Lector VPP -02 MC tube step up

 I have always had a proplem with any kind of hifi equipment. The problem has been that whatever the equipment was doing good it was not enough to balance what it was not doing or doing wrong. This has been valid for amplifiers, cables, CD players or transport, DAC, streamers, but has been more present in preamps, and more so in the pre-pre categories.

The phono MM preamp is a bad animal, but still belonging on the same kingdom of line preamp. The MC step up preamp… is a wild beast most of the times born with heavy handycaps. This is since it has to deal with more deep problems then the « normal » preamps, and dealing with deep problems is always more difficult then dealing with more superficial ones. The mainly problem is noise. The pre-pre has to develop in its preamplifying action as less noise as possible or proposing « something else » in echange for it, or proposing a more natural, less intrusive felt noise if such thing exists.

There are very good MC phono preamps that are dead quite. The thing for me is that all these very good preamps, except the ones that cost more then 15000 euros, will make you very happy only when you turn them on and put your ear close to a loudspeaker. They are quite like a tomb. But the more you listen music with them, the more you are happy appreciating how good they should sound, for all their quiteness, the more something strange will start to take shape inside of you. Or at least inside me. They get too close to digital reproduction. You feel as something that makes analogue special, is getting lost in this quest of absolute noise reduction. Anf this lost thing has some quality that is extremely difficult to explain and to put in words. I guess it is something that is related to a dialogue between noise and silence. It feels as part of the noise has the capacity to store something related to the musical message. I really cannot say what this something is, but I can say that it is lost.  This is also very clear with cables. And expecially with power cables and power conditioners.

MC step up transformer, in this case are for me the best bet for pre – pre applications. But…yes the but can have a profund meaning. There is a terrible matching hell to fight with before having a very good result. If you get out winning this match, a good MC step up transformer with a fairly economic MM preamp will sound more musical then a full box phono preamp costing 4 - 5 times more. At least for my personal taste. But it will be the result of either trying different MC transformer step up with your cartridge, very difficult thing to do since it is extremely rare to find a dealer that has few to let you try, or just a lucky strike. Many of us believe in the lucky srike mostly because we don’t compare this lucky stike with something else and to realize that is just a strike with half luck. There is also another option : buying the MC step up transformer that has been made to go with your cartridge. Also this could not be the best since it will have to match the other gear is connected to. But it remains the safer bet.

The MC preamp is a wild best because it kills timbres, and it kills energy. It flatten energy and timbres in its proces of amplification. And what it kills no other parts in the chain will be able to resuscitate.

In this case Lector came out with something "wrong": a tube MC step up.

How the hell you think to step up very low voltage with something noisy as tubes are?

The thing with tubes is that they are noisier then solid state, and noise is not good. But as I said before it is not that if noise is not good and I have something that makes less noise this something is going to sound better. It will just have less noise.

So the matter is giving more essential good introducing less meaningfull bad things.

I think that Lector aimed at this.

How does it sound? 

When you try this unit coming from very expensive SUT, like the EMT, that I love, or the Auditorium 23 Hommage, that I deeply like, the first thing you want to know is if there is any noise out of it. You go to put your ear close to a loudspeaker and... you hear the wind of tubes! It is not loud, since you cannot hear it from the listening position, but you know it is there. And this knowing is very fastidius. 

So I have started listening this step up with a very bad attitude toward it.

Add to this that the first 30 hours it does not sound well at all.

Highs are disconnected, the flow is restricted, the resolution is not that good.

After about 50 hours things are different. You will start to appreciate that it is more fluid then many others and that the differenciation of timbres is more evident and that the rithmic capabilities are surprisingly very good, excepionally so for a tube pre, but more so is that all is given in a coherent manner. The partecipation of all the elements are better glued togheter then of a more classic step up or MC phono preamp. Yes, the music makes a little more sense, and you start forgiving it adds a little noise. When you go back to a normal step up transformers, it means in the class of 1000 euros, you will discover that step up transformers, in the keeping a richer timbre in comparison to the solid state pre phono, bring a caracteristic distorsion, a pleasent distortion. You will realise that a solid state has less distortion, but a worse one.

At my age, I am 57 right now, listening is much less a dissection of elements. My listening is directed more toward the emotion then anything else. This was the case when all started, but then, in the quest of getting better sound, I have become more concerned about this and that, about the depth of stage, deeper bass, focalisation and bla bla bla. And I managed to get better sound. But rarely better music.

After many years I started not to care about the elements of the reproduction if the result is not convincing even though seducing.

I have listened to too many hifi objects, most of them quite expensive, that in the quest of some great caracteristic, like a cavernous stage, or whatever, have lost the capability to make music out of these elements. It is true that we like to justify how we spend our money and it is easier to justify it when we have something easy to target to. Also because if our quest is musicality, the essence of music expression, you realise the most gear you listen to, does not give you more music but just more of a part of it, and most of the time at the cost of the all picture.

It is extremely difficult to get more meaning, more vibration, more expression, more musical intent out. 

This long prelude it is just to say that it is useless to talk about all the hifi elements if these are not balanced in a coherent and meaningful way, the way that brings sense to the musical message.

This unit has a good portion of all the hifi things we like, none of them is great but it has them in good portion and expecially proportion. It has good focalisation, good depth, good dynamic swing and so on but it has something that most of them lack: it makes them able to gel well togheter.

Let's got more in depth about some special caracteristic this step up has. First of all, it proposes a different nature of distortion in comparison to the MC step up transformer, keeping the same richness of timbre that for me only MC step up transformer are capable of preserving. And I can say this kind of distortion is less mechanical to the ears. You get a less mechanical distortion for more noise. I say "mechanical" distortion even though it is not a correct term. I refer to it as mechanical since it is a distortion that in some frequences gives more rigidity to the musical message. 

The very expensive MC step up transformer such the EMT, or the Auditorium 23 Hommage, have in much less degree then cheaper onese, but they still have it a little of it. 

But with this unit we have something that these two MC step up transfomer don't have: the capacity of loading the cartridge the way you like.

For me this is the "bad disesase" of MC step up transformer: you cannot be sure they will sound good with your cartridge in your system. So either you have different cartridges and different MC step up transformer, or you will never can be sure about the matching issue.

After I started liking this unit quite a lot,  I started playing with resistors for loading the cartridges.

A different resistor of the same value, many say in this position should not change the sound and instead it changes the sound!

I have loaded two videos where you have the same value resistor but from differnt makers and from different materials: one is the Audio Note Niobium and the other is a Takman metal resistor. The difference is more or less clear, and if you can hear it on these videos, in reality it is even more clear.

The Takman metal resistor makes the "bodily" difference betwen instruments and silence more clear. Instruments are more carved out in space, but they are more closed in in their timbric expression. The Audio Note Niobium makes timbric differences between instruments more clear, it is more fluid and more nuanced. The Takman has more dynamic contrast, it pushes stronger. It has a kind of wave energy in storing and giving it back.

