The last few days I have been serving on a Jury in a very minor criminal case here in Boulder County. It was certainly an interesting and all-absorbing experience - a randomly selected 12 people who were all very well educated, white, 8 men, 4 women passing judgment on a Hispanic’ woman’s complaints against a Native American man. But after 7 - 8 hours of deliberation - I think decisions were reached that were accurate based on the available evidence - the combination of so many prejudices canceled each other out leaving the distillate truth [I believe].

WAY too much responsibility for me to want to do it again anytime soon.

Sonically, the little 20 minute jurist orientation video by Ed Sardella [a local newscaster] sounded screetchy and was recorded at way too high a level - but the microphone/speaker system in the court room itself was actually not too bad - serving more as a supplemental voice amplification system - and not needed by the louder-speaking lawyers in the room

OK, back to shootouts and… unfortunately, updating of lots of price lists that have rolled in in the last couple of weeks.

The Audio Asylum Critics’ hangout had some gossip. I haven’t noticed HP’s marginalization at TAS - it seems like his copy grows and shrinks at random anyway. It does have a different feel than the ‘corporate’ [is that the right term? Rah rah. Lacking depth. etc.] feel of the rest of the magazine. But rumors of HP starting another magazine… he doesn’t seem hungry or interested enough in what is happening in audio anymore in my opinion… Theyalso mention in this thread that it is common knowledge? that TAS’s circulation numbers are falsified. Maybe so, but it certainly keeps getting fatter and Stereophile keeps getting skinnier… for whatever reasons it appears like TAS is doing better and better these days.

Checked out Dagogo for the first time in awhile. They seem to have a ton of reviews listed on the front page of cool looking stuff. For all you web developers out there, if your target demographic is older people, you need to use a large text font - because we are near as to be blind [although with the FireFox browser, ctrl + or ctrl mouse-scroll-button makes all the text larger - but I happened to visit using Internet Explorer, which I think a few people still use …or is it ].

The Marten [previously Marten Design, the guys who make our Coltrane Supreme loudspeakers. Yeah, them.] folks have just finished their new demonstration studio - the Marten Center. Extensive photos and commentary in Swedish is at the Swedish Euphonia AudioForum [anyone else noticing that Audiogon ad at the top of the page on that forum? Now that our country, and by inference everything in it, is worth half as much as it was 7 years ago, This is really a good time for Europeans to shop on this side of the pond for used gear.]

Notice how the bass towers are on the inside? Just like we had ours until about 3 days ago…

OK, we are NOT the Avantgarde news channel. For one, I can barely spell it. But here is the photo of the latest version of the Duo Mezzo:

Well, we finally decided our experiment of having the bass towers INSIDE the main towers had gone on long enough.

The speakers were fairly easy to move, though both of us participated in a you push you pull fashion. The Black Diamond Racing Cone pucks slide pretty easily across the carpet - but, especially in the case of the heavier bass units, the relatively high friction of the plush wool carpet sometimes causes the cone feet fall off of the pucks and the speaker tips a little bit and Neli accuses me of reckless driving [it IS kind of dangerous when the towers are close to each other, we really, really (add more reallys as you see fit) wouldn’t want the two titans to tip one into the other!].

The main towers are about 6 inches closer together.

The original reason the main towers were positioned on the outside of the bass units was to try and get a wider sound stage than what we had before. And it worked.-
But over time we worried that we were loosing some coherence, solidity and stability in the imaging and soundstaging. It was really pretty darn goooood, don’t get me wrong, but we felt we had reached a limit as to what we could do. We want more, MORE!

So, the initial impressions? Well, we have more positioning to do… BUT… the soundstage is perhaps even wider than before - so we are good to go on that front. But solidity etc. was perhaps a little worse than before.

Darn! The just-plopping-them-down-somewhere-near-where-we-thought-they-should-go technique failed us once again [you know, it DOES sometimes work, and, seriously, rolling the dice this way does lead to some discoveries about specific room-speaker interactions that the strict-placement methodologists would never discover].

Anyway, I am hopeful that having nothing between the main towers will improve imaging. Makes sense, right, because the bass towers were acting like some kind of really strangely configured equipment rack between the speakers that are generating all the music’s location cue frequencies.

