VDH The Inspiration Hybrid and Straight Wire Virtuoso H - Old chickens make good soup -

Do we need to change cables ? Or better if some cables were good more then 10 years ago how do they compare with more recents ones ?

The more time passes the more I think that we get something but at a price. We are overexposed to way too many products, way too many reviews, way too many everything and less to real products. And if we are not directly exposed to real products, how do we know what we like? How do we develop or maintain our passion alive?

In my younger years, I could actually listen to a real confrontations of many gears with different speakers, different cartridges and so on. Everybody was way more relaxed, and you were not feeling in the obligation of buying something after you have compared gears for few hours in a shop, since you were a potential customer. Today you are much more a potential listener that will buy elsewhere if you find a better deal of it.

This was actually true also when I started working as a responsable in an hifi shop. People were
listening, comparing, taking your advise and sometimes buying. That sometimes buying became more and more a rare thing with the passing years. More and more people wanted to listen and then searching on the net the best price for that product or the shop that offered the best price for it. Only few companies were protecting their dealers, like Naim or Linn. For the rest it was a jungle. Except for very few good customers, I started little by little been reluctunt in spending hours for giving the potential customers what they wanted, so at the end I changed job. Many of the good selling point and reference hifi shops started closing. I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in a period when I could buy something without being hunted by the right price for it, or the less expensive offer for it. But now it is different, or maybe it is me that see things this way.

These two cables were considered good cables back in the time they were presented. They had competition of course, and now not only they have the competition from the same old cables they were competing with, but also from new cables that came out in all these years.

The point to find out is: how these cables sound today?  The answer was very simple after only few hours listening to them: very good! Maybe better then today offers in the respective price range. At least musically better.

It is like they were doing some fundumentals better then today offers of the same price range. In a way, I can generalize saying today offers are more accomplished, more hifi accomplished at the expenses of some... emotions. Yes, this is how I can sum it up. These two cables put musicality as a priority at the cost of something else. Today cables put something else at the expense of musicality. Of course this is not for all cables in the same price range, but most of them do this.

I could compare the effect of newer cable, of course not all, like a research at improving certain aspect of the hifi reproduction and not of music reproduction. Something like most power conditioners do.

Let's talk about the sound of these two cables. First of all I would like to say that both cables are highly satisfing taken on their own when used with the right gears, that is most gears. They are not cables of a very marked signature. Not slow, but not hyperfast, not dark neither too bright, so they are not risky cable to buy blind and even if you change speakers or another component, they can be kept, and they will diligently deliver the same good musicality.

Which are the differences between them? Let's start with the easiest one: timbre and tonality is slightly better with the VDH. Slightly. With the VDH you will ear the wood of an instrument, less with the Strightwire. But the attack of the notes is slightly better with the Straightwire. This last will let you enjoying the rithmic message of the music more easily. It is more propulsive. The VDH is rithmically valid but less then the Straightwire. Now a strange thing: generally more rithmic components tends to have a better contrast, not in this case. The richer texture makes instruments contrast   better portrayed,more spotlighted with the VDH. I was expecting the contrary. It is like the VDH is a more "resistive" cable. you feel like the flow of the signal encounter a little more resistence then with the Staightwire.
Now the strangest thing of all. It is as evident as a rare characteristic, at least for me, and this is very distinctive of the Virtuoso H: the Straightwire has a special way of portraying the silence, the nothing between the sounds. It is not a question of blackness, since the silence is not extremely deep (like in Purist Audio Design cables or in Cardas) )  in both cables and tends more to the greysh then to the absolute black. This space is evidently calmer in the SW then the VDH. It does not contain anything, it is not more deep but it is obviously calmer, denser, more plastic, it has more substance... very strange. It is more peacefull it conteins less not apparteining to the musical message but belonging to the musical message. It is of the same nature of the sounds. This is different then the impenetrable blackness of certain cable that I don't like. It is a space and a silence that is perfectly permeable to the sounds. This is the first time I ear it this way. And moreso I will say that no other cable in the market portray it in this way, with this certain calmness.  Why it is like that I cannot say. I thought it was an elimination of electric ash, but it is not that, it is a special thing. For the first time I could say it is not the quantity of the silence between the notes, but the quality. It is like velvet. It is soothing. And this characteristic of the Straightwire Virtuoso is, in my opinion, its peculiar and distinctive caracteristic. It allows it to be fluid and rithmic at the same time. The VDH is not as fluid and ritmic as the Straightwire, that goes also a little bit deeper in the bass, but fight the Straightwire with slightly more nuanced timbric colours, more textured, and with a slighter more transparent midrange. You feel more the presence of the SW then the VDH, you feel more its imprint on the musical message. It is not a bad thing, but I feel the SW it is slightly more manipulative and less raw. Slightly more polished but in a good way.

I found these two cables to be musically  better then many of today cables of the same price range and beyond. They focus on the essential of the music message. These are cables that you can keep even if you upgrade other components. Even at double price I cannot think of better cables, and even spending more will get some better image depth or silence or trasparency, but it won't be globally more satisfying.
For me these two cables can be considered classics. In the meaning that time passed to show their strengths not their weaknesses.
Not all old cickens make good soup, but these two makes great soups!