I would have liked to try with other resistors, but unfortunately I had to return the unit to his owner.

For which kind of listener this product is? 

The Lector is certainly for the ones that are not concerned with anything else then musicality.

That's it.

Great work Lector!

PS: I wonder why this brand is not more popular. I guess it is for its almost inexistent marketing effort. I have to say that I have never listened to a Lector product that was not great in its price range and above. Its CD players, transports and DACs are really excellent. Its preamplifier is a steal for the money. This MC step up phono is exceptional... It is like Lector is uncapable of proposing an average product!

Audio Note Niobium resistor (the pink one) vs Takman metal

PS: the Audio Note Niobium will sound much better after about 50 hours. It will improve dynamic contrast and it becomes more rithmical overall. The improvement in rithmic let me perplexed but it happened without expecting it.

 The music in the videos is from this immortal album!

Takman metal resistor

 Audio Note Niobium

Miyajima Saboten: sweet dreams are made of this

 

When its stilus touched the LP I realised I was not liking it. It was a strange sound. Expecially it was dynamically constricted, dynamically muted. The biggest problem was that this was not balanced by some other magnificient quality so that you could say : yes, you don’t like it but have you ever heard its 3D presentation? or something like this. No, nothing at all. I thought it was a bad cartridge. Moreso it was on the lowish output even for an MC and this proved a problem for the first preamp it was connected to. And this was the only reason why I realised I had made a mistake. The thing was not properly loaded. I have made a big mistake with my step up. You know sometimes, even though you need glasses, you just say to yourself you know by heart were the setting are. But when I was ready to change my phono preamp I had my glasses on and said : what the hell ! I have loaded it at 37 ohm !

I started it all again. I used a step up transformer on my Lamm phono preamp and things… changed. Yes they changed. Dynamic it was sure not its forte, but was acceptable, normal, not too good not too bad, but it was emmediate to my ears that it had soomething special et unique. It had a kind of sweet fluidity with a certain tinbric density coupled with not really muted transient attack. Generally when we hear a certain fluidity we also hear  diminished transient attacks, and expecially fluidity and density of timbre don't go often toghete,  but in this case, its not that it had great transient capability, but the fluidity of its musical reproduction was perfectly balanced with everything else in a way that I was feeling nothing was missing. I perfectly know this trick. And is a rare one. So the thing that gets you captivated is this kind of uniqueness of sound. When you hear it after a while you realise that all other MC cartridges really have something in common, you realise that all belong to the same family with some variations that meke certain cartridges more appealing to you then other ones. But this one is like it has a different nature. In a way it is exremely interesting since it is really like a new interpretation of the music. on the other side the way you have learned to judge and to select cartridges is challenged to the point that you ask yourself who got it right. While keep on listening to thos cartridge few times I have thought all the others got it wrong, since there was a certain expression a certain charge in the music that was completely absent from all the other MC cartridges I have listened to. They all sounded mechanical in comparison to this one. And the ones that sound less mechanical and more fluid were achieving this at the expenses of body, or transient attack.

The only really fastidious point was that after so many years of being used to MC sound whenever I wentr back to another cartridge, I was feeling more "at home" in its wrong doing. I am sure that if I had lived with this cartridge for much longer time I  had to seriously readjust to all my other cartridges with some difficulty.

For this reason I can surely affirm that this cartridge has some kind of magic. Not because it immediately will blow you away but it will suck you in a strange world. in a world were thing are there like suspended in a different reality you are used to ear.

You can buy some cartridges that have some universal pleasing sound like Dynavector. I don't know anyone that does not like Dynavector. That he prefer something else yes, but that dislikes Dynavector never. Then there are other cartridges that are disliked only by people that don't let them express as they were supposed to sound like Ortofons. Ortofons sound the way they should only with step up transformers in my opinion if not they sound uninvolving. But if you use with the right step up they are not going to be disliked by anyone. Then you have some others like VDH that are either disliked or loved like it happens with Naim electronics.

In this case, with this Miyajima, it is absolutely impossible to predict by who it is going to be loved. I guess it will fit well in a reproduction chain with low power amps and horn speakers. 

It is a cartridge that all vinyl lover should hear. I guess this is valid for all miyajima cartridges. Right now I am listening to another Miyajima, the Shilabe. It has the same family sound of the Saboten, so I think this is the sound of Miyajima cartridges. 

One thing is sure: if you like this sound nothing can be an alternative to it.

Vertical damping and counterweight orientation on Moerch DP8

 

I know, maybe it is not good to spend such long time with a tonearm that has so many technical disavantages. The arm tubes cannot be that rigid since their fixing method. And then they are not even tapered to avoid vibrations. The continuity of the cabling is broken for the very same reason. Not only in one point from the cartridge to the din connector at the tonearm base, but also at the tonearm tube - tonearm base level. Could you cope with the fact that this fragile connection is held on place with pins touching togheter by pression?And the lateral weights are like big vibration captureing devices. 

But at the end it sounds fairly good to me and also to many others even if they didn't buy it. Yes at the end something can sound poorly in principle and good in reality or sound good in theory and bad in reality. I prefer the former case.

Let's get into the heavy subject: It is stated that generally vertical damping is not an advantage in this tonearm.

Few have written it does something in their set up. A friend hifi distributor of mine says it is better with vertical damping. Others say it does not change the sound.

When we have different answers we have to consider different things. Of course the first is lazyness...

or better: the fastidiousness of the procedings.

One thing is to moove the tonearm from a turntable to another. Another thing is to try different silicon density and another one is to wipe it off from the well and put it in again. And another is,at the end of all this, to play with the length of the axe that dips in the silicon well of this tonearm.

But I wanted to have a definitive answer to it. It is better to assume it works better in one way of another. It is much simpler to rest satisfied. But you know how it is...satisfaction does not last forever. We are not in the Garden of Eden and everybody knows what happen to the only people there.

I have made about one year of testing. I have used this tonearm in different turntable with different cartridges and different tonearm cables and the answer is, unfortunately or fortunately it depends how you will receive this information, it makes a difference. Sometimes this difference is slightly better, sometimes slightly worse. But this slight thing makes an important matter at a certain level, surely at the level of this tonearm. I don't think anybody will buy a tonearm of this caliber if for him small difference were not vital.

What  when damping is too much: the sound is darker and less agile. Less rithmically involving.

What happens when it is too little or nothing: the sound is responsive and rithmically expressive with a little brillance, a little shine similar to some silver cables. Some, since it is not always the case in silver cables.

Between these two for me it is always better the second. I don't like a darker and less rithmically involving sound.

What about the best result? The best result is a longer journey result.

First of all the silicon density. Yes I have tried different silicon density. You can easily find different silicon density for RC cars differencial use.

The best came out to be of 100K.

