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

The winners are the classic: Wireworld, Cardas and Purist Audio

I am old enough to have experienced the very beginning of the cable war.

The first MIT boxes, VDH the First all carbon cable, the birth of Straight Wire with its Maestro that was, at least in my origin country a best seller, and not long after the Purist Audio with the incredible idea of putting some liquid around the cable to avoid perturbation of any kinds. And yes the first cables made of liquid conductors that never took off. In all these years I have bought, listened to , sold and worked with a very large number of cables of any kind and price, from very modest to some costing like a new car. Now that I am in my early fifties I feel the need to sum things up, getting to some conclusion, with an honest critic sense. I am not going to play again with considering the question if cables make a difference since if you are in this hobby and you trust more your ears then what you prefer to believe in it is absolutely clear that cables do make a difference.

Waht should be our attitude towards cables?  Most of the time we get lost in our upgrading path. And most of the time cable makers get lost too in their offering and in their attitude. Many cables manufacturers do like some restaurants,  trying to get satisfied as many clients as possible they propose the longest menu. You can surely find there what you prefer and in many declination. What you get from this doing is that who is proposing it does not relally have a leading sound or a leading belief how something should sound and so they prefer driving on the highway where the direction is clients budgets and personal taste. The first thing is a correct attitude but the second is a risky one. Even though a listener have the right to have their own taste and even if they would not have the right they have it anyway, and to go after their liking to get pleasure out of it, we must admit that if this was the leading criteria for the building of a musical instrument we would have never had a Stenway or a Gibson or a Stradivari. Can you imagine if Stradivari was not listening with its ears but keeping in mind only what could be a little better or getting to some bulding construction only having faith on a client taste. It would have not made any legend. An individual can have a taste capable of perceiving the most subtle nuance while another one just perceive the global thing. Everyone listen in its own particular way. Listening is a question of frequencies since if we are not able to perceive any frequencies we would be deft, but music is not only the perception of frequencies but expecially in the feeling aroused by a certain sequence of frequencies, the way they are linked or proposed, the resonace of different woods or percussion even if they would do the same frequency they comunicate to our feeling center a different response. Frequencies are mesurables. The different response of our feeling center is not. Our feeling center can react and does react to things that are also not scientifically mesurable. Building a cable is like building any musical instrument. It is a blend of artistery and science. It is also accepting that a certain material or configuration even though it gives the same mesurements sounds different to us and to some other people. There are out there few blessed people that don't ear any differences in cables or in amplifiers, for them a Stradivari or a Guarnieri are identical to a 200 dollars violin and a Chateau la Tour has more or less the same taste of a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. But crazily enough they are very able to appreciate the difference between a Coca and a Pepsi...

It is not bad belonging to this last category but if we belong to this last category we should be aware of it. Can you imagine if you should trust an individual used to eat the same two things to become a gastronomical critic. No, you could not rely on his liking since his liking is not capable of expressing a wide palette of appreciations. Good for him for sure, but not good as a guide for absolute quality. In this hobby there are people that are there to get pleasure from the music, and others that get pleasure from trying to get the most music out of their sistems.

You belong in one of these two categories for sure.

With a cable, as with any other hifi equipment, you can satisfy these two categories, but few are the companies that are able to do it in a linear way.

You have some companies like VDH that even though proposes some cables that I really like, it is uncapable or unwilling of proposing a coherent approach. So you have some cables that sound in a way, and some that sound in an opposite way. There are other company that offer a very consistent sound and have a clear objective in the music reproduction like MIT cables (for which I admit I have a weakness for ) or Audioquest. They propose some absolutely wonderful cables, but they have a catalogue proposition that is "strange" at least for me and for other buyers. I am sure for them it makes perfect sense, but when you propose cables that are so close in price or some that are less expensive but have more expensive material but less efficient geometry, things that leds you to different series, it becomes too much, expecially when you see the  top offer of an inferior serie costing more then the entry one of the higher serie...which one should give you, at least on the paper the highest performance? And MIT is too unclear in what they are proposing you about material and so on. Only articulation points... I would like to know what the cables are made of the higher you fo up in the range to justify my money on it.