AStri Audio acoustic correctors

This is going to be a very short review. It is about acoustic pannels to correct room acoustic reflections.

I am lucky enough to have a room that I dedicate to my hifi system, that is not that acoustically bad, and I am talking about its dimensions. When your room is too hard sounding you can do something, but when you cannot place your speakers and your listening postion at the right distances from the walls, just because there is not enough space, then things get complicated. But things can improve markedly with acoustic correctors! I find it ABSOLUTELY useless to change cables, and other things if you don't improve your room, if your room is that bad. You will end up with impredictible result and with conclusions and choices that will only work in that room.

I have a friend that has a fairly bad room where he has installed his hifi system. It is a rectangular shaped one and he listen on the long side, so no room at the rear wall behind his listening position...

With many experimentation he has found a fairly decent sound. One day he has told me he was going to have a shot with some acoustic correctors. I have always proposed him to do this but apparently the decition to use acoustic correctors is more an act of faith then anything else... I have found that for too many it is easier to believe to achieve a certain resul changing a component that with acoustic correctors. Or just becouse because components are more fun then acosutic correctors, I don't know. 

So he positioned 3 AStri audio absorbing acoustic correctors at the rear wall, since the rear wall was at  about 25 cm of distance from his ears. Then he called me for a listen.

I perfectly know how his system sound but when I listened with these correctors I can with certainty affirm that he has gained much more then when he has tried different preamps and amps. Simply stunning. At least 30% more transparency. And something more: playing with the position of just three suqre absorbing elements, in some position you could get more grounded bass with a fuller mid bass range, in another position more airy immage, in another configuration you could have more pronounced note attack nevertheless loosing some focus and body. 

Very simple experience. Very clear results and obvious conclusion: correct your room before everything else. If not all that everything else will sound not has it should. And the more problematic your room the more important this is. You don't believe it? Your room is an acoustic resonator. Do you really think that changing the shape or the volume or the material of a violin or a guitar body does not change its sound? Of course it will! I am absolutely sure that you can improve any room even the best one with the right combination of absorbing - reflecting elements; I say the right combination. You cannot put absorbing elements everywhere you think is too reflective, maybe you need some reflection in that spot. If you don't have knowledge or time to experiment just pay somebody with the right knowledge or start looking at the AStri page where you will find some very good explications. You cannot go wrong rightly correcting your room. It is not like buying some speaker that you end up not liking or a cable that you realize it is not for you. You must consider this like the very base of all your other upgrade.

This  AStri pannels are well made, not too expensive and proposed with different colours. If I understood it well you can buy absorbing ones or relective ones (you have to specify it before buying) and also others room correction elements, just have a look at their website, but you have to specify it before buying.

Great product!

EMT HSD 006

During the last months I have considered modifying my way of aprecciating hifi gears.

In so many years of listening and owning and selling and distribuiting hifi equipment, something has broken. I have learnt to making less mistakes, even though it means at the end less fun in exchange of more satisfaction.

Strange eh?  If I do not allow me to make mistakes I could not try later to solve these same mistakes, to improve things, in this case sound reproduction. And a lot of the game in hifi is concentrated on it.

How not to make mistakes? I have thought about it and the easiest and most efficace answer I have is: to know what you are able to really love. Easy with many years of experience but difficult at the beginning.

It is nevertheless fascinating how a certain basic sound taste stays inside us almost unaltered. We cover it, we kill it, we modify it only to realise after a while that it is always there.

I remember, many years ago, maybe in the very early '90 I was listening and comparing cables with my, at that time Arcam CD drive and separate DAC. For digital cable, at the end of many comparisons, I was enjoying much more an expensive MIT then anything else. Its dynamic freedom, this kind of free breathing was talking to my sensibility. But of course its timbre were not as beautiful as another cable I had on hand and a little monochromes. So you think I would like also high efficient speakers? No, I have never liked them since generally they are more coloured then other designs and when my ears detect a coloration they will magnify it little by little after every exposure so that within few days I could not stand it.

So I should like electric cross overs? Yes I love them. You get much more free breathing with them, but many amps, many cables, cost and complication rise the bar too much for my economic situation and space allowance.

What I have done in all these years is starting liking many audio things, but loving very, very few of them.  It was like a curse. The more things I was liking the less things I was loving. I started liking the way some equipment were able to reproduce timbres, the way they could paint an acoustic landscape, and so on. But at the end, within their good qualities and within the admiration I had for some of their capabilities, for me they were more or less useless, at least on an  deep listening level relation.

The most important basic feature that an hifi gear has to have for me is to be able to talk to my heart, not just to be interesting in a way or in another.

