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. 

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...

VDH The Crimson Stradivarius vs The Crimson SE Ebony final conclusions.

I am writing this since somebody has written me saying that from my previous writing it seams I found the Stradivarius better then the Ebony. Well I am sorry if I suggested it from my writing, but I certainly didn't want to assert this superiority. The reality between these two great cartridges is more complicated that being able just to affirm one is better then the other.

After living few months with the Ebony (that I end up buying) I can more easily affirm the differences between this cartridge (maybe unique) and the Stradivarius.
I say that the Ebony could be unique since I don't really know if VDH sells it in his catalogue or if it is just a special order cartridge. At the begining of the life of this cartridge there was a specific necessity I had: the best possible reproduction of piano and about 1mv output. I have talk about it to a VDH friend distributor that asked about this requirement to Mr VDH. After few months we got the Ebony.

My final conclusion vs the Stradivarius are simple: on a absolute quality level they are surely on the same level. But they are different.

The Stradivarius is like a beautiful lady on her mid 30s, perfectly conscius of her beauty that want you to notice and wants to seduce you and she will manage to do it!  Perfectly dressed, with a perfect make up. The right colours, the right shoes, the right mooves and voice and gestures.

The Ebony is a beautiful girl that has not riched her mid 20s yet. She is the way she is. She has a not calculated beauty. She does not want you to be seduced by her, she is more natural, more in contact with the root of life, her smile is from her heart with no filter of her brain to make it nicer, she is dressed very nicely, actually she could wear anything since anything would be nice on her,  but her dresses do not come from Armani. She wears e very light make up. She moves less elegantly then the Stradivarius but in her mooves there is something the Stradivarius does not have a kind of simplicity and sincerity that it is very difficult to describe but obvious when you see it.

These is the difference between these two cartridges.
When you are listening with your brain ready to critic and to make an autopsy of the sound you will end up liking the Stradivarius more, but when  listen with your heart you will like the Ebony. Generally when we compare two things we listen with our brain. We are in a critic mode.

The strange thing: whenever I had the Stradivarius on I really loved it! But after a while inside my heart in a small place I was missing the Ebony. But while  listening to the Ebony I never missed the Stradivarius.

The Stradivarius will impress you and your friend more. The Ebony you will want it only for yourself.

Bel Canto CD3t

This is my first time ever contact with a Bel Canto product. Here were I live there are not too many around. Actually were I live there are not too many around of anything. It is a city were hi-fi interest died around 15 years ago. The reason of its dying is the same reason it died or faded  almost everywhere, but there are some parts where there are more survivors then others. One of the main reason is, I guess, being exposed to mediocrity we get acustomed to it, and then we don't feel the need of somoething else, also because we have a limited capacity, either regulated by our economic power or from our personality, of desiring the not really necesary. Then it is difficult to follow many field of interest at the same time.  20 years ago if you were following hifi it was already challenging, if you were following hifi and photo it was difficult. Today we have to add to this scenario  that even if we don't want  to we have to be interested in PC and smartphones.This wrong or right  thought  has been suggested to me by my recent camera changing. A friend of mine, that I know since I was 6 years old, gave to me his "old" camera since he bought a new one. It was a fairly recent camera, with interchanchable lenses. In my youth I was passionate about cameras, but I left this passion many years ago. My friend kept the camera passion but lost his hifi passion. He has a decent stereo system, considered very good from people that  don't share this passion, but considering his buying power it only shows that hifi is not one of his priority any more.

So he gave me this "new camera". I shot a picture with it of this Bel Canto. Previosly I had already  shot a picture of it with my regular compact camera. The difference was not great but profund at the same time: this time in the same details there was more reality! The black is much more black. The different textures of the wood shelf were I had put the Bel Canto is more evident as the work of polishing of its front panel. In one word it is more close to reality. I was getting much more interested in portraing a recognizable object then trying to put a deeper representation of reality  in the picture. Is it necesary? The answer is long and interesting to develop, but this is not the right place to do it, but if I have to resume it I would say yes: from the importance of this kind of details depends our dignity. It could sound odd but try to develop this topic by yourselves if you have the attitude or the interest in doing it.