When you put about 0.2ml of this silicon in the Moerch well for vertical dumping and you play with the vertical shaft length to get it right you are going to find a setting where you feel indeniably that like this is correct. Everything snaps in time and focus and tone. It has more or less the same effect of changing the cartridge impedence matching in your phono preamp. 

Records that were difficult to listen to become really OK! This wa for me the best adventage for me. I hate records of which music I love to be reproduced in a way that does not allow me to enjoy them. 

The problem is that this everything is not stable. It means you didn't find the best for every combination. You have find the best for a certain cartridge. And worse... for a certain tonearm cable. Worse still: for a certain combination of cartridge and tonearm cable in a certain turntable. And of course your choosen arm tube (green, red or blu) you use.

For example in the Kuzma Stabi Ref 2 and EMT cartridge with a green arm tube I have found out that the vertical shaft had to be lifted  out to mesure 12mm from the base where it is seated (11.5mm is the shortest mesurement allowed according to the manual). But this with a certain tonearm cable. With another tonearm cable it was better at 14.5mm out

In a Thorens TD124 with an Ortofon SPU Gold on a blu arm tube the best was to leave the vertical damping shaft all the way in 11.5mm out. This was the case with all the three tonearms cable tried. Maybe because it is a non suspended design and a direct drive... 

With a Linn LP12... better without vertical damping!

This is just so you have an idea of it.

So yes, generally vertical damping in this tonearm is not an advantage but if you want it all out of it, it can be crucial.

Of course certain systems are much more reactive then others. If your system does not react or you don't react to different vibration device like cones or platforms and so on, or for you any cartridge loading sound the same, it is useless you try out the best vertical damping.

At the end it is somehow intuitive. The vertical damping has not only a mecanical influence but also a vibrational one. Anything we put in the system and that connect things togheter is a vibrational device that will add or subtract things to make things worse or better.

I feel that the option of vertical damping is perfect for the ones that have one turntable one tonearm cable and one cartridge. You find the correct setting and then forget about it.

It is good to have this option. It is good to know that you can have a possibility to tune it. 

It is a bad thing to think you have the possibility to tune it for the better but you don't do it. 

Yes, it is a question of fastidiousness. 

The best answer would be: generally the vertical damping in this tonearm does not improve the sound if you don't want to mess with it but it could.

The counterweight.

You have three main counterweights with this tonearm.  I am not talking about the lateral ones but the ones you need to balance the cartridge and apply the correct VTF. These three counterweights have an eliptical shape. Then you have a fourth counterweight, perfectly round, that is easier to moove to achieve the smallest difference of weight. I hate this one. It it mooves too freely. I would have much prefered it to be a little tighter with its o-ring.

In the owner manual it showed how to get a dynamic balance with the main counterweights. Sometimes this is achieved rotating it or both either with the larger part in the top position or in the lower position. You could also have, if you nned more then one to balance the weight of the used cartridge, one rotated in a way and another one rotated in the opposite way.

The thing is that the rotation of it or thenm changes the sound.

I have found out, with different turntables and cartridges, so the effect is repetable, that using the counterweight with their larger side up gets the sound more unified and more linear in a sense. Using the counterweight with its larger side down gives you more drive and dynamic contrast. The best combination of course depends upon your system and your taste, but more I would say about your taste since tried in different configuration the outcome is the same. 

Naim Powerline

 

It is quite probable that you are not going to like this cable. It is quite probable you are going to dismiss this cable for many reasons.

It does not sound good out of the box.

It is not going to sound that great out from a Naim system.

It is a cable that needs a lot of patience from your part. 

You have to accept from faith that it is a good cable and if it does not sound good it is not its fault.

Generally, it means always, we are up in a hifi situation when we have controlled the bad things by smoothing things out. Highs are too aggressive, we get a smoother cable here and there. But when we are using "smothers" we are loosing some information, spatial, timbric or rithmic and surely we are using filters.

High end systems sound good and uninvolving. We admire them  without caring about them at the same time. Most of the time they don't reproduce the essence of the music. Only a clean sequences of notes and very silent spaces.

So we have a mid high, high end system and we insert this cable in. What we will ear after about 300 ours of burning in? If we listen before this burn in period this cable could sound even worse then a $10 for 1m Belden power cable, that by my standard is a very decent cable.

So after this long burn in period you will ear that the sound stange get more compact. The propulsive energy is concentrated in a smaller scale landscape. The bass is well controlled, go very low but you feel it is sometimes too dry. The mid hig are very open and tense. The highs are neither very extended not very controlled.There is a sensation of things being tense, and soon you will become tired of it. You will go back to your previous cable with aural confort.

OK, once again you wanted to upgrade and things went on the wrong side. You take the cable away and hope to sell to Naim owners. Yes because I don't think it would be easy to sell it to other people.

But what happen if you accept by faith that this cable sounds good and what you are hearing are...

It is going to show all the vibration issues on your hifi. You think it is bright or it is forward only because you didn’t fix the vibration well in your sistem.

This was an impossible task with other higher end power cables. They tend to smooth things out and wash also the timbre out in the meantime and sometimes rithm too. But they are polite. They have a calming effect on your hifi problem. I think is because the Powerline is extremely open in the mid-high region that the vibrations issues of the system will show. The Powerline will show how manipulative and coloured high end power cables generally are to smooth things out and to low the noise floor.

The most notable thing in this cable is its medium frequencies section: it is more open then you thought could be. After you try another cable it will almost inevitably feel shut off in this region or if not shut of or recessed a little foggy.

This cable is raw. It means it leaves your system breath. 

It is very different from other power cables. It is not for fixing or improving things out, is to let things out. So this can be a good or a bad thing.

It will give you some work since it behaves completely differently from other power cables. 

I personally find this work to be worthed. I always found that it is quite easy to calm down a system, but to give life to a system that is on sedation is very difficult. 

With the Powerline your system, after correct use and matching, will either sound bad or good depending on your work, but it will never sound boring. And I hate boring systems.

Cardas Clear Beyond and Clear Reflection power

 

Cardas again! What a strange thing for me. I have never listened for a very long time Cardas cables. My listening experience with Cardas stopped at the time of Golden Reference. Now, after many years I can appreciate what evolution does. 

I have already said that in the past I was not really a Cardas fan. Not because they were not good cables, they always have been good, but I felt they were more like fixing cables. For most systems it was a good thing, but when you were putting togheter components that were blending well togheter, I have found Cardas cables were retaining informations, dynamic and rytmic abilities.

You know how it is, most of us are only partially intelligent. We have an experience in time and we project it in the future with a forever stamp on it. It is for this stupid reason that I was not listening to Cardas cables. Even though I have to admit, I have herd few times systems sounding extremely well with a complete Cardas set up. But they had to be completely Cardas cabled. 

Now after many years I have to say that Cardas sound has changed, and these changements were all positive. I think now Cardas sound can be more universally appealing. 

Let's start with the Reflection. Reflection sound is fluid and slightly raw at the same time. It is a strange feeling!  I think it is a question of microinformation. It is not the quitest cable,  but within this not complete quiteness and black background it gives a kind of "educated freedom".

