I took these photos first thing in the morning (MY morning, which is about 10:30am) with a unzoomable 50mm lens and almost zero charge on the flash - but was too lazy to go back upstairs get the other lens and some charged flash batteries… But they don’t look too bad… it was kind of an interesting challenge.

I was good (this time, not implying anything about next time) and waited for Neli to get back home and both of us to get done with supper.

The test was done on the Kharma Mini Exquisite system with the Audio note Ongaku U.K. amp and Audio Note DAC 4.1x Balanced DAC and CDT3 transport.

As the title of this post suggests, the Odin has not been broken in yet - our Nordost Vidar cable burner has not arrived back from repairs at the factory after it suffered a mishap while burning in some cables: aka the house being stuck by lightning.

Cables used were the Audio Note SOOTTO interconnect at about $8K / meter, also not burned in. The Jorma Design No. 1 speaker cables, at about $8K / 2.5 meters, and a slew of digital cables.

And of course the Nordost Odin at $16K / meter interconnect and about $29K / 2,5 meters of speaker cable. [Note to Mike, look up these prices or Neli will kill you. [Good thing I did, too ]].

This is not a shootout… nothing is broken in and the things that are would have an unfair advantage. In fact, we will not let our visitors hear the SOOTTO or ODIN cables until they are broken in [although both are sounding remarkable right out of the box - there is still that brand new sound that we all know and get to hear so of much at shows].

We didn’t take photos at each step - so I’ll just have to describe the process.

… What a blast! It is so fun to swap things in, hear in a second or less that, “nope, that is not as good, go back” [we went through a lot of digital cables trying to see which mated the best with the Odin: answer… the Valhalla interconnect [NO, we did NOT try the ODIN interconnect, that is for dessert] and SOOTTO interconnects, strangely enough] and the startled silence that comes from putting in something that will take us years to fully understand, appreciate and enjoy.

First, we listened to the system with using a Valhalla interconnect as a digital cable [because Neli had hid the ‘official’ digital cables - more on this later ], the Audio Note SOOTTO between DAC and Integrated amp, and Jorma Design No.1 speaker cables.

VERY engaging. We talked about this system a few posts ago. Neli REALLY likes this sound. Me, the hodgepodge of different cables makes coherence a little iffy. But that is because I was sitting there listening closely and she was enjoying the music.

Anyway, sometime we are supposed to order more Audio Note cables and can do the top of the line Audio Note versus Jorma Design versus Nordost shoot out.

OK, in goes the Odin interconnect between the DAC and the Ongaku integrated, replacing the SOOTTO.

Trying to remember the exact sequence, but first thing we notice is a slight (but only a slight) reduction in engagingness. I mean it was noticeable, but I thought that the Odin was able to do pretty well, considering the SOOTTO (SO Over The TOp) was designed for this equipment and to obtain a level of musicality until now unheard of in the industry.

And neither of these are broken in, about 20 hours on the SOOTTO? and about 5 minutes on the ODIN.

I know I keep saying this, but in some ways the character of these cables might change quite a bit after a few ‘virtual centuries’ on the Vidar - but I do expect the improvements to be ‘in kind’, by which I mean that more and more of the character will shine through.

OK, we are listening. Listening… I say something like “For out of the box, I can hear that they are new, but they’re not bad. Not bad at all. [A lot of cables are unlistenable out of the box, including our beloved Jorma Design Prime, which we insist on burning in for people who purchase them, at which point they really kick butt].

OK, we are listening. Listening. Maybe 30 seconds goes by. Yeah, we hear added resolution, definition, stability in the soundstage… all things we kind of were expecting, knowing Nordost Valhalla as well as we do. And these being, you know, Valhalla++.

A complex musical passage comes up.

Oh. F.

And another.

The separation is just… just the way one would wish it to be. So much of the issues that we thought were inherent in speakers and placement and source media…? They’re not [necessarily]. Its the cables.

