It’s been over a year since I updated my system notes. When I look back over that period I think I made some significant changes to the system and thought I would describe here.
I’d like to share with you five changes that have been incorporated into the system since I acquired the Spectral 400 amplifiers. Each has imparted relative benefits that continue to inspire me as a hobbyist and music lover.
Let’s begin with the conversion of cabling to MIT from Nordost Valhalla. As everyone knows, the Spectral gear requires the use of MIT cabling. Although I was initially compelled to acquire some pieces of MIT cables as a result of acquiring the Spectral amps, (i.e, interconnects to and speaker cables from the amps) I have since relinquished virtually all of my Nordost Valhalla cabling and the system is now entirely wired with MIT (MA-X and Matrix 60 interconnects), as well as Oracle Matrix HD90 Rev 1 speaker wire to the Pipedream towers. (A single pair of Nordost Valhalla interconnects are still used to drive the Gotham subwoofers and I’m in no rush to replace them). The benefits of moving all but completely to MIT from Nordost throughout the system were sonically significant and easily heard. The motivation for doing the complete change occurred after I made the initial cable change to MIT as necessitated by the addition of the Spectral amps. Only then did I realize by its absence, a slight reduction of upper mid-range grain that was present with the Nordost cables that I was using. I reasoned that if this grain diminished significantly with the conversion of a single pair of MIT interconnect/speaker cables, then further replacement of all my Valhalla interconnects might be even further rewarding. Indeed, as more MIT cabling was gradually substituted for Valhalla, this attribute (less grain) further increased. In summary, the MIT gear brought a new level of naturalness and ease of listening, unaccompanied by the subtle grain I now associate with Nordost Valhalla only in retrospect. I was certainly pleased by the Nordost products I used over most of the past decade but honestly, was surprised that I found a product I liked significantly more.
The second round of enhancements occurred as I continued to drink more of the Shunyata Kool-Aid. Currently, I have a Triton/Typhon powering the front end with an Alpha HC from wall to Triton; an Alpha HC umbilical connecting the Triton to the Typhon; and a Zitron Anaconda from Triton to the VTL 7.5 III preamp. The newest change commenced in December replacing two Zitron Alpha digital ACs with two the latest Sigma digital equivalents. These powered the Meitner XDS1 rev2 and modified TacT 2.2XP crossover/DSP unit respectively. The Spectral amps each run directly to their dedicated 40Amp wall circuits via Zitron Alpha HC AC cables.
As is my custom, substitutions are generally made one product at a time, and for that reason, I have not provided a final assessment on the addition of the two Sigma digital AC cords since this is a rather long and tedious evaluation process due to the extensive break-in time of the Shunyata digital cables. I have now broken in four of these babies; 2 Alpha digitals and 2 Sigma digitals and there are remarkable similarities in the break-in curve among them. To begin, the best chance you will get to hear what these cables will ultimately do occurs at the 24-hour mark. That does not mean you will hear the final results, but rather, you can get a sense of the potential benefits in store. This observation speaks to a comment once made by the venerable HP who said that it was easy for him to tell a great product right out of the box, although there are certainly refinements that occur with break-in.
For those that are taking the trip for the first time, the most impressive change one can hear immediately is the significant disappearance of digital artifact. Things sound quieter, smoother, and frankly, less fatiguing. If the cable did nothing else, this is their main attribute and it’s a hell of an impressive one. At 48 hours, things begin to sour and at 4 days, your first thought should be “what the hell have I done?” The appearance of grit and grain in the low treble (4K) is not only annoying, but you will be convinced that nothing short of an exorcism will remove this anomaly. Welcome to 12 days of hell. I would highly encourage you to go on vacation during that time. Go fishing, go skiing, go work in a food kitchen or go watch the last play of the Super Bowl 500 more times. But whatever you do, try not to listen to your system during that time. It will only be an exercise in frustration. To make matters worse, on day 16, the bass becomes so sluggish that you might be tempted to substitute molasses for the cables, so certain are you that nothing can make the sound arrive any slower than it does.