This cable is also rithmically capable. In the absolute scale I can only say it is slightly dynamically restricted and the bass is...not the strongest point, but well blended with everything else. I guess if the bass was different it would not sound this fluid any more and maybe it will be more heavy handed and this last thing is something I really dislike. It is similar soundind to the old Golden reference power, but more fluid, less coarse and less upfront. 

The Clear Beyond sounds very different.

The first thing we notice are  actually two: the dynamic window is more open and its silence is deeper, much deeper.

These two attributes makes for a less propulsive sound and more space for everything to happen. But it gives also the impression to slight alter the time, not the timing! You get the feeling timeis slightly expanded, that music is less constrained. It is a faster then the Reflection but it seams slower for this time thing. A little like a professional F1 driver against a very good driver. When we see the good driver in the circuit we think he goes very fast, its driving comes out as aggressive. Then you see the F1 driver in the same circuit with the same car. It seams he goes slower, that he has more time to express his skills, and his controll over the car and the circuit, he floats, everything is smooth, no compensation in the trajectories, it seams the car goes on invisible rails. At the end this apparent slower perception will be time recorded as a much faster lap!

This is the thing that happens with the Beyond. 

One thing that I was absolutely not prepared for was to realise that Cardas Reflection does not blend that well with Clear Beyond. In the past I could have mixed every Cardas and they would have mixed well togheter. The Reflection power blend perfectly with Reflection interconnect and loudspeaker cable, but not so with Clear interconnect. And the opposite is also true.

But the Beyond is a more universal cable then the Reflection. It blended well also with a Naim NAC A5 speaker cables that is very difficult to pair with almost anything. The Beyond is a cable that easily tend to disappear. This is an excellent thing, but if your system has been covered by some pushing from cables to compensate a laziness or whatever adding the Beyond will make it sound the component connected how it should. This is how things should be. But at the end the result it is going to be less "involving" you are going to think it is the cable while it is not. I have tried many combination and this was clearly shown. For this reason I think the best way to assemble a system is to have very neutral cables and then at the end matching the components. But most of us already have components so we try to get what works best with them in our listening room.

I have the impression that when you go Clear you should get everything in the Clear range. And that the Clear range blends well with other brands too. This is because Clear range is more neutral and leaves very litle signature on its own.

The Reflection is beautiful, but its beauty is more delicate, you have to respect it more, you have to put it in a more sympathetic context. But if you already have a Reflection somewhere, go and "reflect" everything else and you will be an happy guy! The ending result is extremely balanced.

Except for one thing. Don't put a Reflection feeding your power strip feeding other Cardas cables. The sound will suffer. Don't ask me why...

Cable confrontation: Naim NAC A5 VS Straight Wire Virtuoso H

At one of my friend's house with my Kuzma Ref2 turntable. He wanted to listen to it in his system, and then we said why don't we make a video of the cables we are listening to?

And here you have it. A confrontation between two "immortals" speaker audio cables. Both are still in production after many years and both are extremely good value for the money.

The Naim is difficult to make it sound this way. It needs more then 400 hours of break in and has to be correctly dressed. If not you are going to discharge it after 5min listening, but you will never catch its value. The Straigh Wire is of a very easy interface with most amplifier speaker combination.

 Whatch it on you tube and you will have the subtitle to know which cable you are listening to.

It will be nice if you will write your thoughts and preference!

Cardas Clear Beyond Phono cable

 

This is such an expensive cable! Yes, but who is going to buy it? Surely no uf you have a $1000 tonearm.

But, for the lucky ones that can own a reference tonearm, is such a cable worthed?

I will put it simple: it is not only worthed but it is a bargain! There are many phono cables in this price range and above, and one thing is sure the Clear Beyond surely belongs to the range above its price.

The most beautiful thing about this cable is its coesive easiness with everything. Everything is expressed without struggle or too much fluidity that can be boring even if at times seducing. 

The one thing that is really Beyond is its silence. It does not pick up any noise and it does not have any noise from its own. Just compare it with any other cable and you will easily realise it. There is also  no trace of metal conductur signature. You cannot guess either it is silver or copper or whatever. 

Its transparency is exceptionally good as its soundstage. But every detail is perfectly integrated in the music message. This is a very uncommon thing to achieve. Generally when you have a very detailed cable, it makes the details sounding like in another dimension in time that is different from the music.

Also their nature can appear to be from another happening. It is difficult to explain, but it is for this reason that details can be too much of a good thing and harsh. It is like a frequency get separated from the whole message. The Clear Beyond achieve the rare thing of being very detailed and musical at the same time as no other cable I have tried so far can.

And it is fast without being dry. And here again the beyond gets "beyond" another paradox in hifi reproduction. When a cable is fast generally is short in reproducing notes decays. And also feels it simplify  the musical message somehow. This generally tends the  rithm of the music to be perceived more easily.  But it can sound a little dry. The Clear Beyond allow a beautifull decay being fast at the same time and never letting the tempo in the second seat. Maybe it is a question of ultimate time control or maybe it is a question of not letting the signal being polluted by noises or by any kind of distortions. Anyway this managing of tempo (PRAT) and decays is unique among cables. Expecially if we add that the reproduction of depth is magnificent. The reproduction of depth most of the times does not go hand in hand with good ritmic capabilities in hifi staff.

All these characteristics allows the instruments timbres to be fully develloped, and also the bad recording to sound bad, but not as bad as with other top cables. Because there is more of everything.

And then its bass... Deep, controlled, fast but breathing at the same time.  The bass has space to breath with this cable. The best reproduction of bass of every phono cable I have ever listened to.

And I guess every of all these most of the time reciprocatly exclusive factors brings at the last for me inesplicable characteristic: this cable has wamth. Most of the times this feeling is given by a curtain effects on the high frequencies, or a slightly fattening of the mid bass region. But in the Clear Beyond the high frequencies are extremely well extended and the mid bass region is the best of any other cable I have tried. I feel it achieve this characteristic avoiding faulse harshness and being true transparent. I guess the true transparency allows timbres to be beautifully portraied and the lack of distortions, even the pleasents ones, togheter with the true transparency brings this wamth out. For this reason I will say it is a different kind of warmth of which we audiophiles are used to. It is a kind of natural warmth, results of lack of intrusion of "bad" things. 

After fews moths of using this cable with few cartridges, phono preamp, amps and speakers  and the needed connecting cables I have come also to one conclusion: whenever you try to identify something that you don't like in this cable you are identifying something that you are not liking somewhere else in the audio chain. Once you think it is forward, then you change preamplifier you realise it is the preamp or the cartridge you are using with it and so on. For this same reason it is absolutely not a fixing cable. It allows you to fix the chain keeping it as a stable actor. If you think it is its fault you are deeply wrong...

This was one of the easiest review for me. 

