cable upgrade
- Thread starter entsurgeon
- Start date
parthadutta
New Member
Have tried the kimber 4vs, 4vc. These are crap. I'm using kimber 4tc which is detailed, extended and vfm. Cheaper cables from vdh does make a lot of sense though. If you can extend your budget, get yourself xlo.
An update:
Santosh the Fairy Angel from make-a-wish-foundation visited my home yesterday with my latest desire - a Chord SilverScreen speaker cable. He was visiting some place near my house and very helpfully decided to bring his cable along. Needless to say, for a terminally-neurotic audiophool rotting away with his speakers in an unknown corner of the world, it was like a heaven-send.
hyeah:
It went like this ...
Upon hearing a knock, I opened my front door to see this burly shadowy figure pacing towards me with measured steps, clutching two ends of a Chord in hand. I gasped!! Who was he? Was he going to strangle me?!! I dropped to the floor and started choking and spluttering in advance, before he even wound the cable around my neck. My entire life flashed past me in a few seconds....
"Please ...." I heard a voice pleading... "Please try this cable in your system and see how it sounds ...." What?!!! It took my a few seconds to realize, it wasn't my own voice pleading for my life ... and another few seconds to recognize the face that was Santosh's.hyeah: My fear turned to joy. :yahoo: This wasn't it!! I was free to live!! :clapping:!! I picked myself up mumbling something like I must have stumbled over the doormat or something, brushing some imaginary dirt off my dress. Then to be sure, I peered from the terrace just to confirm it was Hyundai i10 parked downstairs and not a Buffalo he rode to my place (like Yamaraj hyeah.
After some mutual pleasantries, we sat down to audition the system together. starting with his favorite tracks of Dire Straits and some other favorites of mine.
A difference was audible - the bass and kick drums was tighter, the flute had more air ... and I liked the way the violin sounded - a little more direct and appealing to my emotions. On the whole the system seemed to acquire a little more snappy sounding energy, musicality and liveliness with a hint of better control. There was no doubt in my mind that the system performance was now slightly elevated.
We also tried the Emotiva ICs he got. In fact we swapped our cables and I have them for a few weeks now. You know what? I prefer these pure copper cables over my silver-coated Nordost blue-heavens. In fact, I will buy a few pairs @18$ and be done with it. It is quiet possible, I will Never buy a $200+ cable again. So far with a few hours of listening, it is very satisfying in the way it sounds on my setup. And I particularly like the different tone of a pure copper versus silver coated copper. (I use solid silver from pre-to power, so maybe its overkill).
On that Note, Saikat also visited my place last weekend with half-a-dozen ICs. We tried VDH 102, SrtraighWire Symphony, his monstrous ICs, some Japaneses ones as well. The VDH makes a great offering for fatiguing treble dominated systems - it brought out the midrange very well at the slight expense of frequency extremes. The StraightWire sounded most energetic with best frequency extension. The monsters and the rest were not too bad very close in SQ - in fact I kinda came to the conclusion that my preamp had so well matched its input and output impedance to the rest of the chain, that my setup is now somewhat immune to IC changes - not completely though. Caveat being all cables were give a one song listening test for 5 mins each. But somehow I am certain over the long-term monster ICs may not satisfy.
After Sanotsh left, I put back the DAC speaker cable to listen to the differences. Hmmm now here is the catch - does it sounds worse than the Chord? The DAC is not a bad cable at all and it does not sound worse, only the Chord SS sounds better!!!hyeah: I mean to say I can live with it until my shipment of the Chord arrives, without apologizing to anyone in the interim about poor SQ. the Chord has that extra audiophile thingie and for GBP24 for a 2m pair, it adds real VFM audiophile quality to the sound as compared to $$$ cables.
For the HFV newbie, my setup is maratnz CD6002>GroundedGrid preamp (chinese clone) with mullard 12AU7s (blackburn) and a Shugang in the mix for the common stage > NADE 325 power section > Audire Callisto BS (not bullSh!t) using fostex 166E.
@ENTSurgeon, I apologize if I hijacked your thread. I will request the mods to move it to another one if this distracts from your purpose for this thread.
Cheers
Santosh the Fairy Angel from make-a-wish-foundation visited my home yesterday with my latest desire - a Chord SilverScreen speaker cable. He was visiting some place near my house and very helpfully decided to bring his cable along. Needless to say, for a terminally-neurotic audiophool rotting away with his speakers in an unknown corner of the world, it was like a heaven-send.
hyeah:It went like this ...
Upon hearing a knock, I opened my front door to see this burly shadowy figure pacing towards me with measured steps, clutching two ends of a Chord in hand. I gasped!! Who was he? Was he going to strangle me?!!
I dropped to the floor and started choking and spluttering in advance, before he even wound the cable around my neck. My entire life flashed past me in a few seconds.... "Please ...." I heard a voice pleading... "Please try this cable in your system and see how it sounds ...." What?!!! It took my a few seconds to realize, it wasn't my own voice pleading for my life ... and another few seconds to recognize the face that was Santosh's.
hyeah: My fear turned to joy. :yahoo: This wasn't it!! I was free to live!! :clapping:!! I picked myself up mumbling something like I must have stumbled over the doormat or something, brushing some imaginary dirt off my dress. Then to be sure, I peered from the terrace just to confirm it was Hyundai i10 parked downstairs and not a Buffalo he rode to my place (like Yamaraj hyeah. After some mutual pleasantries, we sat down to audition the system together. starting with his favorite tracks of Dire Straits and some other favorites of mine.
A difference was audible - the bass and kick drums was tighter, the flute had more air ... and I liked the way the violin sounded - a little more direct and appealing to my emotions. On the whole the system seemed to acquire a little more snappy sounding energy, musicality and liveliness with a hint of better control. There was no doubt in my mind that the system performance was now slightly elevated.
We also tried the Emotiva ICs he got. In fact we swapped our cables and I have them for a few weeks now. You know what? I prefer these pure copper cables over my silver-coated Nordost blue-heavens. In fact, I will buy a few pairs @18$ and be done with it. It is quiet possible, I will Never buy a $200+ cable again. So far with a few hours of listening, it is very satisfying in the way it sounds on my setup. And I particularly like the different tone of a pure copper versus silver coated copper. (I use solid silver from pre-to power, so maybe its overkill).
On that Note, Saikat also visited my place last weekend with half-a-dozen ICs. We tried VDH 102, SrtraighWire Symphony, his monstrous ICs, some Japaneses ones as well. The VDH makes a great offering for fatiguing treble dominated systems - it brought out the midrange very well at the slight expense of frequency extremes. The StraightWire sounded most energetic with best frequency extension. The monsters and the rest were not too bad very close in SQ - in fact I kinda came to the conclusion that my preamp had so well matched its input and output impedance to the rest of the chain, that my setup is now somewhat immune to IC changes - not completely though. Caveat being all cables were give a one song listening test for 5 mins each. But somehow I am certain over the long-term monster ICs may not satisfy.
After Sanotsh left, I put back the DAC speaker cable to listen to the differences. Hmmm now here is the catch - does it sounds worse than the Chord? The DAC is not a bad cable at all and it does not sound worse, only the Chord SS sounds better!!!
hyeah: I mean to say I can live with it until my shipment of the Chord arrives, without apologizing to anyone in the interim about poor SQ. the Chord has that extra audiophile thingie and for GBP24 for a 2m pair, it adds real VFM audiophile quality to the sound as compared to $$$ cables. For the HFV newbie, my setup is maratnz CD6002>GroundedGrid preamp (chinese clone) with mullard 12AU7s (blackburn) and a Shugang in the mix for the common stage > NADE 325 power section > Audire Callisto BS (not bullSh!t) using fostex 166E.
@ENTSurgeon, I apologize if I hijacked your thread. I will request the mods to move it to another one if this distracts from your purpose for this thread.
Cheers
Last edited:
ajay124
Well-Known Member
@gobble
Been out of town and away from a computer for a couple of days.Glad that you liked the Silverscreen.Although,I am not familiar with your setup,I feel that as you gradually upgrade source/amp/speakers this cable still has enough hidden potential to move on to the next level.The difference between Dac and Silverscreen is not small.It is Enormous!
So if you are on a tight budget like most people,then the Silverscreen could see you through the next couple of upgrades.For the IC you could consider the Chord Crimson(after another 'fairy angel' audition) and some 100/-each kindda banana plugs or spades -anything which provides a firm contact.
Would like to have your impressions on the Chord after 50 + hours of listenin'.
*Also try to audition a Cyrus 8VS2 or an Arcam A18 with your cdp and speakers.
Been out of town and away from a computer for a couple of days.Glad that you liked the Silverscreen.Although,I am not familiar with your setup,I feel that as you gradually upgrade source/amp/speakers this cable still has enough hidden potential to move on to the next level.The difference between Dac and Silverscreen is not small.It is Enormous!
So if you are on a tight budget like most people,then the Silverscreen could see you through the next couple of upgrades.For the IC you could consider the Chord Crimson(after another 'fairy angel' audition) and some 100/-each kindda banana plugs or spades -anything which provides a firm contact.
Would like to have your impressions on the Chord after 50 + hours of listenin'.
*Also try to audition a Cyrus 8VS2 or an Arcam A18 with your cdp and speakers.
Last edited:
CLEARCUT
Active Member
Of course there may be a change in quality with quality products and acoustics. But for for max 5 to 10% improvement we have to pay 100 or 200% more. Thats true. Hearing is believing.
Exactly why I was thrilled at the comparative pricing of the chord SS cables. The original MRP works out to less than 2k INR not including shipping ...
Gobble, new deal from monster the yamraaj?
The cable was a belden with canare connectors! I do have a monster and it is worse than the belden at 2.5x the price. Wharfedale Linton Heritage Speakers in Walnut finish at a Special Offer Price. BUY now before the price increase.
