by Michael

Jorma Design 'Prime' Speaker Cables

She likes it!

Hey Mikey! She likes it!

Uh, yes, Neli likes the speaker cables. Mike likes them too.

After 10 days on the Nordost Vidar cable burner, the caveats I noticed when we first heard these cables, the tiniest bit of midrange leaness and compression, are… gone. As suspected, the cables just weren’t completely broken in yet.

The Jorma Prime cables break new ground in the resolution department. Nordost Valhalla cables are usually considered to have very high resolution. But, well, this is a whole new ballgame. Heck, it is a whole new season.

On the Marten Design Coltrane speakers driven by the Lamm ML2.1 amplifiers, which are very high resolution themselves, what with ceramic drivers and a diamond tweeter, these speaker cables just shine. Shine a light on the music, is what.

OTL-like dynamics. Combined with the wonderful pacing this is just plain fun, happy, wow! to listen to.

Super-subtle voice intonations – where lots of the previously unheard nuances are freed, nuances that communicate more of the emotion and substance and individuality and humanity of the voices and instruments.

Voices? Even on day one the voices were enough to just grab you and throw you down in the nearest seat – or, depending on your personality, make you stand up and drench yourself in it all.

Transparency…

You remember how, the first time you heard a high-end system, you thought “Oh, so that is what was on that CD (or LP) this whole time?!!!”

Deep dish harmonics. Harmonic intent that was previously locked behind a dirty display case is now presented to the listener on a silver.. and gold… platter.

Separation, presence, … resolution.

Reso-f***ing-lution.

These cables were paired with the Marten Design Coltrane Supremes in the Swedish Statement room at CES, with their 2″ diamond midrange and 3/4″ diamond tweeter – No wonder we started hallucinating.

New ballgame? This is a whole new universe to explore.

OK. Whew! So, well, the cables are doing their part. Yep. Let’s just put a nice big check mark in that box….

Next!

The metal facets in the Jorma Prime speaker cables twinkle like streams of magical musical electrons

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Jorma Design / Popular / Reviews 2 comments
 by Michael

How to read and understand ludicrous equipment reviews

It has been our experience that most people who claim to not be audiophiles do ‘have ears’, as they say. From all walks of life, all sexes, they all can hear warmth and digititus and detail and everything ‘we’ hear.

So why can’t we say as much about self-declared audiophiles? What’s up with statements like this that appear daily on the net (and, lest we forget, similar nonsense from print magazines)?

    “I found the less expensive Consumer Brand X at a fraction of the price to be indistinguishable from the Megabuck Deluxe”

If one steps back, one can see how ludicrous this is, given the realities of both this being a capitalist economy and the fact that audiophiledom is just not, unfortunately, a playground of the rich and famous. A $20K CD player is not a status symbol – it is bought by people expecting and demanding very high-performance, not a fancy emblem to show off to their friends.

Here is the top ten list of reasons the poster/reviewer might say something like this.

10. An axe to grind with someone associated with Megabuck Deluxe
9. They own Consumer Brand X and want to feel good about it
8. They can’t afford Megabuck Deluxe and do not want to feel bad about it
7. They listen with their mind and their mind tells them that Megabuck Deluxe shouldn’t sound better than Consumer Brand X, so it does not sound better.
6. They listen with their emotions and they like someone associated with Consumer Brand X and so they like the way it sounds.
5. They listen with their emotions and they do not like someone associated with Megabuck Deluxe and so they do not like the way it sounds.
4. They listen from the point of view of the existing marketplace and its internal politics to decide what sounds good or not
3. They desire the popularity that comes from attacking the product at the top
2. The room/system which they are doing the listening with is so unbalanced and/or has insufficient resolution that nothing can be determined about the relative qualities of these two products
1. They quickly compare products that take more than a few minutes to warm up and sound the way they are supposed to
0. They omit the ancillary tweaks that most people likely to own the products will likely be using.
-1. Their ears are not used to the subtle differences of products of this calibur that may take weeks in not longer to explore
-2. They are one of the few who really do not ‘have ears’.
-3. They gain commercial advantage from attacking Megabuck Deluxe and/or promoting Consumer Brand X

Geez, 10 wasn’t enough.

[Personally, I try and give people the benefit of the doubt and assume #2 is the reason they say things like this. And keep saying things like this.].

There are so many reasons for posters and reviewers to post erroreous information, how can anyone believe what they read about how something sounds?

It is certainly a question that has plagued us, both as audiophiles, shocked when we heard both how good and bad things REALLY sound, and later as a dealership and high-end audio show reviewers, as we try to communicate what we hear.

How do we not get drowned out by the sea, nay ocean, of missinterpretations out there about what things do, can and should sound?

Use the ears, Luke!
All we can say is: “Use the ears, Luke!”

Oh, and if you are an audioophile, don’t forget to make sure you calibrate those ears once in awhile using a worthy system, Luke.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Humor / Philosophy / Popular 0 comments
 by Michael

Critique of the Absolute Sound's CES 2006 Show Report

We got our TAS a few weeks ago and in it they had 30 pages dedicated to their CES 2006 show report.

Nice show report. So happy to see they put out such a wealth of impressions from CES. It was a complete lack of any such information that caused us to start our show reports way back when.

But, well, now we are addicted to shows so we aren’t going back to the sidelines, sorry – but it is good that a print mag is putting out more than just excerpts from show brochures for a change.

OK, idea for another BLOG post: “Varieties of hi-fi audio addictions – Feeding and care of”.

Jonathan Valin’s section in the TAS show report had some surprising simularities to our impressions, and more interestingly, some variances.

Room-by-room then:

Nola / Plinius
We didn’t take much notice of this room

VR-9 / darTZeel
Agree that they sounded better at the Denver show. Don’t thnik ‘syrupy’ is the right word here, at all. Actually do not agree with any of the description here.