The musical instruments in the soundstage just did their thing. No having to kind of mentally ‘blink’ for a second as the instruments usually kind of fuzz out and blur together.

OK, a delicate passage comes up. Well, that was later… It was my turn for the sweet spot (ah ha!) and I chose to play my Radio Head Amnesiac test track (the first one).

Image stability. check. Lots more resolution. check. Blah Blah Blah.

Then I noticed that the voice sounded more ‘real’. As I tried to figure out why, I decided that there was something in the way that a voice appears, a kind of throaty noise, a grittiness, that was until now I had not heard on this track. And this noise, which we all hear but do not usually think about it [for good reason one would think… eeeewwwww ], added a level of intimacy and Truth that was… comforting. I was able to relax more into the music, now that it was providing me the minute clues and details that my brain was expecting to hear.

This is not one of those “OH, for the first time ever I heard a cymbal in the back of the room that I never heard before” B.S. reports. For one, this is a track we have heard on 100s of systems [at least]. Second, we are well aware of the tendency of reviewers to focus on various aspects of musical reproduction - both with 1) different levels of mental concentration than they had previously used during a particular fraction of a second during their test track, and with 2) careless disregard for the ability of one system to ‘highlight’ certain frequencies to the detriment of others.

This ain’t that.

What this is I am getting to presently, but I want to kind of show the process of how we got there, so that you, dear reader, can kind of better understand what we are trying to say.

So anyway, I got the sweet spot, and we started relaxing, not listening so hard [which is one of my favorite ways to listen, BTW], talking with Neli, going back to staring at the performers…

And, this [all?] Radiohead has a lot of weird noises, you know kind of fuzzy meandering harmonically beautiful noises? And, somewhat like our experiences in Las Vegas at CES 2006? with the first time we heard the Coltrane Supremes, a 3D shape could be heard. Actually, this was a much more down-to-earth experience, as one can easily describe why one would see a shape, the soundboard person is varying the width, height and thickness and depth of this shape… moving it t-o-w-a-r-d-s me… and a-w-a-y from me. How cool is that? I’ll tell you, it is really cool.

At this time we started talking about being in the soundstage, but, now that I think of it, kind of ’swimming’ into the soundstage, but not all that voluntarily, and much more like flying, like when one is dreaming. Things were just really really deep, and solid and well, Radiohead is kind of weird. And we got to enjoy the weirdness.

OK, Neli gets the sweet spot and we play American Beauty. She wants to play the second track, with all the delicate bells, that we have played many times here, but I just start playing track 1, which turns into track two soon enough, right? OK, so this becomes important later when we put on the Odin speaker cable.

So, the bells. For the first time, you can hear the technique the person is using to strike the bells, that there is resonance in the thing they use to strike the bells [sounds like glass to me, but I am notoriously bad at determining the composition of things from their sound]. You can hear how they sometimes roll the wand against the bell, how they are twisting their wrist to strike one way then another. [No, this is still not THAT kind of review ]

I guess I’ll get to the point here.

It is that there are a lot more details than we are used to hearing [except perhaps on the Wilson Alexandria X2, and there people put on MIT cables to muffle the speaker to try and get it to be somewhere close to musical and realistic]. Which is just to say that it is not THAT kind of detail. It is more like the absence of compression artifacts.

It is not the fault of the media or speakers that we are hearing these. It is the stupid cables.

And this is kind of what we figured out during this little preview.

That this detail, separation, imaging etc. may have been just the result of a MUCH reduced compression of the signal.

I was thinking how this sounded a lot like well-designed horn speakers, with which we have lived, like the giant Triolons, with a horn-like ease in the midrange. And then Neli said the same thing out loud. We noticed that with these little speakers upstairs with the Jorma Design Prime cables. For some reason, with the Ongaku amp on the little tiny 100 lb Kharma Mini Exquisites, with great cables, produce a big easy sound like big horn speakers. But this is with the added benefit resolution, unlike any horn speakers we are aware of [except maybe the early Cogent]. And here it was happening in a reasonably sized room, with speakers one does not have to hire 4 guys to move around. [When the cables are burned in, we’ll have to get second opinions from people who have heard both - but we sometimes like the big open sound, and this is definitely it].