How many times, it happens that something is better in almost all reproduction parameters in comparison to something else but miserably fail to move us ? So why we end up with things like that ? It is because when we have to spend our hard gained money we try to be reasonable, but when we try to be raisonable in an heart affair (and music is an heart affair) we make mistakes. So when we choose our new amplifier in comparison with our old one, and we ear better bass, better high, better immaging, then we are selling ourselves that product, we are allowing us to spend that money since we have,what we think , a valid reason to do so. At the end this very valid reason become the worst reason, since, after a short or a long while, we relise we were enjoying our music more with our previous amplifier. Everybody has done this same mistake in his hifi journey, and me of course included.

Since I am not paid, nor I receive any gift from anybody in the audio bussiness, I have made the decision to change, from now on, my way of writing about hifi gears. I will try not to write about what you could like, like a professional audio writer does, and trying to describe a sound in a way that, from his writing, you may think you would be able to like it or not. My positive conclusion will only be based on if something is capable of talking to my heart or not. Yes, I will become much more subjective. I think it will be easier also for you that are reading me. At the end you will be able to discover if you have more or less the same taste that I have.

And this will happen starting from right now. Right from this cartridge.

It is listening to this cartridge that at the end brought me to consider this choice. 
Now to this cartridge.

This is An EMT cartridge. EMT is an old firm and bla bla bla, you remember I am not paid to describe everything and to try to show I have earnt my salary, so if you are interested in knowing more about EMT you can do your researches. It is the less expensive in their range, and according to Mr. M.Huber at EMT, "Our experience is that – if treated carefully – the diamond will last for 2’000 hours. High tonearm friction values will reduce the lifetime".

It is a fairly high output MC so no need for step up transformers (even though I love what step up trasformer do, I just said no need of it) if you have a decent MC phono preamp. I have tried with few phono preamps with no problem, from a Trichord Dino to a very expensive Lamm. I found the optimal loading to be spot on with EMT recomandation between 200 to 300 ohms.

The building quality is quite good ; I am just a little disappointed in the quality of the red painting of its body that has a clear imperfection on one side of the cartridge, like a finger print... This could be easily avoided I think without the production being more expensive at the end.

What you have with this cartridge after the very needed 50 hours break in ?

 The first thing you notice is a certain sense of completeness.

You are not called upon a certain aspect of the music reproduction, like delicacy, timbre, or bass, or drive, or whatever, but you are called upon earing the music. This is extremely rare. It has enough drive, enough image specificity, enough bass, enough high, enough nuances, enough trasparence, enough of any parameters in a way that any parameter is neither left behind nor pushed foreward so that you have this sense of completeness I have talked about.

If this will be your only cartridge and you won’t compare it with anything else, this will be enough. But to appreciate and to quantify the long list of enoughs that this cartridge is capable of, we have to compare to other cartridges in the same price range and beyond.

Comparing it with some same category price champions cartridges I don’t think will be a question of taste : the EMT HSD006 is just better, if you listen to music. If your goal is to listen to hifi you could prefer something else.

It is better not just because of its completeness but also because it exposes shortcomings in other similar prized cartridges and also some much more expensive ones. Maybe one has better midrange glow or delicacy but just a little bit, and at the end this little bit is heavily paid by much  less drive. Maybe another cartridge is a little more silky, but it pays off this little more silkness with a lot less transparency. And so on. Of course if you are one that has one specific sonic attribute where all your emotions are concentrated you could prefer something else only in direct comparison since the EMT will give enough of it in its own. None on my hands, except a much more expensive Koetzu had better colours, and its drive was almost on a pair with Deccas, none had the life in it like the 006 has, except the now out of production Myabi Standard. You soon realize that it can compete in certain  parameter with almost any cartridge and if looses on them it will looses slightly but when it gains in athor parameters it gains easily.

Hoe it can be betterred? Many things like a more silk top end, a slightly better image hight, a slightly more differenciated bass, and a slightly richer mid high reproduction, and transparency, but… if to get one of these things better, it means altering the pleasure this cartridge is capable of giving, please don’t touch it ! Leave it the way it is !Please do it for us.

This will be my daily pleasure cartridge, capable to reproduce effectively and with the right attitude all my very different music collection, from Baroque to Reggae and Jazz and some Pop too.

For the specials occasions I have many others cartridges that I can love for that « certain » moment, when I crave transparency, or a beautiful midrange golden glow.

How it will sound a much more expensive EMT JSD Pure Black or the beautiful green JSD Pure Lime, or the Platinum ? It will be dangerous to discover it out…

At the end the JSD 006 easily achieve things that too many even much  more expensive cartridges fail to achieve: to reproduce the emotion in the music it is playing. Too many times cartridges and other hifi equipment don't know how to do it. In their quest of a flatter response or a better something else  they get lost in the steril dettails, perfectly detectable by our ears and brain but absolutely tasteless for our soul. 

Considering the reproduction of music is for me absolutely undissociable to the capability to reproduce its emotional content, the EMT JSD 006 is very simply one of the best product in hifi history. And of course it will appear in my new Favourites sections.

PS: in the coming week I will be updating all my recommended components. No more great hifi products only great soul movers... the problem is that many, too many, if not allmost all new products are just great hifi products...