Calix
I thought the driver integration and localization problems he noticed were minor flaws in an overall natural, big, pure sound which was a little relaxing after some of the hifi-ish sound in the other rooms.

Wisdom Audio / Edge
Agree with the reticence. Disagree with the implication that the Edge was at fault.

TAD
Agree that it was not quite (duh!) as abrasive as their HE 2005 room. The rest is to say he doesn’t like this sound either, though he blames the speakers by showering compliments on the Pass Labs amps whereas I womder if the blame should really be shared between the two.

AAA Audio
Not sure which room this is

Lumen White / Ayon
Closed in and dark? A little, I guess. I heard a little timbre anomolie which really grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go, unfortunately.

Harbeth
Didn’t spend too much time in here

Hansen
Not much time in here either

Immedia
These were not playing any music when I was there

Ridley
Not sure which room this was

Fanfare International
Not sure which room this was, either

Zanden / Peak Consult
Agree with what he said, even with the ‘slightly-more-hooded’ sound of the Peak Consult in comparison with the Kharma – though I would say ‘lots’ instead of ‘slightly’.

Marten Design / EAR
Dark and bright at the same time? Say what? I guess this could mean the treble was a little forward and the midrange a little recessed? If so then I could see the EAR being described this way… I guess. The minor amount of these frequency bumps in that room I usually discount as part of the room (or the number of people in the room at the time of the listening session), …………unless he is talking about the first day… 🙂

Acoustic Precision (Venture / L:amm)
Spacious and detailed? I guess, but overwehelmed by a significant reticence and darkness that was obscuring the spaciousness and detail, IMHO.

Talon / Joule Electra
Peak in the midbass and glare in the upper mids? Yeah, and mostly the general lack of signs of life.

Nola Pegasus / ASR
Disagrees with HP and describes the overly-polite dynamic nature of the ASR. Exactly!

Burmester room
Say what? He likes this room and we just heard the deadness and lack of bloom and timbre that seemed a little off.

Coincident / Manley
All he says is that they were “coherent at loud levels”. Perhaps, but what about other attributes and at other listening levels. What a nice way to diss a room while being nice about it. We bow to the master (Neli says I should stop using words like ‘terrible’, so I am taking notes here :-). The problem here was that there was a lack of life (lack of micro-dynamics,real world richness of tone, subtle shades of timbre being lost, etc.)

Eben / Rado
Not sure we heard this room

Sound Lab / EMM Labs / Parasound
“Gorgeous sounding? Best fullrange stat at CES?” Well, there were only two stats there that I remember, so I agree with this. But this dry sound with very little tone does NOT represent the way the Meitner or Sound Lab sound. Either 1) people are looking for something VERY different than we are when it comes to the sonics of electrostatic speakers or 2) people have never heard the way the Sound Labs can REALLY sound, like they do here with top notch amplification.

Artemis Labs
Too busy chatting to listen in this room. Mea Culpa.

Magico / Edge / CAT
He loved this room and I thought it was muddy and disorganized sounding. Timbre was the slightest bit off and the dynamics somewhat unbalanced and compressed. Hopefully people don’t just attribute great sound to a room just because the speakers do so well for their size (although the tempation is there and we feel its pull as well). I cannot understand why some reviewers are liking this room so much (most people at the show seem to like the other Magico room better, but even that I found… not bad but kind of so-so).

ARC / Wilson
Agree that this room pulled off a great sound with what we would consider… somewhat colorless… electronics and a difficult speaker.

Ascendo
Agree that the tonal color was good and everything else that was said about the room. So nice to hear them sound so much better after their terrible showing at HE 2005 (Oops, still using that T word, ain’t I?)

Avalon / Hovland
He isn’t a fan of the Eidolon Diamonds (but we are!) but he liked this room (but I didn’t). I thought the Hovland Radia had more life than these new Stratos amplifiers – which sounded dark and reticent to me at CES.

Peak Consult / WAVAC / Continuum
Ha! He was also dissapointed with the turntable / system in this room .So were we – or rather, it is a fine turntable, but not unlike many other fine turntables out there.

Magico / Rowland
Agree on the lack of life in this room.

Dali Megalines / McIntosh
He didn’t like the room much – and my impressions were that it was warm and muddy, enjoyable for people in recovery from a overly bright system, perhaps.

Ayre / JBL
Didn’t hear this room

Avantgarde Acoustic
Maybe he is comparing these to all other very, very efficient horn designs and so he likes them using that scorecard? Otherwise…impressive yes. Emotional? Enjoyable? Real? Natural? Not to these ears.

VR7
I think we missed this room

Genesis
He says “Too much tweet and woof”. Good description.

GTT Audio
He liked it. So did we.

MBL
He says it is “wow”. We agree. “That the midrange is realistic”. To our ears they take away some of the leading edges of the notes and reshape the note envelope in a kind of interesting way – along with an almost complete lack of micro-dynamics, That the “treble is without parallel”. We actually find it to not be very realistic either. He gives this the best of show. But without specifying what it is best at, one cannot tell if he thinks it is just doing ‘impressive’ better than all the other speakers are ‘doing impressive’, or better than all other speakers at doing their job in pursuit of their particular ‘purpose’, whether that be real, enjoyability, emotionality, naturalness or whatever. Or, and this can’t be it, that it is the best at doing EVERYTHING compared to all the other systems at the show.

Most likely it is, like our old Best Of Show, the system they would most like to have in their posession. And in this case it is also the system most like the system in his possession. 🙂 [JV has an MBL-based system these days].

Well, that’s it. Hope it was fun for everyone. If not, well, hope we will do better next time.

‘Til then, then.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Popular / Show Reports 4 comments