This is getting long….

We then added the Odin speaker cable in to the system.

Similar to our experiences with adding Jorma Design Prime speakers cables [at about the same price] into a system that already had the Jorma Prime interconnects, the improvements were ‘in kind’ and ‘in support’, and not as overwhelming. [Someday I’ll be smart enough to try the speakers cables first, and go the other direction. But it is oh so much easier to swap interconnects than speaker cable, especially bi-wire cable on Kharma binding posts ]

But one thing was indeed overwhelming, on the first track of American Beauty, there is a lot of bass. And with the Odin speaker cables, the bass was SIGNIFICANTLY improved. Both in amount of bass and in Control. It let a lot more of what the Ongaku can do with a speaker through to our ears. If it is anything the tip top Audio Note components do, as our friend Dave Cope says, it is act as a drill sergeant and control the heck out of the speaker.

And that is exactly what we heard it doing.

I know, I know, but yes, out of these little Kharmas no less.

Anyway, I think that is it.

It was a hard and nerve-wracking decision to go ahead and get the Odin in here. It is expensive, especially the interconnect, and it scared the bejeezus out of us, especially Neli.

But I am so glad we bit the bullet and that they are here. Just the way my mind was able to really relax and enjoy the experiences - in a similar way to when the frequency response is really flat, like with the Coltrane Supremes [and to a lesser extent the Coltranes and YG Acoustics], but much more so. Even breathing is easier and more relaxed…. [and THIS, with the adrenaline producing Kharmas!]. Maybe we should do a post about this psycho-physiological effect sometime…

Lots more for us to learn, and it will, like I said above, take us years to fully understand, appreciate and enjoy these additions to our home.

And with these cables… you know what? I am OK with burning them in the old fashioned way… by playing them. [Don’t worry, just plain curiosity would make us burn them in all the way to see just what improvements we are yet to hear ]

[OK, here is kind of where I am at. During the audition last night and while writing this post, I thought the interconnects were $22K per meter (Yeah, I already know my memory is terrible, thanks anyway). And I thought after hearing them that this was a great price for what they did in our, oh, $150K - 160K little system. But they are actually $16K per meter ($18K for the 1.5m we used during this audition) which now sounds like a great deal (yep, thanks again, I am nuts and will indeed seek professional help… but its on the list somewhere BELOW getting more ODIN cables, so….). The ole “The interconnect is a component” stuff is cliche. How about “Want to hear what you paid for?”. I guess that is cliche too. How about “Join the War on Compression Artifacts”?].

The ODIN arrived today - but not the Vidar cable burner - so do we put the cables on Raw? Or wait?

Well, we plan on putting them on raw, who has the patience to wait? Not us, I guess is the point

But the problem is we had errands to do, and one of the problems of having a partner at a time like this is:

I can’t just put on the cables when she isn’t here and she can’t just put them on when I am not here…. it isn’t fair to the otehr one to ‘miss’ the event.

So we both have to sync up long enough, so we both are here and both have a little extra time, so we can insert these things into a system and do a little listening.

Neli lifting the 2.5 meters of Nordost ODIN speaker cables from the case that it comes in.

2.5 meters of Nordost ODIN back in the case that it comes in, a little more disorderly than before.

The spades these ODIN speaker cables.

The spades these ODIN speaker cables from a better, yet not so artsy, angle

Nordost ODIN interconnect in the sunshine on maple wood.

The ends are protected by little bags.

Special WBT RCA plugs with Nordost Odin emblems.

The WBT next next gen are now mostly metal, but still have two plastic ‘grippers’ or ‘fingers’ at the business end.

So, Neli is out and about. The cables are just sitting here. What to do. What to do.

Been moving things around some.

