Nice to have you down Rich and thanks for the beer, you have it about right with the way things went.
Let me just state the obvious for folks, there is no “best cable” as such, it depends on how well it suits the gear you attach it to, so our comments relate to the synergy we experienced with the kit we were using (Croft Pre/Proton Power/NS1000M Speaks).
My mods on the speakers are just a simple re cap and some new binding posts to replace the spring clips, I also upgraded the bell wire between the posts and he cross over board.
Detailed here:
http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...NS1000M-Tweaks
Speaker Cable
The Van Damme Blue was pleasant enough, but for me the Van Damme HiFi cable broadened the spectrum at both ends and gave a little warmth and richness to the mids, which we both seemed to pick up on. The old Rega stuff that Rich brought along had an even better bottom end with great detail and depth, as he indicated I preferred the absolute clarity which the VD hifi cable produced on the Yammies top end. So there really wasn’t much to choose between these two. I didn’t like the NVA cable in this set up at all, dull and lifeless, it was 6mm square copper section as were the Blue and Hifi we compared. We never got round to putting my Atlas Hyper 2.5 into service on the night, but I am very familiar with how it sounds in this set up and it would not have competed with the best, a bit too soft and laid back for my taste.
So as we left it, I have the Rega cable on loan to do some more comparisons with the VD HiFi, when I get some better interconnects. Rich has some VD hifi on loan to see how it works with the rest of his set up at home.
Interconnects
My DIY Cat5 and Cambridge Audio “Arctic” cables were reasonable, but when we dropped in the budget NVA “Sound Cord” on my DAC to Pre things opened right up and there was an extra warmth to the mids that I picked up on. This warmth combined with that of the speaker cable had transformed the Yamaha’s reputed Monitor style analytical presentation into one which was really very musical indeed. When this cable was used between the Pre and Power it also worked well, for me it produced a noticeable lift in dynamics.
This cable is cheap as chips and made from RG316/U coax, which is to military spec and normally used for RF/Data transfer. It has PTFE insulation between inner and outer conductor and an FEP outer sleeve which is only 2.5mm diameter. It is 50 ohm and around 96pf/m capacitance, it’s available on the Bay for £2.29/meter delivered. I was more than happy to leave this cable in the system.
Turntable
Small correction to how Rich described my deck, it is a plywood, plinth, it used to be concrete.
Having made so many changes to my system recently, my TT set up is anything but fully optimised, I need a new MM cartridge to work with the Croft phono stage (was using MC cartridge/phono) and longer leads from cartridge to Phono, my leads on the night were extended using connectors and additional leads, which is not ideal. It still produced a decent sound, and was a good yardstick to gauge the performance of Rich’s deck, which he has been unhappy with. His first demo sounded dull and lacked any dynamics, I could see why he was a bit put off after his upgrades. Like he pointed out, we took his NVA phono out of the loop and played the deck directly through his Croft Pre/phono, I would agree the difference was huge, now detailed and dynamic very musical and foot tapping. Rich made the comment about it sounding like a different deck. I think he is back on track with his vinyl set up and confidant in his deck/arm/cartridge combination. I found things to be envious of in the quality of the sound this combination put out, so I will be looking at some valve rolling and sorting my leads and Cartridge out in the following Months. To be fair to the NVA phono stage, it has not got many hours on it and may improve with time, but it would have to improve a lot. Stick with the Croft mate, it was doing the business.
DAC
The Rega DAC which Rich brought along showed up the weaknesses of my little Dacmagic. That extra guitar that could suddenly be heard on the Johnny Cash track convinced me. I was thinking about upgrading my DAC anyway and after hearing the difference it can make, it is pretty much going to have to be done.
That about covers it from me, it was a great session with plenty to follow up on. Hopefully we will get things sorted for the next NEBO meet.