At the end of course I have replaced the picture that I previously took with my compact camera with the one taken with my "new" camera.

And now about the sound of the Bel Canto CD3t:

the first thing I did was to immediately listen to this brand new unit to see the difference after a burn if any. Out from the box the sound is agile, light but the one characteristic that is more evident is a special expressivness in the mid high, high range. There is more life then usual in these region. And even though the bottom end is good it seems not to have the same nature. So at the end you feel it is missing a certain coherence or that the mid high and the tonal balance is slightly tilted toward the mid high.
I put a Cd on for 5 days and after I listend to it again: much better. Now the tonality is linear and the bottom end gained in strength and the mid high and high kept their special expression. Of course now this special quality is less evident since everything else is part of the whole message but still there.
So the first foundamental quality of this transport is the expression of its mid high, high range. This range is more complex then many other CD transport costing much more. In this it reminded me of the signature of an old DAC from Audio Alchemy. In comparison with many other DAC of that era it had a special complexity in the mid high, high range.
Another evident quality in this transport is its agility and ritmic capability. Yes, try to change with another transport and you will know what I mean. Maybe another transport has more gravitas, another one more depth, another one more of something else, but most don't have the same rithmic capability, the same agility. They are heavier in their movements. Only one transport was close in this field and is a very old one: the Meridian 200.

Another goodness of this unit, and I think it is the best since the lest common one, is that it is capable of beeing tidy and timing very well, that is already a very rare quality, and being tidy without sounding mechanical. I don't really know if this is the result of a shortcoming. I say it since the way it focuses. The subjects on the first field and just after behind are very well focused but the more we go deep in the soundstage the less focused are. It is true that with unit capable of excedingly good focus, also in the very depth of the sonic scene, generally we have a feeling of the music being reproduced in a mechanical way.

We are talking of a transport that is very affordable so what is missing in comparison with more expensive ones? One thing that is missing is a thing that you will notice only in a direct comparison: its dynamic does not breath in the same way of a Lector Digidrive TL3. For example in a orchestra crescendo with the right equipment the Lector can scare you, its dynamic expression behaves more like the reality does like a window that becomes bigger and bigger, a wave that grows before investing you. With the Bel Canto you won't have that. There is a large space were the dynamic  can develop but its energy does not grow. If I would speak in engine term I would say the Lector has more torque. In comparison with another very expensive transport we realize what I have said before that the instruments in the depth are not well focused.

But there is for me a bad point in this transport , and I don't really understand why they could not fix it, maybe the conceptor does not think it is a bad point. The CD3t in its operation is space. It is space means it is strange. For example if you play track number 4 with any other CD player or transport you just press play and it will play from the beginning the same track again. The Bel Canto won't do it. You have to compose the number of the track that you are playing again to listen to it again from the begining.  Another strange thing: when you power it up the drive is going to operate in the emptiness for about one  minute but not in search of a disc, just for the hell of it! Then it stops and you are ready to introduce in it your  chosen CD. I have to say that after this strange waking up ritual it recognizes the disc immediately, the tracks access and the stop and the play and every other operation is fast, like in a Marantz CD player that are a dream in their operation, and not like some old Cyrus, and maybe the new ones too, I don't know since it has been a while since I didn't listen to a Cyrus CD, that had to take its time to do everything.

Another thing to notice. The CD3t does accepts only BNC and AES, I think they opted to this choice to be more sure the buyer would  use at least a decent digital cable. Because it is true that you have some extremely good digital SPDIF cables that I prefer to their AES version, but there are also some very bad ones. I don't know very bad AES or BNC digital cables.

So my conclusion is clear:  great product, a very great accomplishement  for the price. If you don't have a lot of money to invest for a CD transport but you still want to have a very good one,  now you don't need to search for it in  the second hand market any more.