We are trying to setup things so that we have two systems we can wire with all Nordost ODIN cables [hopefully here next week], with 2 interconnects and one speaker cable [we are ignoring the Coltrane Surpreme’s bass tower speaker cables, at our own ear’s risk, of course - but our pocketbooks and wallets thank us].

Edge Signature One solid-state amps driven directly by Audio Aero Prestige, with Brinkmann Balance turntable and Lamm LP2 phono plugged in to one of the inputs on the Prestige.

Unfortunately, the limitations of the $14K Prestige’s built-in preamp [linestage] is evident, things being a little muddier than what we are looking for [especially in comparison to the pre in the $85K Audio Note Ongaku we were using before ]. The Prestige’s built-in pre is fine for things up to, say, $40-50K speakers, at which point the decision on whether to get an outboard preamp has to be made on a speaker by speaker basis - and the size of one’s wallet. The Kharma Mini Exquisites like a little more oomph of the extra pre, the Marten Coltrane speakers do well with either.

I’m sure the Audio Note M10 linestage on the Kegons would be great, as well as the Lamm L2 linestage on their ML2.1 amps, but then we are talking about 3 interconnects for digital instead of 2, and so no 100% ODIN setup.

Downstairs, we have the Emm Labs CDSA driving the Lamm L2 linestage into the Audio Note Kegon amplifiers. Interesting mix of brands, I know, but it sounds re-e-e-e-al good - and it allows us to swap in different amps for demos.

But, since that demo has been postponed, and in the interest of limiting this system to just 2 interconnects as well, we will setup the Emm Labs CDSA player [and/or Audio Note CDT3 transport and 4.1x Balanced DAC] connected to the Audio Note Ongaku integrated into the Kharma Mini Exquisite loudspeakers.

If we just had ONE more pair of ODIN interconnects… and another speaker cable for the bass towers on the Supremes [probably open up their bass something wonderful], … but, no, we can’t go there. That way lies madness.

A final shot of the Audio Note amps.

We hope to have an 100% Audio Note Sogon cabled system - with some of their SOTTO thrown in as well before too long. I anticipate completely different sounds from these systems using these different cables And we already did the 100% Jorma Design Prime system [at the RMAF show].

It will be so much fun hearing all the differences.

This is what life is all about: enjoying the differences this world has to offer, and experiencing the fruits of expert craftspeople in the pursuit of excellence.

Are up on the web… Next, floors 5 and 4.

Nordost ODIN speaker cable

The RMAF 2007 Report

… is shaping up…

We are now running the Emmlabs CDSD transport through 10m long optical cables to the DCC2 DAC/Pre into the Marten Coltrane Supremes Crossover/ Bass amp into the Audio Note Ongaku and finally to the Marten Supreme speakers.

The key is that the cables are all Jorma Design Prime and one Stealth INDRA interconnect. Less cable, better cable, sound.

Now. This sounds better. But is REALLY sounds better running the DAC direct to the Marten box, not going through the DCC2’s preamp.

When I say ‘really sounds better’, it is both somewhat subtle and somewhat not subtle at all. There is an energy that was present without the extra preamp in the loop that was amazingly hypnotic… but it is hard to hear this when just listening to frequencies and dynamics and other audiophile-type attributes. I guess that is why we call it magic.

Anyway, without the preamp, to change the volume requires changing the main tower volume on the Ongaku and the bass volume on the Marten box. We are running with unity gain into the Marten box, but the bass volume knob works really well. Neli think this is too weird for a show. I think it is no weirder than having two knobs, one for each (left and right) channel, We just have a top and bottom channel instead.

But is is a pain to walk up to the front in a large room like we have at RMAF and adjust the volume all the time, along with syncing up the bass volume to the midrange volume - so it is unclear if we will use the optimized setup at the show (and we want to support use of a turntable as well). But when we get back… This is just too good to pass up.

………and then perhaps swapping out the INDRA for more Jorma ‘Prime’ cable, or Nordost ODIN, or Audio Notes new SOTTO …. How much fun!