Then there are some companies that make wonderful cables but...if you want to sell them in the second hand market for upgrading or just because you are like me and you like to change after a while even if what you have is already very good, you can just consider either that you have lost almost all your money, or that is going to be long and difficult or you have to rely in your personal luck.
It is only for this reason I didn't consider them in my final choice. Nothing to deal with their performance.
For example: Vovox makes some very good cables. But try to have a Vovox and a Cardas of the same price range and sell it second hand. You are going to sell the Cardas in probably a week or so, if you sell the Vovox in a week you are going to be very lucky. It is not because the Vovox is worse but because Cardas in all these years has built a certain reputation among the hifi people. And who is going to buy it is also considering that if for a reason or another he is not going to like it he can sell it again easily. With the Vovox it is different. Who is going to buy it, it is just either for a direct exposure, he had listen to it to a dealer or to a friend's house or a friend has lend it to him, and he is sure he wants it.

At the end, after considering all these things I ended up with only three makers: Cardas, Wireworld, and Purist Audio.

They present a simple and clear catalogue. They propose one leading concept that is fine tuned by a more sophisticated geometry and or more metal or better quality conductor the more you get in the higher part of their catalogue. And they are like Audi or Mercedes cars so they are easy to sell in the second hand market. In this aspect the Cardas is the   clear winner. Any cable from the present or past Cardas line is surely the easiest cable to sell with a decent price in the second hand market. This cannot be said for other cable makers even for some models that are or were exceptionally good. In this regards Cardas has an advantage over Wireworld and Purist Audio.

Going back to the catalogue of these three cable makers: their catalogue is clear. The path toward the highest performance offering has no mistery or woodoo involved. And expecially if you already have one of their cable and move up in the line you will find a sonic consistency that is very seldom achieved by other manufacturers. Yes you can hear they belong to the same family. This is a distinctive advantage since with other cable makers when you go up in their line the sound can get completely different. They change geometry, they change dialectric, they change so many things that at the end the more expensive cable it is like coming out  from another universe, maybe better, but also sometimes a better that we don't like. This is very important since too often we cannot try a cable long enough for an honest appreciation or we cannot try it at all. And another thing is that our ears get used to a certain sound so it is easier to feel an improvement if we moove in the same direction. 

Then about quick conclusion and weird things: comparing one thing to another is a common thing to do but also a thing that brings to a common mistake.

The classic A vs B comparison is usefull only to detect how and in which ways two things sound different from each other and what we prefer...in that moment right after the difference has been exposed.

I don't say that it is always useless I just say many times it is not the right way to choose. You will detect better parts of the musical spectrum but not musicality. And at the end this method is going to lead you to the wrong choice.

There are beautifull qualities that wares us out and small defects to which we get along well after a while or after a very short while.

Small defects made legends: Quad ELS, LS3/5a, Linn LP12, Thorens TD124 and others. No one of these design was perfect or it is perfect, and for this same reason they are extremely easy to criticize but...

Let's go to another point: it is better a boring perfection or an addicting but imperfect musical reproduction? 

The difficult point is that to make legend you need musical geniuses not just engineers. They must have understood one or two things.

And here we get to an important point: has a cable neeed to be built as a musical instrument or as a neutral bridge? It depends. But it depends from what? From the system it is going to be connected to. Most systems needs adjusters and make ups, few systems needs as less as possible influence from other components if not their balance will collapse. Now another point: do you have a system which components are well matched togheter? You think so, I think it is not probable. When I was working for many years in hifi shops it was not that easy to assemble a satisfying system (at least for me). And this difficulty was present even though I could choose among many components. Very rarerly sometimes things summed up well togheter, most of the time unespectedly and without following my logical prediction. When this "balanced" system passed the two months listening fatigue test one thing was clear. It was constantly showing the better cable following the moving up scale of serious manufactures companies. With other set up this was not the case. Sometimes a lower rank cable was better. Why? because a lower ranking cable is most of the time a more masking cable. 

How we can sum up the result you have with the three makers I have choosen? 

Wireworld line is the search for nothingness. The higher the line you go the less sound of the cable you have.

Cardas line is the right use of butter. And like butter is good with most things. And like butter make things nice. The higher you go to the line the less butter you get though. 

Purist Audio is the pacifier and it stays with elegance right between the two.

So what can go wrong using one of these three? 

Let's start with Wireworld: your system has some prominence of the mid high range somewhere, amplifier, loudspeaker, room speakers interaction,  wherever, you change your cable for Wireworld it will expose this except if you buy the entry level cables, and the higher you go up in the range the worst is going to be. You are going to get to the point of reveiling the  balance of your system and you are going end up saying stupidity like: Wireworld are bright. If you have a very nicely balanced system the higher you go in Wireworld range the nicer the mid high is, not bright but more richer and complex. 

