Tom - "the most difficult thing to tell other people who haven't heard this kind of audio is that this is one of those rare born-again type of experiences"
The sound from these liquid cables is astounding, astonishing, delightful, makes me giddy. I'm listening to one of the old Ultra Lounge CD compilations of fifties-sixties instrumentals. The first thing I notice is that, even on a bad recording, if there's rhythm, it swings hard enough to blow the roof off! And that's even on my "polite" ProAcs with the coolness of the Boulder solid state amps. One has so much confidence in the TRUTH of the detail that there's no regret, no vain hope of tweaking to make it better. If the recording stinks, it's almost amusing, even pleasurable. The next thing I notice is how alluringly magical some of the big band orchestration comes through from cheesy little banjos and accordions to soaring trumpets. It is incredible how unique each band, each recording venue sounds. A huge palette of variety in sound, not homogenized. No set of pleasant euphonious audio tricks could reproduce such a wide range of distinctly, almost shockingly different musical mixes. I can also hear the living sentient human involvement and interaction between the musicians. I hear the musical lines the musicians are shooting for, and when they are dead centered on the groove of it and sharing the groove with the gang. I imagine the most difficult thing to tell other people who haven't heard this kind of audio is that this is one of those rare born-again type of experiences. A wonderful surprise to find that all kinds of real stuff is going on in recordings that we had no clue even existed. Not just a little more timbre. Not just a line of harmony you never noticed. A whole new dimension of audible reality that is rich and expressive. Some high-resolution sound seems to single out too many details. When a whole lot of new detail comes out, it's like jumping from black and white to color in 3D. When this happens, the extra details don't distract, they paint a bigger picture.
Igor - "As the song progressed there were gasps and head-shaking and wonderment from all of us"
We just snagged a pair of Canton speakers, so we wanted to hear them with some great amplification, so we hooked up a PP-150 amp. The cd player is a decent Rega with 8X oversampling. Music was better with the tube amp, but still harsh and closed in. We started with the Chinese Lite Audio AH and everyone agreed it was indeed more laid-back and natural, nice enough to listen to. The Romanian Rockna RD-3 was up next, it was still ok but different. We used the 1st track of a new cd from Shelly Lynne called "Just A Little Lovin'....it was produced by Doug Sax and was so well done, we didn't get tired of hearing it repeatedly.
Well, since I have been living with these 2 dacs for a good while, I decided to even the playing field and throw constant into the mix, the Liquid Cables. Just a pair from the dac output to the preamp. You could have knocked us over, we were almost speechless! The first thing that jumped out was the extra octave of bass! As the song progressed there were gasps and head-shaking and wonderment from all of us. It actually made one of the biggest differences I, and 2 others heard and completely agreed on, like getting much better speakers.
Martin - "Of all of the things that I have ever done or had done to my system those interconnects have made the most difference to the sound"
I think that of all of the things that I have ever done or had done to my system those interconnects have made the most difference to the sound. Being a vinyl guy first it had to go between the phonostage and the pre amp - that is the only logical place for it in my system, even as good as it sounded on the digital. After tweaking the cartridge gain settings it became clear to me (after you had left) that the sound with the Rhea set at 62dB (using the Calypso pre amp for more gain) blows away the 68dB setting and less gain. You might have a theory as to why that is.
My only criteria in these things is how does the music sound as you know, and it's just not close. In the week or so that I have had the pleasure of owning these cables, I have played album after album and been amazed at the sound. It's not that easy to describe but somehow there is a lot more detail without the music going "technical" if you know what I mean. The instruments sound more real, there is more "attack" and the depth/separation of the players could not be more apparent. Album after album became a new experience, even though I have played several those records many times over the years.
Mike - "so far I think your cables are damn good"
Your new cables sound louder and have a pretty kick ass midrange. The vocals which are laser sharp focused on mine seem to widen with yours I will need to do more listening. But so far I think these cables are damn good.