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest here in Denver is just around the corner. October 12th I think. I hope. Better go look I guess.

Anyway…

We are planning on taking the Coltrane Supremes, like last year. But this time using the Audio Note Ongaku integrated amplifier to drive them. ‘How Sweet it Is!’

We were using the Edge Reference ‘pyramid’ amps you see there in the photo, but not any more, so just delete them somehow with your visual cortex.

The sound is quite sweet and beautiful, the first time we’ve really achieved this with the Supremes (they are finally breaking in, hurray!), which are, to put it simply, the only competent speaker made today. All other speakers have serious flaws in comparison. Not that people don’t LIKE some of the flaws in those other speakers, and they’ve certainly got used to them, but, well, there you have it.

The source equipment consists of the Meitner CDSA and the Audio Note M10 preamplifier. We’re thinking the system may be a little too laid back and are planning on replacing the Shunyata Anaconda Helix Vx with Nordost Valhalla power cords, something closer to the Belden OEM cords the factory recommends , to try to get the system to lively up itself a little bit.

I mean, it is close, but people at shows… its hard to figure them out. Some want rooms to be LOUD and IMPRESSIVE (esp. in this price range ) some want it to be REAL, … etc. just like they do with their own systems. And our goal, and I think we can achieve this, is to make it excel in all categories.

The problem is in the subject flavor - how to flavor the system right… down… the…middle.

To please as many people as possible. And us too!

And then there is the let’s just take the EMM Labs CDSD and DCC2 and the Ongaku and be done with it. No preamps, no second rack. No turntable. No second digital source. … Mt arms feel better already

Of course, there is our second room, the Audio Note room. But that is a small room, a decent-sized system, and adds only a few gray hairs to the noggin.

Still no broadband from comcast. Maybe tomorrow. So no large juicy pictures tonight… but here are some nice little tasty ones.

I thought there were more people this year, but after covering more of the show floor, there were strange concentrations of crowds [mostly congregating right in front of the booth I want to photograph, of course:-)], so perhaps it is only about the same. Thursday was kinda slow last year, so we’ll see.

The McIntosh M110 turntable. I think this is new - at least I have never seen one before… so it is new to me!

Another photo… the platter glows with a purple-ish blue-ish tint - which this photo tried to capture. Static display only… like most things at CEDIA… so do not know how it sounds.

Savant had a few of their innovative user interfaces on display. This was a 40 inch LCD touch panel that you could use your finger to tap on or drag around the screen in order to organize and play your collection of movies and music.

Most of their LCDs aren’t this big, they had a number that were around 8 to 12 inches.

Then again, they had this coffee table sized.. coffee table… that was the screen. Not sure what happens when you place your beer on a song when you are watching a movie… but it is so cool! No more remotes on the table, the table IS the remote.

The new Sonus Faber ‘Elipsa’ speaker. THE front.

THE rear. Serial #00001.

Finally, we got some photos of the new Nordost ODIN interconnect. Note the signature decorative wooden block.

It is quite a bit thicker than their Valhalla interconnects.

And the Odin braiding is different, more regular, and appears tighter.

More Odin’y eye candy

And more…

A lot of the show looks just like last year (and CES this January). Kind of dissapointing. But, like the stuff in this post, there are some new goodies. And, you know us, we like the goodies

I hesitated a long time to write this post. After all, I first thought that the Audio Note just did not drive Kharma very well, especially when the Kegon amplifiers just did not drive the Kharmas to distraction - which they had with every other speaker we had tried them with.

With the Audio Note Ongaku, the Minis were well driven, surprise! and the Minis were able to fill up our large room with sound [more surprise!] , including bass, very nicely thank you. In fact, it was the best we had ever heard the Mini Exquisites sound.