However, that said, we sure are tempted to at least put SOME of the equipment on a rack between the speakers sometimes - so that [most likely the digital] part of the system can be cabled with pure, 100%, high-octane cables like the Jorma Design PRIME [who needs to imbibe anymore?], Audio Note PALLAS [who needs Carnegie Hall anymore?], and Nordost Odin [who needs components anymore?].

Well, I exaggerate [a little ], but hopefully have also communicated why we are tempted to put a rack up front sometime - the heck with imaging [well, the rack WOULD be pretty far back from the main towers …so its impact WOULD be really minor, right?].

But the 2nd-rack-in-the-center would probably be turntable less, and have us still run the turntable from the side of the room. Why? Because stepping over maps and around cables and power cords is annoying at best, and with turntables, it just makes putting on an LP more about tip-toeing through the equipment than ‘Oh! Let’s hear THIS!’. I guess CDs are just so Slam Bam Play that it is not quite as perverted of an experience. Maybe it is because everyone has their preferred position to stand in when putting on an LP, and we just feel more comfortable when a $30K (or $80K) amp is not bogarting in our fav-o-rite location. Anybody else feel that the usability of centrally located racks is a little less than desirable?

Anyway, time for the speaker location tweaking process - which usually takes awhile… argh.

Anyone else bored by after surfing around trying to find something interesting on the Net?

Me. Too.

Things might appear kind of slow here too, the way we have been having to stage the introduction of new equipment into the systems in order to facilitate a number of shootouts we really, really wanted to hold - so that we can really, really understand what the advantages and disadvantages are of one thing compared to another.

But between shootouts… we are largely just playing music and holding auditions.

So… we will try something new. I wanted to do this for awhile - it is kind of like reviewing the reviewer’s reviews - but wider in scope.

And that is to post news items about what is happening on the Net. Not ‘Musical Fidelity releases version 124.1 of their 206 watt amp’, but rather ‘Fremer reports on failings of Grand Prix Monaco Equipment Racks at Audiogon’ kind of news [I messed this thread myself - but I *heard* all about it.].

And it would help if some of you helped out by posting comments to these News Posts about threads and news about the goin’s on out there.

To start… we will have a little catching up to do.

At CES, Positive Feedback’s Danny Kaey teamed up with Josh to help restart and grow the SonicFlare online magazine. Lately he has been popping out reviews left and right, which, interestingly, are simulcast on Postive Feedback as well.

Audio Circle continues to have an impact, at least on some of our local audiophiles here, larger than their modest membership would indicate. Mostly this means people cycling through Red Wine, Omega, some lower-end PC audio gear, etc. Some ModWright-modded equipment too, but not so much the ModWright-branded equipment. Similarly equipment like Odyssey is left out - seemingly in response to the ever-hopeful search for champagne on a beer budget…. thereby leaving some damn good beer on the shelves while drinking some champagne that might be mislabeled.

SixMoons continues to hang in there - though it is mostly Srajan doing reviews these days. I have no idea why more people aren’t doing reviews for 6moons - and why the number of advertisers keeps fluctuating so much. For those of you who don’t know, Sixmoons has the best online news stream, although to appears to be published only once a month, about the releases of new high-end audio products.

Otherwise, flame wars on Audio Asylum, threads disappearing on Audiogon, Stereophile getting smaller, TAS and HiFi+ slowly losing their edge, the 20,000+ AVSForum is the only high-end forum but still, somehow, largely content free… [except for outing the rumor that there is a new super-Meitner player due to arrive in the 2009 time frame ].

… yada yada yada… same ole same ole.

Let’s see, Globe Audio Marketing and Brinkmann North America have announced that they are bring back Avantgarde Acoustic to the North American continent. This line was previously so mismanaged that it kind of killed the line here for several years. It is of my opinion that European manufacturers just do not understand that some American distributors are just out for a ‘quick buck’. The concept seems to escape them.

Well, it looks like Avantgarde is now going with some reputable organizations and, as much as we think there are problems with their speakers, they are starting to look awfully good compared to the … stuff… that has been flooding the market these last few years. This was something I was going to talk about in the show report as well - that there is a natural percolation up towards the Best of Breed for some brands who just hang in there as every Tom, Dick and Harry puts out yet another new under-performing $40K speaker.

