I felt like it was time to detail my interconnect experiences with the DirectStream. Pardon my hijacking the thread but others may find this interesting.
Some of you may remember the same effort when I got my PWD. At that point it was clear my old IC - Acoustic Zen Silver Resolution II - which I had been using happily with my old DAC was not a good match with the PWD. It was okay, but seemed to “hold back” the PWD in its ability to resolve information (as reported by other owners). I tried a whole bunch of cables including Shunyata Python Zitron, Analysis Plus Silver Oval, AZ Absolute Silver, Cardas Clear, and maybe one or two others. I’ll be honest and say that I was looking for a high value solution in a nice used pair, so I limited my choices to what I could find (and if necessary flip) on Audiogon at the time for about $1K or less.
I ended up with the AZ Absolute Silver for the PWD. This cable had everything I was looking for - clarity, timber, articulation, tremendous bass quality and control, an extended but sweet high end - it was a great and musical match for the PWD in my system. When I plugged these into the DS I was surprised by what I heard. Not only did this IC accentuate the upper mid glassiness I heard in the DS (which was confirmed as being in the DS during its burn in by trying other cables), but it also showed a graininess that I never heard when used with the PWD. Either the DS was doing a much better job at showing just what everything else was doing (which is what I believe was happening) or the Absolute Silver was just a poor match for this DAC (this may have been part of it as well). I couldn’t listen to the combination for any length of time. The search was on for a better IC match.
Now coincidentally I had been examining ICs in my friend’s system and already had some idea of what I wanted to try. I didn’t want this to be a long drawn out affair so I went with what my gut said could be a good playing field - the AZ Absolute Copper, Clear Day Silver XLR, and one most of you probably never heard of, the Burley IC. You might ask why I’d even want to try another AZ cable; well, I heard a comparison of the Copper to the Silver in another system. What I heard at the time suggested it might have the qualities I might need in this new setup. Clear Day has made a name for itself in speaker cables; most people don’t know they also make ICs, and fewer still know they are available in a balanced configuration. You have to contact Paul (the owner) directly about these. Burley cables are offered through Reno HiFi; they are (near as I can tell) the cables Pass Labs uses with their equipment. I figured if it’s good enough for Pass (and since I have a Pass preamp) they might be worth a try. This time around I was able to try all new cables instead of used, not that it should matter.
First things first - all three of these cables removed that grainy quality I was hearing with the Absolute Silver. For that I was pretty happy. All three were smooth and musical without smothering the detail or information in the music. So far so good. The Clear Day wins in the transparency department, they take in the DS what surprised me as hearing things I didn’t hear before and raises it a tick or two. Unbelievable. They also have great midrange immediacy, and handle the upper harmonics in an especially engaging manner. The downside for the Clear Day is in the low end. It’s all there, the extension seems fine, but it does have that slightly “soft” quality that I’ve heard many times before in silver cables. Given how fantastic most everything else is with this cable, this (to me) shortcoming is accentuated a bit. I thought about how great the low end was with the AZ Absolute Silver… silver cables can be made to sound great in the low end, but maybe the price to pay was the harshness and graininess I didn’t know was there until I got the DS.
The Burley is interesting. While I haven’t spoken about the Absolute Copper yet, the Burley was a very nice compromise between it and the Clear Day. It’s actually a great cable for the money. It was open, neutral, well extended and controlled in both directions, and musical. Compared to some megabuck cables it’s pretty amazing, actually. I would consider these a good “go to” cable for a casual system. While it did nothing wrong, in the rarefied air of wanting to pick out something for the DS I decided it was good but not as engaging as the other two. I would not be unhappy with it if I wanted to limit myself to that price point - a finely made XLR pair is about $400.
Finally the AZ Copper. I went in cautiously with this given what happened with the Silvers. My fears were groundless. The Coppers are light years better than the Silvers (in my system). The Coppers have none of that grain or harshness but still sound open and musically gorgeous. It does the low end the best of all three cables, establishing a solid and articulate bass line in a piece of music while allowing everything else to flow in a natural, liquid manner It’s also liquid, open, extended, controlled, smooth, but most of all incredibly musical and enjoyable. It does all of this without obscuring detail, but at the same time doesn’t shove the detail in your face. It does not have quite the same “high end cues” engagement quality of the Clear Day, but I’m now entering the realm of differences rather than “better or worse”. The midrange is not quite as immediate, but the front to back space is a bit better. The harmonics are more along the lines of “drum cymbals sound a bit more bronzey while the DS sounds more brassy”, but without diminishing the extension in the high end compared to the DS.
The problem is my wife likes the Clear Day (mostly) while I like the AZ Copper (mostly). There were some pieces of music where I’d pick the Clear Day and she’d pick the Copper. Go figure. So I wound up keeping both.
For my listening the AZ Copper is the way I’ll go; when she wants to have the system for some daytime listening what sort of person would I be if I deprived her of her preferred cable?
As always, all differences described are rather small. The only jaw dropping that occurred was when I heard how grainy the AZ Silver was with the DS. The bottom line is: the cable that worked like a champ in my old setup would have pushed me to consider sending the DS back, if I hadn’t realized what it was doing to the sound.