Even though many people who heard this system thought it was the best system we had here, for their taste, [as some did with the AN SEC Silver Sig speakers in this system previously], some of our test tracks, like the 1st cut on the SACD version of Santana’s Abraxus - just did not lite our fire like they had with the previous, Very Large reference speakers we had in our main room.

Then Neli put the Jorma Design ‘Prime’ speaker cables on the system replacing the Valhalla [No, we havn’t heard the Odin yet… tick tock tick tock…]. Usually these cables add detail and ambiance and coherence - all those ‘cable-ish’ things - which these did again. But…

They seem to also now let through more dynamics, like there is more power coming from the amps. The sound wave front is much more bloomier, larger (and it was pretty big before) - the ‘color’ of these cables, orange-ish in my mind - just ADDED to the color of the Ongaku and Kharmas, both exemplary examples of what controlled-color-machines should be themselves.

With the Meitner CDSD/DCC2 digital and 10m Valhalla interconnects as source - the system was given a very pure signal.

Anyway, this is the first system where the sound rivals that of the previous system with those Very Large [Acapella Triolons] speakers… and in such a small package, too!

The soundstage is as wide and about as tall as the 7 foot speakers [except when those other speakers put the soundstage up in the rafters, which it did if you were sitting low in the listening chair] - but more firmly fixed in place.

The resolution is better - something for which the Kharmas have few peers.

The color is ‘better’, which is to say that there is more of it [in general we like a neutral sound, but not too neutral, and this lies pleasantly within our preferences].

The wrap-around sound is better - don’t know why that would be… maybe the Ongakus which we never tried on the previous setup.

The bass is, of course, not has powerful (compared to 8 10 inch woofers, surprise) but it is satisfying enough that we only miss it sometimes [and can you say… ‘Midi’ Exquisites … with their 4 large woofers? I knew you could ]

The dynamics is not the same, compared to that of the 30 inch and 20 inch horms - but it is only in very loud complex passages that it becomes a fault. The punchiness of the amp, and the broadband nature of the Prime cables, seems to make up a lot of ground with respect to the difference in efficiencies.

The only nit I have is that there is the slightest reticence in the mid bass somewhere - and we do not know if this is a characteristic of the speaker, speaker-amp combo, or perhaps lack of adequate vibration control on the source equipment…

So anyway - this is cool. We’ve had a number of people up here who are picky [you know, EVERYbody is picky - what is with that? ] and they seem to agree that this ain’t too bad sounding. So we aren’t going insane. Too much.

What does it mean that one can get much of the benefit of large efficient speakers with a properly driven small speakers [add a subwoofer for that lowest octave, which no speaker can do anyway unless it is the Marten Coltran Supremes - which will be up here presently]?

It might mean that there is a conservation of system cost - you spend it here or ya gotta spend it there - move the money from speakers to amp and cables. But this isn’t exactly true, as expensive speakers needed expensive equipment as well.

It might mean that, given money, you can chose to have a few constraints, like being able to see out the windows - and still have world-class sound.

Or it might just mean that Neli and Mike just got lucky and that there is no deep meaning here at all.

Yeah, that is probably it.

Oh well, party on dudes and dudettes.

P.S. Here we have Neli’s solution to holding up the Elrod power cord going into the Ongaku. Too bad I tore up my Harry Potter box from Amazon in a rush to get the latest book out - we could of used it instead to add a little ‘magic’ to the system…

These speakers, this system, actually does fill up the room with sound. It is amazing.

Not quite the easy open bass the Triolon bass towers had- but few systems have THAT large of a sound.

But the bass goes down on both this and the previous system to about the same frequency, and with about the same resolution… so there ARE similaritities.

And here, the soundstage is a more reasonable 6 or 7 feet tall, instead of 20 feet - so it is, as always, about tradeoffs. And at about 1/4 the price… we are happy with this being the primary system… for awhile.

I will have to take more photos of the Ongaku on the Rix Rax outpost amp stand. It was just a kind of accident that this got set up this way - the HRS going out on a local audition this week - but this looks really … farout man.