Anyone who knows of anything else, anything else at all, please post about it in the comments section.

We have to jury rig the Vidar in order to burn in power cords.

The Vidar passes a very complex sequence of low power signals over cables when it is burning them in. We have run two full cycles, about 8 - 9 days, s far.

How this works for power cords, which one might think would like to be broken in with, say, a monstrous 10 amp signal, we’ll see in the upcoming shootout between this and the exact same powercord that has just been sitting in the system on a transport.

We will probably have to do two shootouts, because it takes about 3 days for an Elrod power cable to full charge up, because they have a large amount of capacitance.

So two shootouts, unless the Vidar’d powercord is obviously better: one with the Vidar’d power cord straight off the burner,. and one with the Vidar’d power cord sitting in the system somewhere charging up for 3 days so that both it and the UN-Vidar’d powercord are BOTH charged up.

Hard work these shootouts…. or maybe just hard work sometimes explaining them

We need to make room and are selling some gear that is just the kind of stuff that some of you may be interested in:

Edge NL Reference 800 watt pyramid amps (demo)
Soundlab Ultimate 1 electrostatic loudspeakers (demo)
Walker Proscenium Gold Signature turntable (demo)
Marten Coltrane loudspeakers (used)

These are all the top performers in their particular category - more or less just like everything else we carry. There just aren’t that many of these that come on the market at demo/used prices. If you want one of these, now is the time.

The Edge NL Reference amps are sitting waiting for a new owner. We need to make room people, the Kegons, both pairs, the Ongaku, the Lamms, … We got amps coming out of our ears….

They are up on Audiogon if you are interested.

The Soundlab Ultimate 1 loudspeakers are playing music while waiting for a new owner. We got amps coming out our ears and speakers coming out our…. ears too. We got four systems and still we always have at least a couple of great speakers just sitting around for months on end.

The Soundlab U1 are still the best electrostatic speakers and are up on Audiogon.

The Walker Proscenium Gold Signature turntable is ready for a new owner. Also on the infamous Audiogon.

Here are some photos of the pieces that come with…

We have the compressor and large damping chambers up on a bookcase in the room next to listening room #2

The compressor.

The large damping chambers

The Walker motor controller.

Another view of the motor controller.

The small damping chambers sit nicely next to the rack.

A closeup of the small damping chambers

A pair of Marten Coltrane loudspeakers that we had here a long time are available - the owner is moving and is selling their entire system. It is not on Audiogon but please, if you are interested, contact us immediately.

OK, back to our normally scheduled programming.

Just an update as we finally, for the first time since the lightning strike, have all 4 systems powered up at the same time. A little worrisome… but it is a good feeling.

The main system, with Lamm ML2 amplifiers, Nordost ODIN and Jorma Design Prime and ELROD doing the cabling

Digital for the front end, Audio Note and Lamm.

The Brinkmann Balance turntable is not hooked up, no phono preamp and no shelves, we purloined them for a system downstairs for a bit.

The Kharma system with the Audio Note Ongaku integrated and EMM Labs CDSA SE Upgraded.

The Walker Proscenium Gold Signature turntable - also for sale up on Audiogon. The Audio Note TT3 Reference turntable and Lamm LP2 phono preamplifier.

The Soundlab system driven by the EDGE Signature One amps and Audio Aero Prestige CD/SACD player with linestage.

The little Audio Note system with OTO integrated amp.

These are just first impressions… and we are still looking forward to a direct shootout between the CDSA with the upgrade [mostly the new metal transport] and the CDSA without.

But the sound seems more refined, more finesse, more smoother, more transparent than the old CDSA. The old CDSA was a little rougher, but a little more dynamic than the CDSD and DCC2 combo. The upgrade seems to put it closer in sound to that combo - and hopefully without loosing any of its old dynamics and ‘life’.

Sounded pretty good yesterday… anyway. The transport definitely has a more ‘uptown’ feel to it. Nice.

Our CDSA just got back, a few days ago now as we let it warm up and start breaking in… again, from getting the latest upgrade offered by EMM Labs.

