It’s akin to having an “excellent” car vs. having the mother of all luxury cars! Most people opt for the former. A few opt for the latter! An excellent car is not good enough. It’s excellent, but not a super luxury car!
It surprised me a great deal too. These are preowned. I talked to the previous owner at length today. He decided he needed to get his gear moved off to the side so there is nothing between the speakers. That meant the 1.5m cables needed to be switched out for 4m cables. He had no thought of anything but new Stealths to replace the former. The 1.5m cables have over 500 hours on them already so when I powered up for the first time I was quite stunned by the change. The black background s more black hole now and the 3D quality and musicality took a nice jump. Location cues are more pronounced and each element seems more on its own than before. I wish my turntable was working but unfortunately the vacuum pump for the vacuum hold down failed and I had to ship the control unit off to be repaired, it’s a mighty expensive turntable to have this issue but they say I am the first person this has happened to. I don’t buy it but here I am. Fortunately the Grimm MU1 is a solid second place. But I need to fire up the PST and see what it offers. You are welcome to visit Terz. You can see and hear the emperors new clothes for yourself and tell the other kids what you think. 
Vmax found this excellent review that explains my new cables:
I’d love to try the newly offered Dragon interconnects and see what they offer. They are half the price.
I just ordered a sheet of the 3M magic paper! I will probably start with the DSD and P10!
Looking forward to your feedback!
My next upgrade is 207 CDs tomorrow.
The CDs aren’t dead yet. Long Live the CD!
I love playing CD‘s too.as well as vinyl.
If you believe the posts on Instagram even cassettes and reel to reel are on their way back. Although I very much doubt the benefit of the extra box count.
Streaming will not go away, I love it for exploring music at my own pace. But there is something about the experience of physical media, artwork and mechanical insertion and spinning that can not be matched by a user interface on a Screen, not even by a very good one as Roon.
The other thing is, many people sit in front of a screen all day long for their work, and playing music should be a completely different experience.
I love going the record shop either and see and talk to people and see all the exciting cover art.
Cables and cars don’t compare. With a car you can get more and more for your money, but with cables you can only get closer to a finite point, being no signal loss, no noise and no interference. Based on this logic, a great cable says more about how bad the previous one was than how good the new one is.
I got to this point with the two signal cables in my system some years ago (1m Blue Jeans CAT6a - $10 and 4m Townsend speaker cable -£800/$1000). I still find all these cable discussions completely mystifying. I get the impression it’s largely a local issue, here in the UK cable talk seems minimal and much more garden variety.
With regard to jaw dropping, it really depends how close your jaw is to the floor in the first place.
Mind you in Europe the UK hosts the best cable manufacturers. Amongst others Chord, TelluriumQ and Atlas.
I see the same need @stevensegal above for cables.
My dealer recommended Atlas Cables. It’s a limited size engineering driven extremely customer oriented company in Kilmarnock Scotland.
I had a very special request to them:
To be able to pull the best possible quality speaker cable through our in-wall/in floor 14 mm inner diameter PVC tubes that the house builder had installed to allow maximum flexibility of speaker placement though the tiled living room without having cables a trip wires blocking the entries.
One of Atlas’s method to keep losses and noise attracting impedance changes down are cold weld ie. crimp connections. On stranded wires this technology presses the oxygen (corrosion) out while at largely remaining the conductor materials conductivity properties.
My dealer and Atlas agreed to ship me their excellent Hyper 3.5 speaker cable from reel, the special crimp tool and original Atlas banana’s, allowing me to pull the cable through the conduit an terminate it for convenient connection to my speakers and amp.
I am keen on system synergy and and their design philosophy. HDMI, RCA, balanced XLR, Toslink and speaker cables, all this wiring has been upgraded to Atlas solutions. And I do not regret it.
When I upgrade cables my dealer gives me good returns for my previous Atlas cables, which makes it much more comfortable to stay on the upgrade path.
As one of my next improvements I hope be able to give power distribution and power cables attention. Again Atlas has very synergetic and reasonably affordable solutions with their extremely well shielded and low impedance EOS system.
