Location: Moved to frozen north, beyond Inverness
Posts: 2,614
I'm Dave.
And don't forget the 'burn in' service - pay extra and they'll burn it in on their special burn-in machine thingy. It must all be real, why would they lie?
My favourite burn-in stories are the ones where the thing sounds terrible 'straight out the box', but then with (say) 40 hours on it, it starts to 'open up.' Then, at 100 hours, it sounds terrible again. but that only lasts 20 hours and then after that it's 'stabilised' and with a wonderful sound.
3 months later it's on eBay.
Current Lash Up:
TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.
I often burn my fingers making them. Does that count?
(if I wasn't so lazy, I'd have a bespoke cable business )
It is impossible for anything digital to sound analogue, because it isn't analogue!
The main problem I have with the cable is the fact that it’s colour means it disappears against the wall behind my speakers, so it means the wife loves it!
Bluesound Node 2i
Audio Analogue Pucinni SE
B&W DM607 s2
Chord Shawline X speaker cable
Klotz ic’s
Craig,
For any new cable I put in I don't sweat nowadays, but I have heard changes with many cables I've put in my system.
Some cables seem affected more than others which is interesting.
Silver plated copper, ferinstance, seems to take a longer time than plain copper.
New solder connections, dialectric etc can change over time with varying voltage applied.
Metallurgy is a real thing, it's not voodoo or a belief system.
Even recently, I re-terminated my Morrow speaker cable with KLEI silver z-plugs, took a couple of weeks for the sound to settle down and bloom.
JUST the connections.
These were 1K speaker cables, and due to the naff terminations I wasn't hearing what they could do.
Like anything in this game, there's usually many variables that factor in and it's never black and white.
Just put your cables in and enjoy any improvements that come over time.
Trust your own ears mate.
AC POWER
Hardwired 10kVA balanced mains powering entire system
AMPS
Meridian 557 power Amp (Modded) / PS Audio BHK Preamp (Modded)
SPEAKERS
Wharfedale Evo 4.4
DAC
PS Audio Directstream (Modded)
TURNTABLE
Pro-Ject X8 balanced output via XLR / Ortofon Quintet Blue cartridge
PHONOSTAGE
Pro-Ject DS3 B balanced Input (TT and Phonostage powered by Pro-Ject Power box RS2 linear psu)
DIGITAL
OPPO 203 (Modded: Linear PSU, i2s output to Dac) - Roon Endpoint, HDMI input used for all things Streaming/ PS5 /AppleTV ... also good for movies apparently?
MUSIC PLAYBACK
Tweaked AP-Linux based Roon Server into Oppo 203 as Roon endpoint
Ipad Roon Remote.
Apple Music/ YouTube via AppleTV, fed to Dac via Oppo HDMI input/i2s output to Dac.
SPEAKER CABLES
Biwired: Duelund DCA10GA (Bass) Duelund DCA16GA (mid & treble) Duelund 12DCA used as jumpers (On "Blackcat Cable" Chris Sommivigo's advice - yup, even with biwire it sounds better - and it does)
INTERCONNECTS
All Balanced: Ghost+ recording studio XLR cables
Location: South East Cornwall
Posts: 322
I'm Dominic.
Current Lash Up:
TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.