RECOMMENDED & FAVOURITES

If a component is going to score extremely high on hifi terms but not so capable to comunicate the emotion of music (subjective), it is not going to be here. The emotion is subjective since there are parts of the music reproduction that may elite from you a stronger responce then others. For many of us it is the equilibre among parts, but we still don't know how we feel this equilibre... so this can only be subjective. I can say the rithmic capabilities are great for a certain component but if you are more sensitive to another thing and less to rithmic swing...

For example in the loudspeaker cables section are two cables ( VDH The Inspiration Hybrid and Naim NAC A5 ) that are not very expensive but are able to convey emotion (subjective) in effective way and much better then other much more expensive ones. For example these two cables came out in recomended from more then 40 loudspeakers cables tested most of them much more expensive. Many were good, other very good, some better in hi fi terms but failed in being able to reproducing the emotion of the music message for me! This is going to be the reason to be in this list. Subjective emotion comunication.

A very important point in this list is price consideration. If a component is absolutely fantastic in the sound but also in its price, it is not going to be here. I will leave the 10% gap performance paid from 10 to 50 times more, out of the range. This is very evident for examples in cables and in cartridges. There is a point after which to get really more music out, I am not talking about useless details and silent background, but significative musical message, you have to spend enormously more money and setting up effort, not to talk about your listening room. And sometimes these products are there for few years and then they disappear from the market. Or they have a ridiculous customer service or waranty. And if you want to sell them second hand just for the hell of  changing...good luck.

I have realized that the most difficult section to be in is the preamplifier one. Really good preamplifiers are really, really extremely expensive. The ones that are "more affordable " in a way or another,  either kill the timing or are just too coloured and tend to be too present with their signature. If you listen to one kind of music, you could find the one that is well adapted to it, but if you have a more open musical taste, you will find the preamplifier ruining a certain type of music. 

Another very difficult spot is for power cables. They really make a difference. What I found out disturbing is that most of them, expecially the ones that are over $1000m or around it,  wash timbres out, the harmonic content is poor, and many times timing too. Everything becomes fluid, there is less noise, more black backround but the instuments loose colours and intent. In many cases the more complex their construction is, something that could partially justify their high cost, the more manipulative their sound is. I feel with these kind of cables also a phase problem. It is like that the building complexity avoid noises and other gremlins but creats phase shifting issues.  

I will be praising the durability of a product, that it will mean it stood the test of time and the changing taste of the listeners.

Phono cables: 

VDH D-501 silver hybrid 

Vertere redline

Cardas Clear Beyond. Still considering its presence since its high cost...but comparing it with other cables costing twice as much it could be also considered very competitive.

Power Cords

Naim Powerline (very, very long break in required if not cheap sounding )

VDH the Mainsstream

Audio Note ISIS

Cardas Clear Refelction

LOUDSPEAKER CABLES:

VDH The Inspiration Hybrid (single wiring only)

Naim NAC A5 (very long burn in required, more then 400hours, and dressed the Naim way, if not cheap sounding )

Kimber 8TC

Straightwire Virtuoso H

Interconnect cables:

Townshend Fractal

VDH The Integration

Digital cables:

Naim DC1

VDH The First

TURNTABLES:

Kuzma Stabi Ref2

Linn LP12 (more basic models)

Rega Planar 10

Mitchell Gyrodec

Cartridges:

EMT HSD006

Miyajima Shillabe

VDH The Frog

Preamplifiers: 

Townshen Allegri 

Amplifiers:

Naim Supernait(s) (the s at the end to signify all its versions)

Naim Nap250 DR

Naim Nap300 DR

Rega (all)

Rotel Michi S5

Exposure

TONEARMS: 

Triplanar MKVII

Moerch DP-8

Linn Ekos SE

Loudspeakers:

Spendor, Grahams, Rogers: all models

Marten: all models

ATC: all models