Even though reasonably affordable, a complete synergetic system is a lot of money and will probably be a long term project, but fun especially if the dealer and manufacturer support special requests customers have and you are ensured that your money is not wasted.
Something has to keep my knuckles company.
Agree with this. I can have an excellent car (not a supercar), and upgrade suspension, tune the ECU, add a new exhaust, and I can absolutely notice the difference. A supercar is so close to the limits already that I wonder what changes I might notice and appreciate.
The wrong cable (or exhaust, for example) can over-restrict, right? We want to find one that can remove/diminish that restriction. Finding one that can “enhance” the sound seems wrong. We want the cable to make the source/amp sound as it was designed, not to “add” anything or color the sound, right?
Anyway, on my own journey, I really, really wonder if it’s my patience and aural memory more than anything else. Sometimes the time it takes to swap a cable is enough for me to lose the plot.
The most memorable improvement/upgrade for me was to use HQPlayer with Roon. That was jaw-dropping for sure, and my system at the time was decidedly mid-fi. But the change was soooo noticeable. Again, might have been because a quick click was all it took to A/B the difference.
The other change I’ve noticed for sure is when I’ve used Class-D amplifiers. It’s not a lack of clarity or detail or depth/width of soundstage, because they provide that in spades. It can only be described as a lack of “warmth” and “engagement” and it honestly affected my desire to listen. Some have used the word “austere” and I think that’s valid. I know that’s controversial, but for me, it is what it is. (I’ve found this characteristic with a few different Class-D’s**, so maybe the goal is to find one that bucks the trend.)
** if you’re interested in the ones I’ve tried, and care to make recommendations, I’ve owned the PSA Sprout, PSA M700, Rogue Audio Sphinx, Bel Canto Ref500M.
I have a pair of Atlas Hyper 2.0 purchased specifically for Quad ESL63. The Hyper 2.0 have very low inductance, a requirement of the ESL63, good insulation and a very robust but flexible cover. I think they cost about $120.
My single usb cable is a Chord usb-C. It was free with a magazine almost 10 years ago. Think they cost $50.
Tellurium Q cables were originally designed by Colin Wonfor, a brilliant engineer of power supplies (for NASA), solid state Class A amplifiers and the Inca Tech Claymore, a class 1980s integrated, which my son uses. He was pushed out by the main owner, a real shame. Anything Colin does tends to be fantastic and eminently sensible.
I owned the original Class D Linn Akurate 2200 amplifier and that was dry as a bone. The update in around 2013 improved things. Same with the Devialet D-Premier, sounded a bit dry when I heard it around 2011, the 250 Pro Class D/A hybrid I’ve been using is a much more impressive animal. I think Bel Canto were one of the first brands to use bespoke nCore amplifiers. These devices seem as much the product of their power supplies as anything else.
Yes. Definitely heard an improvement. Worth a try for anyone running ethernet into their rig.
I’m very interested to hear your thoughts. Please update. Thanks!
They are shipping out the ISO-Cat7 filter on 15th, and I should get it in three business days. I have no idea if this thing needs burn in. But I hope I can hear the improvement over Acoustic Revive right the way.
The P20 with the SR Purple fuse is burning in while I’m in Atlanta for the day. I noticed the 3M absorber hit the porch today so I will be trying that on the P20 this week and maybe my Nucleus+. I have also ordered SR Purple fuses for each of my Dutch & Dutch 8cs. I’m trying to decide which to do first. I think I’ll try the fuses in the 8cs, then the absorber on the P20 followed by the absorber on the Nucleus+. Also, the roon ready firmware for the 8cs is supposed to start rolling out tomorrow. I have that to look forward to. It will allow me to remove the Matrix from the chain and go straight Ethernet to the 8cs. I do have the 8cs isolated on EtherRegens.
I’m not sure if these are upgrades or tweaks.
So, these showed up today! I wont have a chance to wire them in until the wknd, but I am confident they will indeed be an upgrade over the current Delta V2’s which are quite good in my system
@aangen, thanks for the guidance and acting as a sounding board via IM while I was considering the Dream V10. Part of what makes this forum special! The willingness of the members to share their experience…
Best,
-JP
Looks like a new breed of South American snake
Wow, the rare two-headed white mamba!