Expensive cable test :lol:

[walpurgis]

I hear differences in decent interconnects and speaker cables quite distinctly.

[Reffc]

I ran Audionote ANV interconnects for about 25-30 years and bought them at a time when Peter Qvortrop was just introducing silver cables to the UK. They were very expensive and were a once in a lifetime purchase.

They shrugged off all competition I tried over that intervening period, until I heard the SW1X silver interconnects. The ANV cables went on E Bay and sold for more than I paid for them, hence financing the purchase of the SW1X cables.

As I understand it, the Audionote cable is a Litz configuration and therefore has higher impedance. This is probably a factor in the relative performance of the two manufacturers cables.

The impedance Chris is of negligible consideration for the signal chain and the Litz configuration doesn't necessarily have any effect on impedance which will be down to the overall CSA of the conductor(s) and the conductor material itself. An exceptionally high loop resistance (unlikely in the real world) of, say 1 Ohm feeding into say 10KOhm load (low for an amp which tend to be higher) will reduce output by just one thousandths of a dB which is entirely inaudible, even to a bat. Remember, they are feeding into a very high impedance at the amplifier, whose input impedance is orders of magnitude higher than the cable DC loop resistance or signal's AC reactive impedance.

Capacitance, grounding effectiveness and shielding are of greater overall importance (the latter two being an importance factor in S/N performance). The litz configuration, theoretically, reduces issues like skin effect but since this is of no consequence at audio signal frequencies, it is of little concern. The drawbacks are that the higher capacitance, combined with high source output impedance, can cause a low pass filter to be formed but this is generally only a problem for MM outputs to a phonostage where that additional capacitance may cause roll-off of the higher frequencies. A few metres of relatively high capacitance for low source impedance is of little consequence elsewhere in the audio chain.

[Blueflash]

Well, as promised I can now report my findings ....

I gave the Dac about a month for me and it to settle down which it did very nicely, still with the Klotz cables.

Then in went the AN cables. First impressions were ... they work fine, all sounded very nice as per usual but could I detect any difference ? No not yet, maybe they need more time to settle or "Burn in". So another month with the AN cable, any better yet ?

No. I could not detect any difference at all, I then swapped them around during a listening session in case I forgot the Klotz sound.

We have a live music venue in Hereford so I can compare between a live drum kit and a recording. I have found that recorded drums
seem to lose the instant attack of the stick hitting the skin or symbol and also the trailing off seems much shorter.

With a well sorted DDDAC, CD`s do capture the instant the stick hits the symbol. So I listened out for the attack and how well it trails off and also how well instruments are separated. I have a Capercaillie CD, Beautiful Wasteland which I use as a reference because it is so well recorded. Silky vocals, chair rattling bass, amazing percussion, and many ambient clues. All easily heard through the Klotz and the AN cables.

So I am sorry to say, I could not detect any differences at all, they both sound very good in my system so I will stick with the Klotz.

While I have the cables, I thought for a laugh I will stick one half between the transport and Dac. Now to do this, I had to use a BNC to RCA converter because I built the Dac and transport with BNC fittings as the signal is basically RF.

I cannot believe I am having to write this, but the improvement in all aspects of replay were definitely better ... yes it really was.

Differences between instruments much better, transient attack and trail off so much more lifelike, the depth and width of the soundstage just pull you in to listen how the musicians move around the stage.
I swapped them in and out and the difference remained.
It was the last thing I thought would make much difference, after all I did build the Dac and had it on the test bench checking out the digital and analogue sides and found the I2S signal very resilient to abuse, series resistor, series capacitor and long leads did not stop it playing, the only time it gave me trouble was loading the I2S lines with too much capacitance by trying to run too many Dac boards at once. So all the above improvements made by just a cable was almost unbelievable to me.

I guess the moral of my musings are, don't be afraid to try thing out, don't let your biases put you off otherwise you could be missing out :-)

[struth]

good advice