The upgrade consists of a new German transport, new machined feet for the chassis, and a new bezel on the transport door. The upgrade retails for $1500 and is available only for CDSA’s and CDSD’s made in the last year or two. The CDSA is now shipped only with the upgrade and now costs $11,500 USD. The CDSD SE similarly goes up to $9,900 USD [these are only two in a raft of price increases we are receiving from most manufacturers].

This is the current setup with the upgraded CDSA SE. It is actually sitting on tall HRS Nimbus Couplers, not the new machined feet, and for lack of an extra platform, on the carpet there. That is a Nordost Brahma power cord on the CDSA and Elrod on the Audio Note Ongaku. Along with Stealth INDRA interconnects and Nordost ODIN speaker cable this is a darn simple system. We like these three piece systems [Kharma Mini Exquisites as the 3rd piece in this case].

They are so, simple. They sound good. They don’t cost a lot in interconnects and equipment racks and are visually appealing.

The name tag remains the same.

The bezel looks slightly different?

The machined feet are significantly more robust, wider and heavier looking.

Now a bunch of photos of the new transport. Much more robust feeling and looking.

A lot more metal and less plastic.

I have no idea what the 6, 9 is doing on the Dire Strait’s Brothers in Arms CD - or even whether it is something Neli wrote or is on all CDs.

How does it sound? Well cold, out of the box, it sounded pretty good - but it has been a few weeks without our CDSA now and we missed it dearly - so I think the old model would have sounded pretty good at this point.

But we will do a better job as it is now warmed up and has 24 - 48 hours on it. A few more days…

And hopefully we can rescue more equipment from all the other shootouts we are running here simultaneously.

We got the:

* New Elrod power cord versus new Elrod power cord with a week or two on the Nordost Vidar cable burner test running.

* We got the Walker Proscenium Gold Signature versus the Audio Note TT3 Reference turntable shootout always running

* We got the Lamm LP2 photo stage versus the one in the Audio Note M1 preamplifier [Yes, I know which one is probably going to win, Neli, but I want to hear HOW it wins ].

* We still have the rerun of the recent interconnect shootout but not as digital cables, not as tonearm cables, but as honest ordinary interconnects

* We want to do a shootout between the Kharma and Audio Note SEC Signature speakers [yes, I know they are very different, but the new completely upgraded AN speakers should compete in the basic areas of frequency extension and overall resolution, trading efficiency and dynamics for upper midrange uber resolution - but I want to hear that they do].

* And then there is the new Audio Note Kegon Balanced versus the Ongaku versus the older high-gain Kegons.

And we will most likely have an older 6 month old or so CDSA here to do a shootout against the upgraded CDSA quite soon.

And the real problem is many of these have to run on one of the two major systems [and we like to be somewhat familiar with the sound of the system in a large sense to do the shootout in order to have a slightly higher level of confidence in our findings - so we can’t do too many changes, too fast] -and so we got a complex traffic jam on component substitutions planned that we really could use an advanced project scheduling tool to manage - if we didn’t hate these tools so much [long story, to do with idiot managers… need we say more? ].

A digital cable shootout without any digital cables… but we won’t let THAT stop us…

The room showing the listening couch (I sat in the sweet spot behind the couch on a chair that puts my ears on a good level].

Neli, Kevin (thanks! Kevin) and I shot out 7 (SEVEN!) cables last night in a marathon listening session.

The cables were each substituted, some of them twice, between the Audio Note CDT Three transport and DAC 4.1x Balanced. The signal then ran through a Valhalla interconnect into a Lamm L2 Reference line stage. From there through 10 meters of Valhalla to the Marten Coltrane Supreme loudspeaker’s crossover box. Then through Nordost ODIN into the Lamm ML2.1 amps. Finally, that nice old signal completed its mission through Jorma Design PRIME speaker cables.

We played, over and over again till we was about to die, three cuts: Mark Knophler’s Sailing to Philadelphia track #2, Rachmaninoff track #6, and Radiohead Amnesiac track #2. Neli and I know these cuts REAL well, and Kevin knew one of them [and now all of them ] really well, so these particular cuts helped us focus more on learning about how the songs sounded versus on learning the songs themselves. We played CD 1, then 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 in this pattern so that we would here some of the tracks back to back on different cables.

