Honesty From Sparks and Silence
Six weeks ago I was in audio nirvana. I had received my new piano black Vivid G3’s and was thrilled. I had aspired for the Wilson Alexia’s, but did not want to spend the money and loved my Martin Logan Montis with Shunyata Alpha Digital power cords. I had just finally broken in my Triton V2 and was simply thrilled. But when I had a chance to listen to the G3’s at some length at the Shunyata factory last April, something happened to me--- I heard a cohesiveness of drivers that I had never heard before that said “real” and “believable”. I was in audio love.
So what does one do when in audio love, you bestow jewels and gifts upon your loved one, which I did by buying the G3’s, buying a Shunyata Sigma HC PC for my Triton V2 to replace an Alpha HC and another Shunyata Sigma Analogue to replace a Zitron Anaconda, which I planned to move to my amp.
The G3’s are unlike any other speaker I have tried to voice and I was a total novice and figured it would take at least a month to get them somewhere close to right, especially with the upcoming addition of the two new power cords.
And then it happened---I moved one of the speakers with the amp on. This means nothing unless you have seen the speaker terminals on Giya’s. There is no room for anything, much less spades and jumpers for the four terminals. Below is a picture of the best I could do, which took 1 hour per channel. A disaster waiting to happen because there is not enough floor clearance for MIT spades.
One loud hum and smell of very expensive smoke and some arching and I was down. That was more than 6 weeks ago because Spectral is meticulous in everything they do and they do it at their own pace.
The amp returned yesterday, but in the process I changed my MIT speaker wire from HD 60 spades to MIT’s new line SL Matrix 90 biwire at considerable cost to insure no repeat of the previous experience and because allegedly with my new substantially better speakers, the upgrade would be instantly obvious and incredible after break-in, not to mention safer as seen below.
Today after very careful reconfiguration of just about everything due to the need to move my amp since the new speaker wires are 8 feet and not the 12 feet of my HD 60’s, which meant moving the Triton and Typhon so all of my expensive PC’s reach. So every connection had to reanneal.
So when I just powered up and sighed a huge breath of relief that I did nothing to the speakers when the amp blew and dodged sending them back to S. Africa for repair, I am now left trying to figure out what sounds what and how did my new investments pay off.
There cannot be any bias here because I am totally confused as to what is causing what other than I have music again. So my mishap is going to make me the most honest I have been with my system in a long time. I expect it will take at least a month for me to figure things out, but even then all I will know is if I like the net result.
It strikes me that this audio event is a weird example of audio paralleling life. Like my speaker, several weeks ago I tried to shift some relatedness in my long-term relationship with my girlfriend to what I thought would be better for both of us. She did not agree with my plan on the first day of our trip to improve our relationship and three copperhead snakes intervened and bit her (the real-life version of the spades shorting), sending her to the ICU and ultimately shutting down our relationship, as the Spectral shut down my system.
Of course there were problems with both scenarios, but there seems to be a motto or at least a lesson that applies to both---be careful with what you have because hasty changes could make things less good.
Six weeks ago I was in audio nirvana. I had received my new piano black Vivid G3’s and was thrilled. I had aspired for the Wilson Alexia’s, but did not want to spend the money and loved my Martin Logan Montis with Shunyata Alpha Digital power cords. I had just finally broken in my Triton V2 and was simply thrilled. But when I had a chance to listen to the G3’s at some length at the Shunyata factory last April, something happened to me--- I heard a cohesiveness of drivers that I had never heard before that said “real” and “believable”. I was in audio love.
So what does one do when in audio love, you bestow jewels and gifts upon your loved one, which I did by buying the G3’s, buying a Shunyata Sigma HC PC for my Triton V2 to replace an Alpha HC and another Shunyata Sigma Analogue to replace a Zitron Anaconda, which I planned to move to my amp.
The G3’s are unlike any other speaker I have tried to voice and I was a total novice and figured it would take at least a month to get them somewhere close to right, especially with the upcoming addition of the two new power cords.
And then it happened---I moved one of the speakers with the amp on. This means nothing unless you have seen the speaker terminals on Giya’s. There is no room for anything, much less spades and jumpers for the four terminals. Below is a picture of the best I could do, which took 1 hour per channel. A disaster waiting to happen because there is not enough floor clearance for MIT spades.
One loud hum and smell of very expensive smoke and some arching and I was down. That was more than 6 weeks ago because Spectral is meticulous in everything they do and they do it at their own pace.
The amp returned yesterday, but in the process I changed my MIT speaker wire from HD 60 spades to MIT’s new line SL Matrix 90 biwire at considerable cost to insure no repeat of the previous experience and because allegedly with my new substantially better speakers, the upgrade would be instantly obvious and incredible after break-in, not to mention safer as seen below.
Today after very careful reconfiguration of just about everything due to the need to move my amp since the new speaker wires are 8 feet and not the 12 feet of my HD 60’s, which meant moving the Triton and Typhon so all of my expensive PC’s reach. So every connection had to reanneal.
So when I just powered up and sighed a huge breath of relief that I did nothing to the speakers when the amp blew and dodged sending them back to S. Africa for repair, I am now left trying to figure out what sounds what and how did my new investments pay off.
There cannot be any bias here because I am totally confused as to what is causing what other than I have music again. So my mishap is going to make me the most honest I have been with my system in a long time. I expect it will take at least a month for me to figure things out, but even then all I will know is if I like the net result.
It strikes me that this audio event is a weird example of audio paralleling life. Like my speaker, several weeks ago I tried to shift some relatedness in my long-term relationship with my girlfriend to what I thought would be better for both of us. She did not agree with my plan on the first day of our trip to improve our relationship and three copperhead snakes intervened and bit her (the real-life version of the spades shorting), sending her to the ICU and ultimately shutting down our relationship, as the Spectral shut down my system.
Of course there were problems with both scenarios, but there seems to be a motto or at least a lesson that applies to both---be careful with what you have because hasty changes could make things less good.
Last edited:
