We’ve had a lot of shootouts lately. Many power cord shootouts. And we’ve started several EMM Labs shootouts.
More later, but here are the upshots:
*** ODIN power cord. Simply put we have a new favorite cable.
*** ODIN power cord versus ODIN interconnect – which is the biggest bang for the buck as your first cable? The short and sweet: In this case, on this system of EMM Labs CDSA, Audio Note Ongaku and Marten Coltranes] it was [kind of] the PC that was the biggest bang – but there is an explanation why the $11K PC beat the $16K IC.
First, the SOUND was better with the IC. But the MUSIC was better with the PC and we didn’t care that the sound wasn’t as good. The explanation? My hypothesis is that the Ongaku, the amp we put the PC on, is the great contributor to the musicality of the system and costs about 8X times what the CDSA player costs. So adding the ODIN PC to it just made that more musical. The ODIN IC, as expected, let way more sound from the CDSA get to the integrated amp – and the sound had more body, more information, etc. But, again, we didn’t care. On a different system, with perhaps a less dominating amp, the IC will likely dominate the PC even more and we would elect a different winner.
*** EMM Labs CDSA versus CDSD/DCC2 versus TSD1/DAC2 [versus red badge CDSD/DCC2]. In progress [but in this system, with the ODIN and the TDS1/DAC2, we heard revolutionary amounts of separation. Each instrument was clearly defined and you could easily follow just one instrument’s sound and its decay. Just like in reality. No, really. We have NEVER heard anything quite like it. It is addicting. This whole system has become addicting. It is so pleasing to the mind [so deep, so many complex musical passages revealed], and so pleasing to the heart [so pure and the decays last exactly as long as they are supposed to and the harmonics are so lovely]. Rarely has anything excelled at both – especially on such a small scale.].