The PALLAS is still on the system this morning.

Neli did all the cable swapping, about 10 swaps in all. It took about 6+ hours. They went and got Vietnamese take out at about 2/3 of the way through. Yes, there WERE complaints about chewing sounds getting in the way of the listening. For my part, I just could not IMAGINE what Neli was chewing that would make such a noise. But, to rapidly continue on….

The cables finished the shootout in this order. Note the 3-way tie *(which we can help break for you based on your individual preferences, perhaps) and how the SOOTTO seemed to do better as a low-signal turntable cable compared to this one (that may be because this system, the Coltrane Supremes specifically, really likes to show off top-to-bottom detail and clarity - the SOOTTO being more about solidity and dynamics and color. As mentioned below, after some thought, it is perhaps the Kharmas love of dynamics that boosted the SOOTTO into a tie for first in that system]:

[[[Nordost Odin, Jorma Design PRIME, Audio Note PALLAS]]], Audio Note SOOTTO, Nordost Valhalla, Stealth INDRA, Audio Note SOGON.

Hopefully I will add some photos here… but… oh, I am!

*** Nordost ODIN. ***

Both the Odin and the PALLAS were doing things that we all found a little hard to get our ears around. I think that is both because they are relatively new here and that they are both breaking new ground in terms of what they can do.

The Odin was the clearly the overall audiophile performance winner. Front to back depth and separation was so good it took some time to get used to. The clarity was other worldly. The even-handedness up and down the frequency spectrum. The precise imaging. Precise harmonics. This is the only ‘competent’ interconnect, just like the Coltrane Supremes are the only competent loudspeaker - they just do the things they should be doing - nothing less, nothing more.

So why the 3-way tie then?

Was it just because we were tired of getting dry-mouth, forgetting to close them during all the ooohs and ahhhhs as we listened to the ODIN?

Yes.

But it was also because we really liked the intense color and apparent humanity of the human voice when using the PRIME (Kevin called it ‘Vivid’), and the ‘rightness’ and cohesiveness of the PALLAS.

We are very familiar with the PRIME, and the sound was therefore more accessible to all of us - it sounded like our system was sounding REALLY EXCELLENT with these cables. With the PALLAS it was like being there (especially the Rachmaninoff) and communicated much more of what I thought the musicians were trying to communicate - their interplay, the threads of melody, the stage - much more like REALLY being there than I have ever heard.

The Odin was more like… WTF! So THIS is what this recording sounds like. Seems like we need to reposition the speakers because we are getting some soundstage fuzziness… there… and THERE! [True.We do. The bass towers between the main towers is just not working out so well where we have them. We either need to to move the bass towers back or to the outside of the main towers].

We would be happy with any three of these cables. They all sounded excellent. The 10th time we played each song was as entrancing as the first - even though my brain was melting and it was hard to analyze what I was hearing at the very end anynore [but the last few songs were just a confirmation pass - yes we DID hear what we heard during the first pass, and yes, it is still quite nice thank you].

The Odin would, however, push us to optimize the rest of the system a little sooner - it being such a good window on what is actually on the source media. Just like the Supremes have forced us to continually improve our system. These definitely are pushing the audiophile envelope - raising the bar of what CAN be done with a high-end audio system.

*** The Jorma Design PRIME ***

Neli says there is chocolate on the Prime, and then she looks at ME(!) Now I ask the world, who is the chocolate addict in our house? No it is not me [But I guess I do eat protein bars that have a chocolate coating… Oh no! Banished to the audiophile penalty box!]

This will be the hardest to write, I think, because we are SO familiar with the sound - I will have a tendency to skip over some of its attributes. On the other hand, Kevin was there, and he brought up things about this sound that was a reminder to me… Oh yeah, they DO do that don’t they.

That said, each time these cables were put on was a joy. We have NOT grown tired of what they do. In fact, it was still a WOW experience.

First off, the voices. The voices on Radiohead, for example - but the Knopler too, were clearly better than the voices with any other cable. The HUMANITY of the voice stood out. This sounds like a real person! Somehow the balance of the frequencies and resolution just works. The throat and chest and gutturalness was just perfect.