What would happen with Cardas? You already have too much coloration in your system or your system lacks life and rithmic capability. You put a Cardas and your system is going to be dead. You are going to get a nicely layered sound but coloured and sometimes tick. The higher you go up in its range the better thing will be but you are not going to feel you get what you need. So at the end you will end up saying Cardas cable are too coloured or slow.

And with Purist Audio? I would say if you are not sure what kind of balance your system has in the right or in the wrong side, and if you don't know what you prefer it is the one that is the least risky to use.

At the end of this you realize something: the best thing is at the begining to have a well balanced system. But how to get it? How to do it? Start from the cables!  Get one of these three companies cable set of the level adapted to the system you would like to have (a complete set including power chords, it is very important) and then built a system around them. Everything is going to be very easy. It is an extremely strange proposition from my part, but I assure you it works! Then you can upgrade in a predictable way going up in their offering range and you can easily sell second hand the cables you had before!

What sense does it makes when you try to match components to balance the outcome of the cable they are connected with? And then at a certain future upgrading changing the cables in a way to suit the components that you have choosen to balance the other cables they were connect at the beginning with? What sense does it make to have a cable that connect your equipment that every professional reviewer judged bright or arsh in the mid high? What kind of amplifier or preamp or speaker would you choose with it? Certainly some that are overly educated in that frequency region. And then in the future you will end up having either a component or more then one component that is this way. When you are going to upgrade your system with cables or whatever, you are already limiting yourself with something that sound like the first you had but slightly more controlled. And it is going to be more difficult to find. Not impossible but more difficult for sure.
When you start with  a set of cables from the company I have mentioned (remember including power cords),  the components you are going to select to work togheter surely are going to have a certain coherence since they are going to be connected with something that have some coherence.
With  this starting approach I think Wireworld has a margin vs Cardas and Purist Audio. If you set up a system using Wireworld cables you can upgrade or change taste with Cardas or Purist being able to really grasp the difference in sound without going too much toward a certain character. And in a all Wireworld set up if you would like to add a little silkness just insert a Purist Audio somewhere in the chain.
If you start with Cardas (not the Clear line, but a lower product) when you change for example to Wireworld you will have a little more of the caracter of the pure Wireworld sound, and a slightly less of the pure Purist Audio sound.
Wireworld gives you more possibilities of inserting another flowor without making the achieved balance of your system collapse.
in second place for this we have Purist Audio in third place Cardas.
What about universality of sound of thiese classic makers? What about if you just insert one cable in your system that has different makers?
Considering that most of the systems out there (I really guess more then 90%) suffer of a certain balance problem, when you insert a Cardas you will end up saying is too closed even though it has a very nice layering and it is not fast, if you put a Wireworld you will say it is slightly brigh in the nid high and tight, if you put a Purist Audio you will probable say it is nice but not exciting. All of this is not true.
In a well balanced system an all Cardas set up will sound calm and majestic, a Wireworld  one will sound reactive and focused, a Purist Audio refined and smooth, but all in a natural manner. They never will give you too much in their own natural direction. With this I mean that with Purist Audio you will never have a too much refined and smooth sound to become boring, and with Cardas not so calm to became too slow and with Wireworld not so focused to be tiring.

Most important thing: before trying to get a highly satisfying system or even just a satisfying one the single most important thing you have to do is to find the right placement of your speakers. Speakers interaction with your listening room can produce strong colorations that surely will bring you to wrong conclusions when you try cables out. If your speakers are not in the best position or at least close to the best position you can forget about everything else.
Speaker placement in most of hifi owner is very far from optimal. It is the very first cause of the coloraition of their system and why they end up with wrong opinion since they get wrong experiences about cable and equipment. The bigger the speakers the worse.
Hifi made around speakers that are not difficult to position generally give the best results. Whenever I go to someone's house when I see Audio Note speakers the sound is good since they like to be positioned close to the rear wall. Another sure good result is when I see an all Naim (old olive) system and speakers, for the same reason of the Audio Note. The worse systems I have heard are from difficult to place speakers such Avalon, big classic Spendor like the SP100 or the SP1/2, and generaly electrosatatics. And the same speakers I heard in bad sounding system where speakers I generally like, owned and knew they could sound very well.
Once I have heard a system with big Focal Utopia in a romm no bigger then 24m2, and McIntosh big monos. It was very expensive and terrible sounding. No immage, bloated bass, and so on.
I have personally experienced in some difficult rooms with difficult speakers the difference from sound to good sound could change within 1 cm!