And then, an epiphany! I have experienced this on 4 separate occasions and I found it shocking how reproducibly it occurred. On day 17, the heavens open up and the sibilants sound cleaner than ever before, and most dramatically, the bass comes “in” all its glory. From this point on, things just get better and better through day 21. At that point, the sound stage increases in width until its maximum potential is achieved and you finally sense the result was well worth waiting for as painful as it may have been. The other sonic clue that break-in is complete is when you get a new sense of increased palpability from the midrange that was not there previously. On day 24, the transformation is all but complete. Of course, this phenomenon of events may be unique to my system, and YMMV. However, I suspect I am not alone here. The take away point here is that I encourage you not to form a hard and fast opinion on any of the Shunyata digital PCs for about a month. And now you know the reason I was not prepared to comment on the sonic benefits of adding these cables (one at a time) to my system for 2 months.
Although I loved the Alpha digitals, the Sigma digitals are something else again even though the family similarity is obvious. The changes I noticed by substituting the Sigma digitals for the Alpha digitals can be heard in 3 main areas. The first is the bass. I have commented previously that that the change in bass is both qualitative and quantitative with the Sigma digital. Most folks will easily notice that the quality of their bass response is improved. Transient attack is quicker and decay is quicker. This nets out to “better base” in the usual perceived way. I do believe the effect on bass levels is such that there is a very small increase in bass volume from 20Hz- 50Hz in the range of 0.25dB. As mentioned previously, this will likely be considered a blip on anyone’s real room low frequency response curve, but it is nevertheless real, at least in my hands since I have a DSP tool to play with which allows me to make very fine volume comparisons. (That does not mean I understand this one bit as I am perplexed how it is even conceivable that wires can impart an apparent change of gain, so I’ll just shake my head on this issue and move on. I suspect this is somehow related to lowering the noise floor of the system by the use of the Sigma cable and leave it at that.)
The second area of improvement with the Sigma digitals is the increased resolution of “air” in my system. I have an acceptably wide sound stage but like most good performing systems, the best resolution of depth occurs in the middle of the sound stage. I find it tougher to discriminate sound stage depth at the extremes of the soundstage. However, with the Sigmas, I believe the ability to identify the back of the orchestral stage is easier as the stage widens compared to the Alphas, and it is the top end reproduction of “air” that I attribute to for being able to discern this effect.
Finally, and perhaps most enticingly, the midrange increases to new level of “palpability” with the Sigma digital that I have not known previously. We could have a long discussion about what I am calling “palpability”, but I think a simple explanation for what I am hearing and it is this: it is the result of hearing singers or instruments in foreground that I have heard previously but on a quieter background so the sound field stands out in greater relieve than the background from which it emanates. To me, that is the hallmark of the Shunyata experience and the property that seems to be consistently found among Shunyata products, which make it unique. This makes some sense to me as it is the beneficial reduction of noise that seems to be Shunyata’s calling card and underlies the rationale for the use of the filters Caelin uses in his gear.
Since the reduction of noise, digital or otherwise, seems to be a hallmark of Shunyata gear, without any associated detriments such as loss of dynamics or changes in instrument timbre, I’m going to go out on a limb here and express my thoughts as to the Shunyata products that have impressed me the most in this regard and are therefore the Shunyata products that I’d take to a desert island, so to speak.
Absolute “must-have” Shunyata products:
1) Typhon
2) Sigma digital cable
3) Anaconda digital cable (AES or SPDIF)
These products all exemplify the maximal expression of the single feature I remarked on earlier that I find so compelling; they increase the “palpability” of the music. In my experience, a lot of things can make music background quieter but they do not, in my experience, make the appearance of the musical field come ever so slightly but perceptively forward from between the plane of the speakers in a way that seems to increase their palpability in the room the way these products do. Moreover, each does it in its own way. Much has been said about the Typhon is this regard those comments do need not be repeated here. It is in some ways the most unique product Shunyata makes and I believe I have heard Caelin quoted as saying exactly that. To paraphrase: “nothing else does what a Typhon can do”. Damned if I know what the hell that flooby dust does inside the unit. But I’ll take two please. (Wish I could!) In a former comment made some time ago, I noticed the “palpability factor “property immediately in the revised Anaconda AES digital cable. As already discussed, I think the Sigma digital cable achieves this unique result as well.