There was also a lot of color to the harmonics. Not overly much - in fact just the amount that I want to hear. For example: A lot of notes in music are just plain ‘fun notes’. If you had a button and it made this sound when you pushed it - you’d be sitting there all day pushing it over and over and over because it sounded so cool. Knopler ’s guitar, a lot of the sounds [but not all ] on Radiohead, some of the violins on Rachmaninoff. Just like a kid we would be. Pushing that button over and over. But a lot of our systems leave out the ‘fun stuff’ in notes. This cable emphasizes the fun stuff.

This cable also had excellent separation, side-to-side and front-to-back. details were sufficiently plentiful that it kept us engaged as we continued to find new ones - new depth and characteristics of the performance - after the 10th [1000th] time we heard the track, etc. etc. [See, I TOLD you this is hard to write down everything we know].

Not as delicate sounding, not as much finesse, as the other two top contenders [something we thought we’d never hear ourselves say about the PRIME, which has details out the wazoo compared to most anything else on this planet here].

This was the most exuberant cable of the top three. Happy Happy. Enchanting. The PALLAS was joyous and romantic. The Odin was kind of like all emotions mixed together , being VERY emotional and engaging - but nothing stood out.

This cable is probably best, out of the ones we tested here - for people who love those audiophile-like performance characteristics, who want their system to sound really, really good - but don’t want to, or aren’t ready to, push the envelope and re-evaluate what they know about system setup and configuration and just what can… be… done… with the ODIN. [The ODIN *WILL* show you what your system sounds like - not in a harsh way, unless you have a bright system and are upgrading from something like CARDAS - but in a Oh! That is the contribution of my amp! Oh! That is my CD player. Hmmm… needs some vibration control to tighten THAT up a little bit. OK let’s do that. Oooooooooh. That sounds awesome. OK, sounds like the speakers need to be moved a wee bit to starboard… Yeah. Like that. OMG!].

*** Audio Note U.K. PALLAS ***

Confusing this one is, Luke.

In some ways that I did not understand, this one had a sound-stage stability and a lack of compression and a separation that equaled or bettered the Odin - but with an entirely different kind of presentation.

Lots of delicacy, so detail and micro-dynamics were there almost as extreme as with the Odin.

The solidity though was not as impressive as with the other two top contenders. This was definitely more of a light weight, in comparison, kind of presentation.

What I kept coming back to was the ‘Rightness’ about this sound. The soundstage was laid out in a realistic manner - but it was hard to care much. Each violin could be picked out [this was really quite fun], more or less right… THERE IT IS! But it was just like at a concert, where you can point at the musicians, but not know if they are wearing underwear or not. Or maybe this is another result of our non-optimal positioning of the speakers and we will hear more, like with the Odin, when we adjust this some.

Funny, the first few seconds of all these 3 cables was like an AAAAAAhhhhhhhh experience. “How pleasant it is to hear this sound after all the others. THIS is my favorite”.

Though this cable rivals or betters the other two cables in audiophile attribute checklisting, it seems to be more a music lover’s cable. It doesn’t ASTOUND one as much as the others.

The ODIN is for being Astounded and for helping make our system sound its very best - leaving others in the audiophile history bin. Do you want to build your system into a state-of-the-art WTF [e.g. a non-denominational OMG] system?

The PRIME is a plug-and-play conversion kit to make your system into a freaking-awesome-sounding system. Do you just want to make your system sound excellent?

The PALLAS is for listening to music on a system that matches or betters all others in audiophiledom, but doesn’t flaunt it. Do you just want to listen to and grok The Music?

*** Audio Note U.K. SOOTTO ***

Like with our previous shootout, this is a super-charged version of the SOGON. If you like SOGON, you HAVE to hear this.

After the second pass through the other cables, it was evident that this had greater macro-dynamics and more solidity of any of the other cables, which is saying something. Knoffler’s guitar sounded EXACTLY the way one would want it to sound. Made me want to put on Pink Floyd which is chock full of soulful and very colorful guitar. So, yes, this is also a very colorful / harmonically available cable. Not as much color as perhaps the PRIME, but the PRIME is almost psychedelic.

