Well, I just got back from FLAX 2022. The first thing I did last night when I got home was recable the system with my Iconoclast OFE on the lower and TPC II on the upper. Now to get listening!
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3D sound series 1 I iconoclast speaker cables versus series iI. I spent some time listening To 3D recorded tracks tonight with series II. The Vp correction series II provides upsets the effect. All of the spatial effects go flat. Especially wit DSP activated. Everything flattens.
Is that a deal breaker for you?
with series 2?
No. I can turn off DSP and bring it out some. It is strange since most 3D music uses phase swapping to cause the effect. Turning off DSP helps but the 360 effect is not there it is like 270 degrees. But a regularly recorded song is all about 3D. I don’t understand it. I need to try more songs recorded like that.
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Yes. Not sure if it is a TPC copper effect vs SPTPC. @hthaller mentions it but first time it really hit me as different was tonight listening to Amused to Death Album.
Maybe it is only a Q Sound thing. The RoomPerfect DSP focus position or Global position places sound field nearly flat with speaker plane. Turning Room Perfect off moves it rearward but still in front of you. Most live albums sound like Qsound now. The series II ability to cancel effect in artificially added albums is so strange. But it adds to naturally recorded music giving a rear wall reflection effect.
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Shouldn’t be a Q-sound issue. I listened to Madonna’s The Immaculate Conception album. Same freaky Q-sound stuff as usual.
The series II is more CORRECT end to end in group delay. That would make Q-Sound be MORE like it should sound, not less. The cable that has worst linearity is “worse” sounding but that doesn’t mean we don’t like worse, better. This is after all entertainment. Go for what’s best overall! Look what we do to bass…we ALL love bass “worse”. We shelf it up, we boost it up and we crank it and we love it.
I have a new P3100 HV preamp. I can tune the low end for flattness with the parametric EQ, but I’ll also add a few drops of bass loudness to EQ it back “up” to be…yes, technically worse.
I haven’t heard anything not be better with the series II. But you are correct, that is with my music. The absolute changes in time group delay based on cable length and the speeds of frequencies is still interestingly low, and on pure specs should be hard to hear, or hear at all. That to me is intriging. But, we have the two designs based off the math and that’s that as they say.
Best,
Galen Gareis
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I will try the Madonna QSound. There’s a definite difference between series I and II with the Roger Waters song Too Much Rope in How I remember the rendering of effects with room correction engaged… Perhaps I need to rerun the room correction. There was still lots of layering just soundstage moved forward n room and less immersive around the listener’s position. Room Perfect turned off things came further out in the room. Never such a difference before between modes. I shipped off my other SPTPC series I cables or I would switch back to confirm.
I would answer “yes”.
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Iconoclast at Axpona.
Yes, I saw that too. Unfortunately, I won’t be at AXPONA this year. Galen, Bob, any hints as to what’s planned for the exhibition?
I know at least one speaker designer that considers most dsp to be too flawed for true hifi. That is if you’re a purist audiophile.
I suppose they must hand-wring over what a DAC does.
Thanks for posting Iconoclast’s presence at AXPONA.
I will be sure to stop by and have a chat with Galen provided he doesn’t dive to deep into the science 
. I am enjoying the first few days with the Series II TPC cable running full range. It has the family characteristics but the mids and top do shine over my SPTPC. Voices and instruments hold their place in space with better detail. I will have an opportunity to try the cables in a true bi-wired configuration soon. Good times.
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@Vmax, how many hours would you say before the Series II settled out?
That is a good question and I am not totally sure it still has settled out given my Qsound anomaly the other night. I would say plan at least 75 to 100 hours. It gets way better after around 50 hours or 7 to 10 days about 5 hours a day listening.
Highs and mids start getting easier and you start to think perhaps this needs a bit more bite and then the cymbals crash or a trumpet is in the room piercing highs in a song, or you hear a solid skin of a tympanic hit snapping back to taut after the bass hits your gut. You say to yourself, “Damn this is good, this is what music is supposed to do.“ Surprises you since details jump out.in astounding bursts with lightning transients with sedate mellowed tranquility in between.
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Good Morning, we will have a static display and more than anything we are there to meet with all of you personally. It’s great to put faces with names and shake hands with friends. I’ve seen the artwork for our backdrop and it ties the Belden, BJC and Iconoclast brands and associations nicely. So many have dine business with BJC over the years and we are anxious to say “thank you” to all!
There are many that have perhaps, never heard of Iconoclast and we hope to engage as many who will stop and let us tell them a little about our story. We will have cables of all types available to handle as well as sections of unterminated cable that better shows the designs.
Our 10’ x 10’ area will be well staffed. This time Kurt, our techs Andrew and Jeff and Galen will attend. Kurt attended Axpona as did Galen and I (pre-Covid,) but this time we want Andrew and Jeff to get out of of the plant for a few days and get a better feel for our industry. It is an eye opener to see components, speakers and of course cables at this level. By having 4-attendees, it will allow everyone ample time to walk the floor. Having 4-in the booth at a time would be crowded!!!
I will sit this one out and mind the store. It would be impossible for me to count the number of industry trade shows I have attended starting in the late 80’s. AES, CEDIA, CES, Infocomm, ISC, NAB and a few others made me wonder if I should just move to Las Vegas.
Please, if you plan to attend Axpona, promise you will stop by to visit!
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Hmm, a Dagogo review of ICONOCLAST mentions that Galen took into consideration to develop a wire for internal speaker wiring, with some of the strengths of ICONOCLAST but obviously much more flexible and thinner.
I wonder if that’s gonna happen. I’m positive that rewiring my Audio Physic Tempo IVs with such wire would make them sing like or better than many over 5k speakers today. Galen mentioned earlier that people with about 10k speakers would see ICONOCLAST as value - I certainly see it (TPC) as value even though I paid MORE for the cables than what my speakers cost used last fall (though their MSRP in 2008 was around 4k)… Then again Audio Physic, I think, is generally quite extraordinarily unique in its sensibilities…
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We really do need to look hard, very few cable manufacturers are quite so open about the technical details. I’m guessing maybe Tara Labs top-of-the-line cables might be those Ferrari cables, hmm, maybe Analysis Plus?
About Tara Labs, I doubt Fremer would accept much group delay decoherence so they gotta be good.
I tried (not hard, since there’s simply no info) to look for technical data about the ludicrous Transparent Opus cables. Very annoying, even offensive, that they don’t seem to even specify the conductor material, just marketing speech on their carbon fiber noise damped passive box integrated into the cable. Oh, I bet they sound “good”, but the passive components in the middle are off-putting without any info on what’s inside. Found an x-ray of the box, there’s a coil inside that seemingly attenuates RF. Or something. Dunno.
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