I would like to make a comment that I hope is not taken the wrong way, but for those of you lamenting that the Sigma digital cable is beyond your financial grasp, please consider that the Alpha digital as a world-beater product that provides much of the same benefit as the Sigma for a far more affordable price. It may lack the last vestige of bass improvement or midrange palpability as the Sigma, but the overall improvement in banishing digital noise and artifact makes it a must-own product in its own right. In fact, if I had to say where in the Shunyata product line most people might derive the most benefit from drinking the Shunyata Kool-Aid, it would be the Alpha digital cable (if you own any digital gear). It is truly unique and offers more than a glimpse of what a fully Shunyatatized system can offer.
I’m delighted to report that the third change I made that let’s the system sing with its best voice to date, was dirt cheap! One of the greatest liabilities in my system has always been the integration of my Pipedream panels with my Gotham subwoofers. So, what else is new? Isn’t this the Holy Grail that escapes the grasp of almost anyone trying to blend midrange/treble towers with good subwoofers? I have always been frankly jealous and frankly pissed off when I listen to the beautiful linearity and seamlessness in the range of 80-200Hz so masterfully rendered in speakers such as the big Wilsons when I listen at Steve’s in SoCal or a Brian’s in DFW. Try as I might, I simply could never get there, until now! (OK, sort of.) I discovered a tool that has helped my bridge this area in a major way in the past few months, and that is the CD made by Granite Audio that I have discussed here:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...udio-Ultimate-Bass-CD&highlight=granite+audio
Of course, one has to have the capabilities of fine amplitude adjustment to realize the full potential of using the Granite CD, but fortunately, I have DSP capability so this simple tool really earned its keep. Am I there? Do I now have what I have coveted on the Alexandria’s, namely, a remarkably seamless bass to mid-bass conversion that is linear and darn impressive? The answer is: not quite, but the improvement has been extremely substantial whereby I lose less sleep than I used to perseverating about this critical but menacing area of sound reproduction.
The final two system improvements were also cheap ones. In fact, the first was free. Meitner recently announced a firmware change for their XDS1 Rev2 player that I installed to good effect. Call me crazy, but I am rather partial to the Meitner sound. I have found that their top end in particular, is simply more analog-like than many competitors. Lastly, I finally splurged big time and spent $129 on the Channel D Pure Music software package that allows me to play back my computer library selections from memory rather than from the HD itself. I’m a total novice in this space but to me, the improvement in sound seems a rather impressive accomplishment for such a small expense. And I can’t rave enough about the fact that complete phone support is always available for free! And it is with a real person! Even better, there is no need for a decoder ring to understand what is being said!
To summarize, I think my system has come a considerable distance over the past year or so. It has allowed me to enjoy music reproduction at home even more so than before and that of course, is the whole idea, right?
I’ve been fortunate to have some recent visitors make favorable comments, and that is always rewarding as a hobbyist:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-s-system-Analysis-Audio-etc&highlight=jersey
But the comment I found the funniest was when I hosted a long time friend who is a reserve trumpet player with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was foremost, very insightful as first he helped me nail the correct timbre of the trumpets with a little tweak of my DSP unit. (The difference in “warmth” when one adds 0.1dB at around 100Hz is noticeable and impressive) I then played him the LP of Reiner’s legendary Scheherazade (Living Stereo) and after a period of some silence he turned to me and said “Marty, Reiner never heard it this good”. We got a good laugh out of that but he was serious when he commented that as a player, nobody in the symphony typically appreciates the listener’s perspective from the hall. As a trumpet player, what he hears mostly are naturally the instruments nearest to him when he plays. He therefore found it very rewarding to hear good reproduction from the vantage point of a listener in the audience. Wow, I would never have expected that comment from a bonafide symphony player but of course, it makes sense!
So, what’s next? I must admit I’m quite content at the moment. Yes, there’s always something next. When I can swing it, there’s always the Sigma HC cables to consider, and perhaps a new Triton II or a Typhon for the power amps. But spring is right around the corner. Got to save those dollars now for rhododendrons and azaleas. I’m afraid the garden needs some serious work.