But the solidity, it is like the amp is taking more control of the speakers - each note is forcefully placed into the air. The musicians sound like they are in perfect control of their instruments.

And the interplay between musicians was also communicated better with these cables - which Kevin also independently mentioned - so the both of us noticed, on the Rachmoninoff, the back an forth and interplay between the musicians… something I was hard pressed to identify later on the other cables.

Why didn’t it score higher? There was some air missing, perhaps? Some slight lack of detail in the upper mids? A little bit of rounding? Last night we were just in the mood for something a little more copasetic with the Supremes - which really, really like Resolution. Downstairs on the Kharma Mini Exquisites a few weeks ago, in the other shootout, it was a slightly different story - the Kharmas really being partial to anything which makes them more dynamic.

*** Nordost Valhalla ***

The old champion. How technology has advanced. Still hanging in there though. A little rough sounding compared to the others, good midi-dynamics though. Separation is good in a macro sense, but details are smushed together compared to the others.

*** Stealth INDRA ***

A delicate sounding cable. Very pretty midi-dynamics, but not much macro dynamics. A little more congested than the others.

*** Audio Note U.K. SOGON 50 ***

A little more laid back than the others. If we hadn’t heard the others…. But not as exciting as the others on our system.

*** More Others ***

From previous shootouts, we know we like the Nordost Valhalla interconnect better than the Valhalla digital cable. We like the Valhalla digital very slightly better than the Jorma Design digital.

Getting the picture?

Digital cables are not performing as well as their siblings who are just ordinary interconnects.

I took 6 pages of large scribbley notes - most of which I still have to add to this post. So, stay tuned….!

————————————————–
Notes:

ODIN: A larger impact than expected perhaps 75% of the performance boost of putting it in as a regular interconnect? ENGAGING. Emotion. Pacing.

PALLAS: Not as forward. Great integration, image stability, presence, sound-staging. Less aggressive. Emphatic (Kevin). Balls [Neli]. Great sound-stage fill-in. Softer and more delicacy. Romance. Not quite as good PRaT. A little congested in the mids. Better sense of the music. “Rightness”.

SOOTTO: Not as clear. Very pleasant. More like a classic recording sound. Clearer view into interplay between instruments (Kevin aslso). Not as transparent. More solid. Awesome control over the speaker. Guitar is S-O-L-I-D. Not as engaging. Some of the instruments in the background are more forward (Kevin also).

PRIME: Solidty of voice! Not as delicate as Pallas or Odin. Separation alsmost as good as Pallas and Odin. Happy Happy. Almost as forward as Odin. Good PRaT, tonal color. Happy. Great transparency.

INDRA: Congestion on complex passages. Less midi-dynamics. More focused on speakers. In the delicate-sounding cable category. Constipated. [these do a lot better on stronger signal areas of the signal chain like between pre and amp]. Some emotion. A nice audiophile sound - but not great resolution [compared to the other uber resolution cables here!].

VALHALLA: Rougher than Indra, but more emotion, suspense. Less resolution. More separation, more midi-dynamics. Louder. Less finesse. Made Indra sound too polite. Less transparent. More compressive on macro dynamics. Focused on speakers and center stage. [This is the cable we usually use in this position - as it WAS better than all the other cables we had tried before - not wanting to know, perhaps, what these more expensive cables could do in this little corner of the system - until now of course].

ROUND TWO ——–

ODIN: Amazing separation and CLEAN. The incredible depth of the soundstage, more than we are used to, throwing off perception transparency a little? [I know, almost a complete sentence in my notes!]. Harder to integrate into a whole. A RELIEF [like Valhalla used to be for us - no B.S.]. Pretty, uncompressed. Not at all focused on speaker. Good PRaT.

PRIME: Singer more human. Better presence. Less separation. This amount of congestion / compression / constipation is comforting because we are so used to it? More like a stereo system [than real]? Very enchanting.

PALLAS: Beyond separation - more like spreaderation - an evenness to the spread of soundstaging, of the management of the distance between notes. Uncompressed. Rightness. Less digital. PRaT. Happy. Natural. Wide natural soundstage. Lighter weight on the guitar than the other two.