I have listened to more expensive phono cables that can do something better then the Clear Beyond does, or at least we are more readily aware of these advantages, maybe because umbalanced from the integrity of their total musical portray,  but these "betters" were always less important in comparison of the "betters" the Beyond is capable of. The Beyond generally did better were music count the most.

Without any doubt one of the best cables ever built.

An absolute masterpiece.

I truly compliment Mr. Cardas for this achievement.

Cardas Clear Reflection Interconnect - Get it and forget it

 

I have always found Cardas cable good, but on prolonged listening I have always felt they were not… enough. Musicality was there, but either I have found them to be too dense or too slow or missing in openess. But I am talking about old Cardas cables. Not even the very classic like Golden Reference and before it the Golden Cross were totally of my liking. I said it again: not totally of my liking. Since I had friends who absolutely loved the Golden Cross and the Golden reference. But despite this, all the time I was listening to a sistem all cabled with Cardas… I just listened to the music. So I have thought they were just balancing each other. But you know how we are : we like changing cables, mixing brands and so on. In the past with Cardas cables this was not a too good idea. It is true that most of cable brands shine when working with same family cables, but some were allowing better then others to change one cable here and another there easier then Cardas cables.

But with the Clear line this changed. 

I have always wanted to try the Clear Refelction since they affirm is an improved version of the Golden Reference. And I know the Golden Reference very well. I have sold it many times when I was in the hifi bussiness and I also had it for some time. 

I really didn’t know what to aspect from this cable, and I was expecially curious how it would blend with other makers cables.

When I have received it everything looked familiar. The same minimalistic plastic bag. The same smell. Yes there was a special smell on the Golden Reference, and I found it in the Clear reflection.

I cooked it for few days and I started my listening session replacing my installed cable between my passive preamp and my amplifier. I know in this position I like very few cables. I know that passive preamplifier makes things more difficult so I have started from here.

As soon as the first seconds of the music started playing I got one strong feeling : everything it is how it should. Not too much not too less of anything. A balance that does not allow you to appreciate something in particular neither feeling something is not that right. This is extremely rare for me to happen. Most of the time, for the good ones,  I have a feeling that tells me that something is so good and that same something is fooling me and in few days it is going to bother me. And this is what generally happen after a delay that goes from a week to a month at the most.

Days went on and I started to putting words and thoughts to what I was listening.

The various elements music is commposed of are blended in an almost perfect balance. I say almost just becaus I don't think perfection exsists. This means the music message makes sense all the time. You are not going to appreciate rithm or instrumental localisation, or timbre and then when you search for something else you feel it is a weak point. You allow yourself to be less critical, and this is a great thing for us that are passionate about sound reproduction! We found ourselves too often to jump and focus on a weakness and this spoils our listening pleasure. This cable gives you the permission to just listen.

This is rare. Very rare. And I think this is Cardas Clear reflection strongest asset.

If I have to decompose the sound of it I would say the high frequency are extremely well rendered. They develop with fluidity and ease and at the same time the attack of the notes is not diminished. In a word: elegant.

I have to say that I am extremely sensitive to one thing: no matter how good a cable is, no matter how beautifull it reproduces acousticals landscapes, localizes instruments and so on, if I feel the rytmic part is weighted, I say this when you have the sensation that it does not come easy, I cannot stay with it too long. When the rithm is followed, like a kind of tedius work instead of a natural flow, I get frustrated in my listening sessions. 

With previous Cardas I always felt this timing thing was not as fluid as it should be. The Clear reflection do it in a way I don't have any frustation at all.

As we go in others specific parts the organisation of the different instuments is very good, you can feel they are separate and playing at the same time togheter and the depth is rendered much better then most cables.

The medium zone is a beauty. Fluid, saturated withoud being heavy, and very expressive. The only part that I could say not too good thing about is the bass. Yes, the bass is there but it is not that expressive, not that propulsive. But it is perfectly blended with the rest. I feel that if it was different and I dare to say if it was of a different nature, it would have spoiled the nice blending it has with the rest. But you notice it only in a direct comparison with more expensive cables that, to tell you the truth at the end don't have the same level of musical enjoyment the Reflection is able to convey. 

This was not an easy session for me, not for the listening part, but for the critic part. I almost felt guilty about criticizing it, so honest, so fluid, so pleasurable, so without annoying characteristics this cable is.

The Clear Refleftion is extremely well made, extremely well balanced and most of all extremely musical. Another thing is that it is a cable that most people will like. I have listened to it with a friend that has a taste for music reproduction that is opposite to mine and he like it to! 

I forgot to say: I have done most of my listening test without changing other cables around, and sometimes changing them but not putting other Cardas around, and I found this cable to be an easy match with anything if components are put togheter in an harmonius way. Then I have started putting some of its family arouund, Clear Reflection power cable, then I have put on the Clear reflection loudpseaker cable. The result is globally  better, but not something you have to. It is like its qualities are able to be expressed in an even easier way. 

 Living with this cable is easy and pleasurable or an easy pleasure. Get it and forget it!

One thing: I have red a review somewhere where the author found that this cable is very calm. Yes it can sometimes sound this way depending on the power cord the components is linking is fed. With the Reflection power cord it is not very calm, it is just very balanced not too rushed not too calm. Actually I feel it is slightly on being fast. But it is true that with not the right power cord it can sound too calm. This is a very interesting thing that I think happens with many other cables. For example with Wireworld Gold Platinum or Platinum with the wrong power cord they can sound a little pushy on the high medium frequencies. But they are not! With cables that are not compressed and that gives you a faulse sense of speed this happens all the time. It is true that if you don't have few cables to play around with, when you buy a cable that is not dynamically compressed or that is very linear, you could end up with a too slow or a too much medium high frequencies showed in your system. If you are not sure about how really is your system, and nobody can be sure except the ones that have tried many combinations, I think it is better to buy lower range cables from good cables companies, like Cardas or Wireworld or the likes.

 Weakness: it seams the Clear Reflection could be the perfect cable, but it is not. It would not make any sense for Cardas to make more expensive cables. Yes the Clear Reflection has its own weaknesses but are not the kind of being harsh and sometimes umpleasent to listen to. It never presents such downsides. Its downsides are of not being that open, even though is not closed, not having that dynamic freedom that you can have with other more expensive cables, but these last have to be very good ones. These minor sides appear only when things get real high in your hifi chain. 

For example when I have put the Reflection between my preamps and amps combination and I had my turntable phono cable of good mid level, things were extremely enjoyable and no downside was exposed. When I have changed my phono cable with the Cardas Beyond this one let so much more informations to pass through (good informations) that the Reflection limits were showed. But with the lesser phono cable it was taming its few downsides making the combination a joy to listen to.

Considering this, I guess the Reflection is a cable that could be used in all the application when there is some little traces of bad things like not too much body, high frequencies slightly aggressive and so on, but these deficiencies have to be minor, since it is enough transparent to show when they are not that minor. It does not have downsides, just few limits that I would consider small only in an objective context. Considering its asking price it does not have any limit!

