Hi all,
Just wanted to post my personal experience so far with FTA's new flagship USB cable, the Sinope. This continues the convention of Jovian naming, Sinope being another one of Jupiter/Zeus' love interests. From NASA's site: "Sinope was named for a nymph who outsmarted a smitten Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter). Hoping to win her favor, he offered her anything she wanted and she replied that what she wanted was to remain a virgin. Sinope outsmarted Apollo in the same way."
I have been a long time user of FTA's Callisto USB cables for the last 2+ years, which I had two of. I prized the Callistos for their natural and musical presentation which is the top priority for me, over soundstaging and infinite detail. The Callistos were superior to all other USB cables I have tried in my system previously to my ears, with a very balanced presentation without undue emphasis or highlighting of any particular aspect of music, while being extremely musical.
These went between my older setup, a SOTM "trifecta" with NUC and USB regenerator as well as in my current setup where I only need one cable, between my Taiko Extreme server and my Lampizator Pacific DAC.
Several months ago I was asked to audition an unnamed beta USB cable from FTA. I did some extensive comparisons between it and my then-reference, the Callistos. I was extremely impressed on how Zoran has managed to substantially improve on the brilliant Callisto. From my recollections of the beta a few months ago, the new cable dug deeper into the ambience of the venue, with improvements in realism of voices and strings over the already amazing Callisto. Musicality and emotional quotient took a step forward as well. The one part that I felt was a minimal regression from the Callisto (for the beta cable only) was a slight flattening of the soundstage compared to the Callisto, even though the acoustic images were more "real". Note that for whatever reason, this slight regression in the soundstage was NOT present on the production cable that I received recently.
This was enough for me to jump in an order one from FTA"s North America distributor, @LampiNA Fred Ainsley. I should also note as usual, exemplary service from both Fred and @Golum who I understand is the worldwide distributor of FTA in response to some logistic issues with getting the Sinope!
The final/production version has now been burning in for about 5 days which is probably still insufficient to reach its full potential. The production version has some differences from the beta version, which may be solely external. A new outer cladding is visually compelling, with somewhat more weighty connectors (but not extremely so) at each of the USB ends.
At this point, I can confidently say that the production cable is better than my old reference Callistos in every way. The Callistos are still amazing and at their price point a huge value, but the Sinope gets more out of my system without question.
Instead of breaking things down into individual components, I like to judge any change in my system with how much I end up getting "sucked" into the music. Often, I will insert a new component and marvel at some particular aspect that has been highlighted "ooh, look at how holographic the soundstaging is!" but end up switching tracks frequently to marvel at the "hifi trick". The Sinope did not do that. What it did was suck me into whatever random piece I started, even if it was not my usual preferred musical genre, which is the best testament to its powers of flow and musicality compared to other cables I have used. This is not to say it does not do all the usual hifi stuff. I do stop and marvel at the solidity and realism of the sonic images, and at the jump and rhythm imparted by the Sinope, but mostly it just makes me want to keep listening to the music and not the sound.
Just wanted to post my personal experience so far with FTA's new flagship USB cable, the Sinope. This continues the convention of Jovian naming, Sinope being another one of Jupiter/Zeus' love interests. From NASA's site: "Sinope was named for a nymph who outsmarted a smitten Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter). Hoping to win her favor, he offered her anything she wanted and she replied that what she wanted was to remain a virgin. Sinope outsmarted Apollo in the same way."
I have been a long time user of FTA's Callisto USB cables for the last 2+ years, which I had two of. I prized the Callistos for their natural and musical presentation which is the top priority for me, over soundstaging and infinite detail. The Callistos were superior to all other USB cables I have tried in my system previously to my ears, with a very balanced presentation without undue emphasis or highlighting of any particular aspect of music, while being extremely musical.
These went between my older setup, a SOTM "trifecta" with NUC and USB regenerator as well as in my current setup where I only need one cable, between my Taiko Extreme server and my Lampizator Pacific DAC.
Several months ago I was asked to audition an unnamed beta USB cable from FTA. I did some extensive comparisons between it and my then-reference, the Callistos. I was extremely impressed on how Zoran has managed to substantially improve on the brilliant Callisto. From my recollections of the beta a few months ago, the new cable dug deeper into the ambience of the venue, with improvements in realism of voices and strings over the already amazing Callisto. Musicality and emotional quotient took a step forward as well. The one part that I felt was a minimal regression from the Callisto (for the beta cable only) was a slight flattening of the soundstage compared to the Callisto, even though the acoustic images were more "real". Note that for whatever reason, this slight regression in the soundstage was NOT present on the production cable that I received recently.
This was enough for me to jump in an order one from FTA"s North America distributor, @LampiNA Fred Ainsley. I should also note as usual, exemplary service from both Fred and @Golum who I understand is the worldwide distributor of FTA in response to some logistic issues with getting the Sinope!
The final/production version has now been burning in for about 5 days which is probably still insufficient to reach its full potential. The production version has some differences from the beta version, which may be solely external. A new outer cladding is visually compelling, with somewhat more weighty connectors (but not extremely so) at each of the USB ends.
At this point, I can confidently say that the production cable is better than my old reference Callistos in every way. The Callistos are still amazing and at their price point a huge value, but the Sinope gets more out of my system without question.
Instead of breaking things down into individual components, I like to judge any change in my system with how much I end up getting "sucked" into the music. Often, I will insert a new component and marvel at some particular aspect that has been highlighted "ooh, look at how holographic the soundstaging is!" but end up switching tracks frequently to marvel at the "hifi trick". The Sinope did not do that. What it did was suck me into whatever random piece I started, even if it was not my usual preferred musical genre, which is the best testament to its powers of flow and musicality compared to other cables I have used. This is not to say it does not do all the usual hifi stuff. I do stop and marvel at the solidity and realism of the sonic images, and at the jump and rhythm imparted by the Sinope, but mostly it just makes me want to keep listening to the music and not the sound.
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