Innuos Phoenix USB cabling

I've been through a minor voyage of discovery with the before and after cabling of the Innuos Phoenix USB, and thought it worthwhile recording it in this post.  In particular the impact of the two cables when they're not the same.  It always felt intuitive to me that the cable AFTER the Phoenix would have the greatest impact, yet this Audio Bacon review claimed the opposite.

Like many on this digital thread, I've found that trying to get the balance between resolution and musicality the biggest challenge.  The former includes rhythm, dynamics, leading edges and transparency, while the latter encompasses darkness, warmth and timbre.  I think it's fair to say that most digital systems too easily fall into the former camp, and to too greater an extent.

Before I purchased the Phoenix I had auditioned a handful of USB cables.  Two stood out.  The Laboga Emerald is a wonderfully warm, musical yet slightly soft cable.  It's a cracker, if difficult to obtain.  The other being the FTA Sinope.  An incredibly resolving cable, with a rigid grip on a finely etched bass.  This is the cable I bought as my primary.

However, like everyone else here, I wanted more.  The Phoenix arrived and I marvelled at the move towards an analogue smoothness for female vocals, and an even better defined bass.  And all this with a hastily acquired Amazon Basics USB before it!

Having been impressed by the Supra Cat 8 Ethernet, I gave their newish Excalibur USB a punt in place of the Amazon, and saw an immediate improvement in resolution, but in time it became too much.  Too much harshness, sibilance.  Too fatiguing.

At this point I tried swapping the Sinope and Excalibur, but it was worse.  This experience, to my mind, already contradicted Audio Bacon's position. 

So, I decided to source the Emerald again, and put it before the Phoenix. This immediately bought a smoothing of the top end, without any loss of the resolution enabled by the Sinope.  An improvement for sure, but still a little way off my high resolving, dark, un-digital nirvana.

I then tried swapping the Emerald and the Sinope, and the character of the sound changed dramatically.  Now it was very warm, soft, analogue and musical.  Really, really lovely.  However, this was at the expense of rhythm, bass resolution and dynamics.  Clearly, the character of the cable after the Phoenix dominates.

I'm not saying the cable before the Phoenix has no impact, it does clearly affect the SQ and sound signature.  But, if I had to stick my finger in the air and put a number to it, I would estimate that the cable after the Phoenix is 80% of the overall cable impact. 

I think I'll revert to placing the Sinope after the Phoenix, and put the Laboga Ruby on my distant wish list.  Much as I'm enjoying the soft musicality of the post-Phoenix Emerald, I'm always conscious of what I'm missing out on.  And that final residue of brightness and sibilance I'm hoping can be addressed by the ethernet stage (etherRegen, optical etc), or perhaps a warmer speaker cable (eg Purist Poseidon)

Orbi satellite  =>  AQ Carbon  =>  Sotm ISOCAT7 => Innuos Zenith Mk3  =>  USB cable  =>   Innuos Phoenix USB  =>  USB cable  =>  Hegel H390  =>  TelluriumQ UltraBlack II  =>  ATC SCM40