Kuzma Stabi Ref 2 - the king of consistency (Long article. The sound at the end)

 

I wanted to have a new turntable. A turntable that I have always wanted to have, but that for economic reasons, what else, I had to wait for. So now, after few years of putting money away and renouncing to many things, I have got it! I have bought it to be one of my references. It is not a new design, it is sturdy, it is easy for the armboard to be changed so to fit with different tonearms. Perfect for me.

The turntable arrived in a cartoon box. I was surpriced that something of this weight, we are talking about 45kg of shipping weight, is shipped in a cartoon box. But it has been out for many years so they must know.

Fortunately the box was in perfect conditon. At the same time it is difficult to throw a box of 45kg all over the places...

I took out the parts to assemble it. The chassis base with the 4 suspension tower in perfect condition, or almost,since few small marks.

This is the base. I have put it in a levelled support.

Then I have taken out the subchassis, a nice and heavy block. Everything is nice and heavy. 

And here things got bad. 

In the subchassis there are 4 holes with a rod at a center of each that goes inside the supsension tower of the base. 

The left holes were damnaged. One by a pretty big shock.

Just have a look at the holes of the left side.

  this one was deep!

This one... 

These are sign of a shock. These are signs of towwer scratching against the holes supposed to receive them. Since the subchassis has to be put into the base over the 4 towers, it is obvious somebody before me mounted it. He has lost control of it and the holes of the subchassis went out of the center of the chassis towers causing marks. But... no marks whatsoever in the towers...

Now we have only and only two possibility, at least in my point of view, I am not Leonardo da Vinci genius, and if there is another one please you that read, feel free to write it down in a message.

The first: somebody at kuzma assembled it, lost the control of the subchassis that got damnaged. He saw the damnage on the towers and he replaced them, just leaving  parts with acceptable small damnages, that is not good anyway.  But, he didn't check the subchassis out since he had to look under the subchassis and  just replaced the towers that were in his sight.

When you have a shock between two components both must have marks! Here no, only the subchassis has marks, the corrispettive towers have no marks at all, only small acceptable marks just in the top of them caused by the rods. But not a scratch. Noo sliding marks, no impact marks. Why I say it must be happened at kuzma? I don't think there is another place where they have spares suspension towers on hands...

M. Kuzma, in one of our exchanges, said that he is not accepting my conclusion. And it is perfectly OK with me. Of course he has his right in doing so. He insists in a transport shock something like a flat shock. 

That it was more of a shock during transport... and no signs on the tower? In a shock you have marks in the parts that shock togheter! Here the subchassis got shocked with apparently...no other parts.

So here my second conclusion: inside the box there must have been the visit of some creature with a cisel that did the marks in the subchassis, trying to mimik the impact of the suspension towers.

So I am not accepting M. Kuzma conclusion on my side. And this should be OK too since each one of us has the right to his own conclusion.

This signs on the subchassis must be said that don't impact the mechanical function of the turntable at all, so are more of an estetic issue.

But it does not matter what kind of problem you can have, it matters how it is solved. Problems can just happens, that's it. 

I must say that at the end of few mails, M Kuzma proposed me to pack the turntable and to send it back to the factory to be either replaced or the parts to be replaced.

Even though I appreciate the gesture, that was offered very fast, I know companies that try their best to refuse to do it and are many, I was not keen on it.  But for my personal reasons.  My physical conditions is not that great, many back and cervical operations and metal plates and screws all over my body, so to put the turntable back in the box, to transport it, to wait for the other turntable to come, to unpack it, and so on, I have to ask the favour (payed favor) of being helped by somebody and it is not that nice to ask help many times and wait for it. 

So I proposed M.Kuzma an easier solution for me: I would repair the turntable by myself, I have the tools and the experience to do it.

The easiest thing was for me to wait M.Kuzma to send the damnaged parts.  At that moment I would at the same time replaced the new parts and demounted the damnaged part and sent them back to Kuzma. 

This, for my deep regreet ,was not possible do. ! My only option was  first to sent the damnaged parts to Kuzma, that needed to understand what happened, and then he would have  sent me the new parts. So I will stay for I don't know how long, with a completely dessambled turntable with parts all over. And I have a wife and this can lead to some problems much worse then a turntable damnage. I had two ex wives I know what I am talking about. 

Why M.Kuzma needed to understand what happende before sending me the new parts? 

So I proposed not to have parts all over my place for a certain time, wife detest it, and buying  this damnaged parts new, but at least at factory price. M.Kuzma did not accept my  proposal. So it is better for me having a mess around for I don't know how long just because... I don't even know.

Things are not finished.

I have asked an armboard to be cut for my Moerch DP8 tonearm

The correct spindel to tonearm axe distance was communicated correctly to Kuzma French distributor, and it easy to find in the Moerch website

this distance is 212mm.

When I got the turntable, after I have seen the subchassis got damnaged, I wanted to inspect everything carefully, just to see if the other parts where OK. 

So I mounted the armboard and checked if the distance from the turntable spindle was correct.

It didn't look quite ok with the tonearm mounted checked with my Feickert protractor that is very accurate. After setting on the protractor the right distance, the vertical pointing down rod, should allign with the tonearm axe center. In the Moerch is not the little screw that fix the armtube, as many thinks, but a little on the back of it. But in the pictures is clear the tonearm is few mm far away from where it should be.

I wrote to Kuzma and he answered me that I shouldn't check with the tonearm mounted. But how can we mount correctly the cartridge if not setting the right distance with the tonearm mounted? To demonstrated that the amboard hole was not at the right distance I took the tonearm out and mesured in three different ways.

In each way I have mesured it, it is sure I don't have 212mm. 

I have 215mm. It is 3mm out!!!

I have put the metal pointer of my Feichert protractor, to face down the tonearm hole. From this sight you just see a clearer metalic small dot at 212mm distance from the turntable spindle. This dot should be at the middle of the underside hole. You already see it is not.

With a piece of paper I have just highlighted the space between the hole and the turntable spindle : 215mm

Last check, for the hell of it, the most brutal way, but even with this method we see the center of the armboard hole is not a 212mm distance from the turntable spindle.

                                                                                                                

I wrote to Kuzma and I didn't like too much the first answer he gave me, that I could moove the cartridge out. Yes of course it is technically possible but not all the cartridges can be moved that out, and then it is acceptable to have 3mm difference in a product of this caliber?

I have drilled more then 50 armboard, and even though I cannot say I am an expert armboard driller, the worst I did was 0.5mm out! I don't do a 3mm out even making an hole free hand!

So after other mails he accepted to change the armboard too. The bad thing is that, even after my three mesurement I was feeling M. Kuzma could not really believe me! It is like M.Kuzma has such a complete thrust in his manufacturing process that even if you mesure and see things for him is extremely difficult to accept. But this is a feeling I had and maybe is not the reality. I like to differenciate as much as possible what is subjective with what is not.

