole I am extremely happy with my Audition package after less than two weeks of use. I suspect when I get the biwire Audition speaker cables and take the Harmonic Technology I am using for the bass run out that I will get even better sound. I'll keep you all posted. Now to get back to listening to my whole CD collection as I've not heard it before.

The Audition cable have completed my system kind of like icing a cake so to speak. The cake is good with out but no where as good as with.

I don't have to worry about explaining to a wife about money spent on cables but I have some friends and co-workers who are absolutely shocked. "You spent how much for fricken wires?!!!" is a common refrain but when I sit back in the la-z-boy and turn it up to warp 3 I can't hear them anymore. I would recommend any of you do the same if you can.