If you’re interested, I have a 1 meter Wireworld Platinum Starlight 7 cable (complete with aluminum “suitcase,” etc.) that I would part company with for $550.
RAL’s are a tad better, but I ship in one day 
PM me if this is an option.
PM sent
I would agree with all that except their hdmi cables do not sound great with the matrix, they sound a bit hard and bright. They are great for video though as they can handle clocks with very fast rise times
At my age my hearing is attenuated gradually starting at about 8500 Hz and ain’t worth spit after about 11000. So some brightness is often a welcome attribute. And because I am dedicated to headphone listening, soundstaging capability is a very minor issue and mostly only when listening with my Stax 009s. I presume some of you other older audiophiles know what I am talking about.
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I too just acquired a Matrix about 1 month ago. I use a SilverSphere HDMI right now (although I may return it for a RAL) and an Uptone LPS 1.0 for power at 7v. Sounds pretty great!
Looking at the RAL and better LPS for upgrades at some point
Update on my trying an AQ Forest HDMI cable. I was shock by how bad it initially sounds to me. Very compressed presentation and quite dull with less low frequency extension and slam than my cheap Monoprice HDMI. Very disappointed. I realize that the sound may change with some reburn-in since my son has not used it in a while, but I’ve been around this block enough times to know that it won’t ever reach an acceptable performance level for me. I’ll give it a couple more days but fully expect I will be returning it to my son with a large thumbs down for audio. I now have a $10 monoprice HDMI cable rated for 48 Gbps that I will try out soon. My old monoprice is rated for only 10.2 Gbps. Will be interesting to hear the difference. Also, the new cable does not have ferrite chokes on both ends like my old cable. And its only 18" long compared to my old cable at 3’. We’ll shall see (hear).
You have an extremely long journey in front of you going by your first two choices. Allow me to perhaps save you some time.
Buy that cable, it’s under $90 and comes with free shipping. Inakustik cables are not well known in the US but they are very well known by members of this forum. They are normally so much better than anything else anywhere near their price range. I get the feeling you are not a $600 cable kind of guy. That’s a ok with me. It just the thread you are responding to here is FILLED with people who have spent that much or more on their cables.
I am confident that you will be more than pleased with the Inakustik Referenz HDMI cable.
It’s a bargain!!!
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Thanks for the suggestion. And sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I wish I was a sub $600 cable type of guy. These HDMI cables I am am talking about are the only ones I own that fall into that category. But I certainly am a sub $2000 cable type of guy, so the sky is not the limit for me either. Its just that i am so astounded by the quality of the sound from such an inexpensive cable that I am curious as to what can be had for the lower prices. I wish I could have been satisfied with IC, PC and USB cables in that cheap range too, but you know how that goes. I still might buy it for my curiosity collection along with a few others. Its just fun to explore, and doesn’t really matter to me if the cable turns out to be a dud. How did Inakustik Referenz HDMI cable rank in sound enjoyment among the many fine HDMI cables that I see you have tried?
BTW I should receive the WWPS HDMI cable that I just bought in a few days. From what I have read here it will probably become my new benchmark against which I’ll be comparing the others. But then again, might my non-perfect hearing be a blessing in disquise, allowing me to prefer the sound of a lesser priced cable? Probably not.
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I just looked on-line at in-akustik Exzellenz II High Speed HDMI. It appears that it is only available in a 3M length which doesn’t work for me. Length between 0.5M and 1.5M is a requirement. Too bad.
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I have never tried an Inakustik HDMI cable. I went Wireworld Silver to Wireworld Platinum to Revelation Audio Labs. I stopped there.
In USB I went all the way to Stealth Audio but I bought the $340 Inakustik USB and found it sounded splendid after yanking the big boy cable out. I use Inakustik Ethernet cables as well. I believe in them. If I were to start all over again I would choose either all Inakustik or all Iconoclast cables. Instead I will soldier on with the high priced stuff. It is in fact, better. But not by enough perhaps to justify the cost. I was seeing the possibility of Trump getting re-elected and I figured the world would end soon after that so why save money on cables. I do not regret my actions. I don’t think he does either. But only one of us is winning.
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Has anyone made a mod in the Matrix?
My 'new" Monoprice HDMI cable sounds OK, but it still does not have that combination of slam, tone and clarity that my original MP one has. Bass is very similar on both and headphone soundstage is close with the new cable midrange sounding only a slight bit more into the background. So I’ll leave it in on continuous play for further burn-in and swap around a few more times in the next couple days (before my WWPS arrives) to confirm my current opinion. I wonder if the ferrite chokes on both ends of my old cable are making the positive sound difference? I once had a couple of snap-on chokes in my accessory bone yard. If I can find them I’ll try them on the new MP cable and see if I notice a sound change.
Has anyone compared the Denafrips Isis with the Matrix?
Thanks,
Louis
The Denafrips Isis is not compatible through I2s with DS.
Check this out. Denafrips Iris
Hi guys,
Is there a way to replace Bridge 2 card with Matrix linked to a NUC / ROCK and still have DS Sr. unfolding MQA to the fullest as ROON endpoint? Or once the b
Bridge 2 is gone say goodbye to MQA via Roon?
I’m pretty sure Roon can do the unflold of MQA it’s in the settings. I use a Matrix and Roon plays MQA fine even though I don’t use it often.
Roon will only do the first MQA unfold. Once the Bridge is gone, the Directstream / Matrix combo will not do the complete MQA unfold. However, having gone the Matrix route and gotten rid of the bridge, I don’t miss the full MQA unfold as the DS sounds better with the Matrix than the Bridge despite the Bridge doing a full MQA unfold.
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Really? Better than 24/192 full MQA?