The two are about the same size and it is as if were made for each other. And Neli polished up both of them, which doesn’t hurt the visuals either.

Sonically… we are playing with power cords and have a $2 OEM cord on the Ongaku to establish a frame-of-reference… so can’t say anything yet.

The test consists of swapping out various interconnects between the outboard crossover of the Marten Coltrane Supreme loudspeakers and the Audio Kegon amps that handle the frequencies above 100Hz. Picutred you can see the gray Audio Note Sogon interconnect in place.

The Acrolinks.

The Acrolink interconnect up close. These connectors are massive, and I believe this the only connector they come with. Very substantial and secure fitting things they are.

These are the two Nordost Valhalla interconnects side by side.

Part of this test was for us to see… hear… the difference between these two connectors. Was it all just hype?

We are not so sure about these connectors. They seem to pick up ground loops like nobody’s business. It is possible, and quite frequently the case, that:

* they are on too tight or too loose, in which case they either appear to be broken (aka no sound comes out) or

* they generate a large ground hum because they are not grounded at all (the area of contact on the target connecting post is dirty? or perhaps they are just too loose), or

* they pick up a small ground loop hum because they are only partially grounded (perhaps the connector is so thin that it needs its own shileding….?)

The WBTs up close

We love these old connectors. You put them on, they stay on. They feel secure. They don’t wear out after many, many uses.

The Audio Note Sogon interconnect

The Audio Note Sogon interconnect

The Shootout.

From one extreme to the other:

*** The Acrolink 7N-DA6100 - $4995 ***

Very clean. the cleanist sounding of this bunch (but not as clean as the Jorma Design Prime, at $2K more!). Very detailed and lovely air. Midrange is clean with perhaps a little too quick on the top of the note attack and on the decay. Bass is good.

*** The Nordost Valhalla with the WBT connectors - $4000 ***

Rounder than the Acrolink, more body. Also more veiled than the acrolink. Smoother because of it but there was also a whisp of a feeling of the music struggling to get out.

*** TheNordost Valhalla with the old Neutrix ***

The midrange frequencies are more laid back, a little more veiled. A little less midi- and micro dynamics in the midrange as well, compared with the WBT solution.

How subtle is the difference? In my mind I keep thinking 10% - whatever that means. I think it means that if the WBT was 100% better than it would be twice as good. In the midrange. In terms of these attributes.

In this test we did not get the dreaded ground loop hum with the WBT and we did prefer the WBT solution. The slight increase in resolution and slightly more presense in the midrange - was nice, and appreciated

*** The Audio Note Sogon - $2725 ***

The midrange was quite similar to the Vahalla in terms of detail and resolution, but with more color and subtle harmonic content. The bass was a little muddier than the other cables but a little more natural. The highs not as prestine as the Acrolink, and similar to the Valhalla in quantity but a little more natural in quality - i.e. not so much going for the ability to spotlight each detail in the treble, which I know many people like (including us, sometimes ), but instead makes the details more integrated into the overall sound stream.

For this system, in its current state of break in (its making good progeess, finally) with the all Audio Note front end, we left the Sogon in place. It made the system much more musical to listen to, at least at this time.

There is a 5 meter Valhalla interconnect (Neutrix) between the linestage and the amps.

Swapping this out for, say, Sogon, or Acrolink even, would *probably* make the sounds of the various setups with these various cables more reflective of the underlying strengths and weakness of these cables.

[Is this always true? That a system cabled throughout with just one kind of cable will always highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of that cable? I know many manufacturers and dealers say you MUST use just their cable for your whole system to get best results. And I can agree with this if their cable is way better than what is currently in the system.

But what about using various cables as ’spice’? I know that the word ‘tone control’ is a pejorative thse days, but until we get the perfect wire, all cables, including the lauded Belkin power cords, will be tone controls, like it or not. And so, taking this reality into account, I propose we must carefully, and consciously, spice our system with various cables lest we get something that tastes salty, …or like poop ]