I'm now a couple of days into my Minimus Copper versus Minimus Silver comparison (Eartha Konstantin throughout) and I have to say I am stunned and befuddled (befiddled?) to say the least. And the reason is simple: Having already used the Minimus Copper for three weeks, I was simply expecting that (a) the Minimus Silver would simply be "more" of the Minimus Copper and (b) any differences between the two boxes would be fairly subtle, perhaps barely even audible to me. After all, it is the same cable, the same connection point - everything is exactly the same - except we know the Silver version apparently has some silver in it
But boy, was I wrong! Not only is the difference between the Minimus Copper and Minimus Silver a profound one - but they are not even remotely the same in terms of sonic character. If any of you are old-school violinists (or old school at heart), the differences between the Copper and Silver are exactly like the differences between a Pirastro Eudoxa violin string (Minimus Copper) and a Pirastro Olive violin string (Minimus Silver). The relative price differences are the same and the sonic differences are exactly the same too! What does this mean if you are not a violinist? In a nutshell it means that the Minimus Copper has a smoother, more polite, less gutsy sound but with a bit of midrange glare or emphasis, whereas the Minimus Silver really lays it on the line - it's a bit more earthy, gritty, detailed, three-dimensional with a more integrated sounding midrange and simply packs more sonic punch with a more accurate texture rendition. Or I could even draw a comparison with classic microphones: the Minimus Copper is the U47 and the Minimus Silver is the M50. It's particularly noticeable with large scale orchestral works. The Minimus Silver makes this sort of music sound noticeably more effortless - it's exactly like you'd moved to a much bigger amp that gave you 3 dB more of RMS headroom. Not only is it more effortless, but cymbal crashes in particular are definitely much more realistic sounding than with the Minimus Copper. But all of this does come at a price - the extra detail and texture come at a slight price to smoothness and politeness - something that the inoffensive-all-round Minimus Copper excels at.
If I am being pedantic to the point of saying which of the two is more "accurate" then yes, I would have to give it to the Silver. The reason is that when I tested both the Copper and Silver on my audio workstation, I made a recording from a 24 bit source and compared the two outputs (Copper and Silver) to that original source. The Silver was closer to the original source than the Copper. And the differences in the character of the output files were the same as what I have described earlier.
But when it comes to actually putting the boxes to work in a system, such as my headphone setup with Fostex TH600 headphones, Musical Fidelity M1 amplifier, Rega Apollo-R CD player, Gigawatt PF1 power strip and Audioquest / Wireworld cabling, the results were much less predictable than merely saying that two Silvers work best. In actual fact, the first time I connected the Silver in lieu of the Copper to the amplifier, I was disappointed. It shifted the character of the sound in a direction that I did not like. I then went back to the Copper and was happy again. Then I tried connecting the Silver to the CD player. That was a lot better! It was the same result that I achieved on my workstation - the Silver is happier when working in the "digital" domain and the Copper happy in the "analogue" domain.
Of course, you'd think that if the Silver is technically more accurate, then you could just bombard the system with Entreq Silver all round. But the problem is that every system and every recording has shortcomings (even the very best) and therefore the Entreq will either help tune them out, compliment them or - as a worst case - possibly even make them worse. That is what happened with my early tests - the Silver simply added more of the type of "character" my setup already had to begin with and sonically it just went too far and was not as enjoyable to listen to. But the totally different character of the Copper box complimented the system perfectly. On the workstation it was different because there I always want my "output" to match the input as closely as possible, so Silver is best there - it is "truer" to the source than the Copper is. And the Silver seems to like being connected to the SPDIF output on the CD player as well, even though I obviously do not use the digital connections for playback, using instead the DAC built into the player.
The bottom line - at least in my experience - is that you just have to completely forget about the cost of the components and cables in the Entreq range and also be prepared to do mixing and matching - for example, using different types of boxes at different points rather than simply decide to use the same type throughout. Effectively they become another tuning device. Two of the thirty test tracks I have been listening to actually sound better if I use Copper all round. But the other 28 sound better if the Silver works in the digital domain whilst the Copper in the analogue domain.
I suppose it is possible that you have an amazing, almost perfectly transparent system and always listen to the most amazing recordings ever made, you'd tune the system with the very best Entreq boxes and cables. But remember that I'm reporting at the relative "budget" end of things where a total system won't cost more than a new Toyota Corolla. Such systems are always going to be more compromised than the really high end stuff.
I'll just throw one more spanner into the works here: The Silver box is proving to be more successful more of the time when listening to either true analogue material or true 24 bit material (as opposed to say, a redbook standard CD). The Copper box is great too in these cases but the Silver just seems to be much more in it's element here and true to the source. But when stuck in a 16 bit domain, the Copper seems to shine -at least when you are talking about connecting these boxes and cables to "analogue" grounding points. Whether this is some sort of esoteric relationship between lowered noise floors and 16 bit limitations I cannot really say, but I thought it an interesting observation to report. This is even consistent if I reduce the word length of my 24 bit material to 16 bit, dithering using one of the very best dithers on the market - PSP X-Dither. Same thing. Once in the 16 bit domain, the Copper seemed to produce a more pleasing result when used in the "analogue" domain.
One thing is for certain when it comes to Entreq. You can experiment and mix and match and try combinations endlessly until you die of old age. Or you can just say to yourself, geez, I could be here forever trying to achieve my vision of tuning perfection and nothing works perfectly 100% of the time anyway, so I'll use the combination that I think I can live with day in and day out and that does not do anything obviously offensive. I guess that when you are using Entreq boxes and cables, it is like looking at your just-cleaned kitchen under a microscope. It might look great to the naked eye but are you really prepared for your cleaning job to come under microscopic scrutiny? Well, you'd better make sure everything else is really sorted to within an inch of it's life first, otherwise the Entreq gear could send you off onto a wayward tangent and you'll be left floundering!