At the end of it of course I am not happy. Would you be happy of it! You would not be happy if you have these issues with a $500 component, so with one that is near $10000...

I am not happy for many reasons. Because I know a problem can happen, but it is bad when the other side don't get or cannot for his good technical reason go your way completely. They surely have their reason, but for me was frustrating to having to accept things also for my personal situation.

So I find it frustrating M. Kuzma couldn't accept to send me the replacement for the damnaged parts so that I , in the same day, I could have replaced the damnage parts with the new ones and sent back the damnaged and wrong parts.

Strong  and weaks points of M.Kuzma :

fast reply (it is getting a rarety) this is objective. No way around it. It answered during week end time!

Not too nice but polite person. He puts the points and limit in the dialogue and this is not nice in my perception of things.  

Trying and willing to understand. You really have the feeling he is trying to solve the issue and not in his favour. Just want to solve it. And this is rare.

The feeling that you have is that he wants to do things in his own terms even though he often states "what would you like me to do?" leave you with a bitter feeling. It would be nicer if he could nicely explain why he cannot do certain things and have to do something instead.  But it is also true that he put himself in the position that generally the distibutor has. And considering its personal involvement in the issue, I have to rate this as extremely positive from his part.

Things like that should not happen, but can happen nevertheless. They are not small things!  We have damnages and error in drilling the armboard! Quality control must be an absolute priority at this level! 

Even if my one is a rare case, and I am pretty sure it is, for me it was a very unlucky situation. If I was in perfect physical shape, I just would have packed the turntable, send it back to Kuzma at their cost, as he kindly offered, and waited for the new one of for the repaired one to come back. 

this is the ready to be shipped subchassis metal plate.

Everything was ready to be shipped out, but after few days I have decided not to send the metal part of the subchassis to Kuzma factory. 

What I was afraid of happened. My wife, during the week end told me: "How long are you going to have this thing all over the place". She said this calmly, but since even in the best case scenario to send the board, to receive another one back and so on would have taken surely three weeks in the best case scenario, and since post services are loaded for the covid situation we are not in the best case scenario, , I decided to repair it by myself.

A friend of mine has a mechanical shop, he makes parts for F1 teams, he did the repairing job, then  thermolacted the chassis and it came out as very close to perfection. The repairing job was an easy one since exclusively exstetical.

So I wrote where I have bought the turntable, saying I have repaired it by myself for time reason, and that I was then not using the waranty service that was kindly and promptly offered to me. I asked if I could have an undrilled armboard, spindle oil and a spare belt, that I would pay as normal spare parts.

You can either beleive it or not, but now started a big problem! M Kuzma said directly to is France distributor that he was not selling any parts to me!?!

 Things were getting strange, but eventually realized that there was a kind of basic misunderstanding.

From one side Mr. Kuzma proposed all the support a company can offer. He did not put the fault on me neither on his side, but on the shipping. One thing I was willing to accept more easily, changing the damnaged subchassis by myself without getting it back, packing the turntable and so on was not accettable for Kuzma. And I can partly understand it. I would have not liked by my side, if I were Kuzma to do this, and I would have done the same as he proposed. Getting the unit back and giving it back perfect.

Anyway I decided to keep this unit and to fix the estetic damnage by myself. Yes I accepted it since we are talking about things that don't have any influence on the sound itself.

Now after all this and few moths of listening  I can go to the sound of this CLASSIC, turntable. Yes after all this years of being in production and of being reputed ammong the best turntables, we can call it a classic.

                                                               

                                       THE SOUND                                                                                                      

I have wrote in the begging of this review: the king of consistency, and I will try to explain why I have strongly felt this quality about this Kuzma.

I have few turntables, and I had more then 15 that I don't own any more.

Every turntable I had or I have had some good things and some bad ones. Some were building wise, other technically, other of  musical reproduction consistency.

What I call with this last term is: some music comes out well while other music is not reproducted in a convincing way. The cheapest turntable are more consistence in this regards. all kind of music is reproducted in an average matter. The more expensive a component is, the less I found it to be coonsitent. Some just get me nervous about it.

Soome high mass turntable do something very well and other not. Some suspended also. Some direct drive too.

You are always felt with the feeling that you would like something that is in the middle of them all.

At least I feel it, since I listen to al lot of different style of music.

For example with my Linn LP12, there are times when music comes out in a extremely seducing way and other times you feel it is missing too much.

With my Thorens TD124 also. But in this case it is a question of something hard, tense in the soul of the music.

With this Kuzma you are not seduced sometimes neither you are deceived. It is constantly good and sometimes excellent. No tension felt like with the direct drive ones, but close to their propulsive rithmic abilities, not the feeling of enourmous stability of the high mass ones but neither gives you the feeling  of not being "solid". 

The best thing of them all is that it is the most perfect turntable as far as timing concern.

The Linn is consider a champion in this respect, but...when things get complicated it looses its way.

The direct drives are slightly better sometimes, but you feel there is a particular timing signature in every kind of music. This signature can be great or not too great depending the type of music.

The Kuzma gava me the very strong impression of getting the tempo out of any kind of music the way it was supposed to be. This for me is a unique quality. I have never heard a turntable doing this. Being able to reproduce the correct tempo and rithm of different musics without putting its signature on it.

For me this could be already enugh to consider it as one of the best turntable out there. But other things are also in a high league.

I have tried the Kuzma with just two tonearms that I know particularly well: the Moerch DP8 and the Linn Ekos. And lastly with a friend tonearm that I know but not so well as the first two.

It allowed me to appreciate their differences, without allowing me to say that one was better then the other.

This is very revelatory.

A very good tonearm should have a signature but a small one. It should be able to do many things in an highly satisfactory way.

The problem is that with too many turntables, I would say most, a tonearm has to integrate its sound with sound of the turntable it is matched with. Sometimes this turntable will highlight the tonearm caracter, sometimes not, sometime a tonearm will compensate a turntable weakness and so on.

It was like the Kuzma but being there but being in this matching game as little as possible.

This is an excellent thing! It allows you to just get one component out of the interaction hell!

I had also a friend that lent me his Triplanar tonearm, and here again I was listening to a very good tonearm, but which the final outcome was not better then the Moerch neither then the Ekos.

They were extremely well balanced with differences.

The system never lost its timing consistency. It was slighly magnified with the Ekos and less with the Triplanar, the Moerch was between the two.

When I change the tonearm in another turntable,and I am talking about excellent tonearms, I can easily destroy the balance, the equilibre of the sound. Timing can collapse or other terrible things can happen.

This means the turntable talks to much with the tonearm. Or their "colours" are not mixing too well. They are discussing too much for their own sake. Of course at the end you can have excellent results, but you are forced in accepting some combination. You are not free to choose it, but most of the time you have accept that for the excellence you have to combine this turntable with a certain tonearm or at the most two. If you don't have many tonearms, maybe you are going to be happy with what you have because you will never know how it will work with another one. For this reason for most of us, that don't have many tonearms to play with, it is better to buy a combination proposed by the same manufacture. Kuzma makes great tonearms, not too sexy looking, like a Triplanar can be, nor elegant styled like the Moerch, or minimalist like a Linn Ekos. They look more likes truks, but they are extremely good. I would really like in the futre to put one of them in this turntable. I am thinking of the 4P...

Another thing that has to be considered with attention:  this Kuzma gives you the choice of putting one of two spacers on the platter before you put on your LP. This allows the clamps to perfectly flat the LP.

This little thing was never talked about in other reviews of this turntable, but I have to say that it makes a very sensible changement. The bass get deeper and more articulated. The differents instruments or voices are better separated. More depth. Most of the distortion ash that gives the "wrong" impression of space is gone. The tonality of it becomes for all these reason darker. I don't generally like a tonality when is dark. But this kind of darkness is not the result of too much overdamp. At least I didn't feel it to be the case. When the darkness is due to something ovendamped, I have the acoustical feeling of suffocation and I cannot stand it for too long. In this case you have a feeling that this dark character is the resul of an almost perfect neutrality. When you take the spacer of, you are very aware of the introduction of colorations. But...with the spacer you gain many things but you loose PRAT. I have tried many many times and got to the same conclusion.

If I had to have only one turntable I would surely choose this one. It does too many things right and it is built in a way that promises you eternity. 

Wireworld Micro cables reference balanced digital Eclipse and Platinum Eclipse 8, or The Importance of Being Earnest.

Balanced digital...I have always thought it was my less favourite digital type connection. There were few times I have compared the same cable with different connectors (BNC , XLR and RCA) and for digital applications I ended up accepting the RCA choice as my favourite one. But it was just with a couple of transports and DACs.

It is true that in hifi we can say what actually work for our systems, but we tend up to project what it worked up for a certain system also for future systems. And this could be a mistake. Recently I had spare time left for my experiments and I wanted to try digital cables again, in the old school connection drive dac.

I have got in my hands two Wireworld fairly new offering; the Micro Eclipse Platinum and the Micro Eclipse both 8 version.

I have started with the Eclipse. It replaced in one of my systems, a cable costing 3 times more and even though it was not largely better it was better nevertheles! It was just more honest and expecially everything was better proportioned. When I talk about proportions I don't talk just about space development but timbre, timing and so on. The proportion of all the musical igredients was more honest, more wisely balanced even though if maybe less seductive on the very short exposition to it.

The Micro Eclipse 8 cable sound is one of no real personality. Nothing stands out when you listen to it. It is not evidently more focused or evidently quiter, or bright, neither dark,  or evidently more something else. The only thing that you can listen in these lack of personality traits is the missing of some electronic haze, or kind of electric things going around and inside the instruments. And it is difficult to explain, but it is also present in many Wireworld products. Maybe is this the triboelectrique noise of which Wireworld is talking about in its philosophy of design?

I ended up being impressed by it. So I was expecting a lot more from its Platinum version,even though Wireworld affirms differences between these cables are mild,  and... yes, I was expecting too much and Wireworld statement was right. The Platinum did everything the Eclipse did just a little better. The only thing that actually did that the Eclipse version could not do was portraying the colour of the space around the instruments. In the Eclipse version the space is very silent but has no colors. In every recording is very silent but is very the same. Not so in the Platinum version. This caracteristic brought to a strange phenomenon: the perceived, "immediate" contrast between instruments,was more evident with the Eclipse then with the Platinum. When the musical message is simpler it often happens. But the Platimun has better timbres, it has better layering, it is more relaxed, it is better focused, you have more things going on even though many of them are not musically essentials. So my conclusion in this very short review is that musically they are both on the same level. The emotion they can bring to the listener are more or less the same, but the Platimum gives you more information about something that sometimes can be nice to have. But even thought the Platinum is evidently mildly better then the  Eclipse, the Eclipse is the king of balance. With the Eclipse after you get accustumed to it, you don't feel the need you would like something better, with the Platinum this does not happen.  And this is not because the Eclipse is more musical and the Platinum does better the hifi tricks. As I said before both have the same degree of musicality. So you say it is better staying with the Eclipse...if you have both and you compare both this won't be possible since the Eclipse is mildly better so when you go back to the Eclipse you feel you have lost something. This something lost is most on the low spectrum. It is more developped in the Platinum and I guess it is for this reason that the Platinum caries more information about space.
Maybe there is a threshold that when reached you just need more of it and you don't even know why. The Platinum reach this treshold, the point when things start getting more real and gives you the desire to have more. The Eclipse does not reach this level of psycological contamination or push. It's just a good boy. It is very strange getting to this conclusion since the two cables are really very close if not for the more bass development of the Platinum and its more grounded sound. Even the resolution is extremely close.

I have compared these two cables with few others that I like and if I have to say something I have learnt about them this would be : The Importance of being Earnest. If you know this Oscar Wilde  comedy you know what I mean...

And this is a secret: in a very well balanced system, a system that is done as a project not as a balancing act of components that you presumed you liked and that expecially does not simplify things in favour of a musicality that you could achieve with much less money,  110 Ohm Digital is better. I would like to develop a little more the sentence " that does not simplify things that much in favour of musicality". It is true that there are systems that are expensive and musical at the same time, and this is not always the case since many times are just expensive, loooks good, can go loud but are better at looking then at listening, and others that are cheap and musical. The cheap ones achive musicality easier since the musical message they give you is very simplified. But, I say BUT, when you start spending an important amount of money you want the message to be as much complex and full of informations as possible remaining musical at the same time. And this is rare. Many times, unfortunately you get the same resolution and sometimes more in fairly cheap integrated amplifier of good pedigree then in expensive separate pre - power combos. Ok, then the combos have more dynamic headroom and have better this and better that but when I can hear details with a cheap integrated that are lost in the big boys this does not makes me feel confortable. For this reason there is a limit for every maker. When I hear a very expensive component that is also very famous and that is also very musical but that has the resolving power of a cheap one I... hate it.  There are too many of this kind of components out there, also very, very famous ones. Of course the first thing is being musical, but not the musicality of a cheap car stereo only with more dynamic headroom...

This is the very deep reason why few British makers had success.  They were keeping the musical message simple. They were doing the essential right. If they are not expensive it is ok, but when you want more, more does not means just bigger sound. And the most difficult thing to get right is timbre, that misteriously, very misteriously is often lost in the connection between elements, so  it is "missing in cables".

To get back to Wireworld: I feel this maker would deserve much, much more attention that it already have. You won't probably like if you buy only one of its products, since they are tailored just to be honest. And an hifi chain is based on lies. But you have just to sort out the bad lies and keep the good ones in. Wireworld let you focus on the bad lies of other components. If you accept it you can do great thing with them.

But remember to keep the good lier in your chain, if not you are not going to enjoy it.