Sakura Systems OTA Cable Kit

Sorry for keeping out of discussion for so long, been quite busy lately. Hope everyone is doing fine?

Bwhite: Why the sarcasm? So, you have some expensive amps, do we need to establish you as a god or something? Don't take it personally, Ivo did not mean to offend you, he's too nice a guy for that. Besides, you better should hear his setup before jumping on... I am sure you would get an idea or two about setup sinergy after hearing it.

Nobody said OTA is the best cable in the Universe and it is quite normal that there may be setups in which other cables may work better or better suit owners preferences. Even if look at the NBS line, there are some cheaper models that suit some very expensive setups better than the Statement.

I find quite odd the remark you made: "It seems a little too fast to be accurate...". The way I see it, there is no such thing as too fast, only what I've seen so many times is too slow. But, I can accept that slower cables may appeal to certain audiophiles. For me, faster is more accurate as it enables better reproduction of high order harmonics. If that is achived over the complete audible freq. range and not to introduce the time domain smear in ref .to the freq. range through the variance in impedance, then it is a full score.

Slawney: looking forward seeing you in Frankfurt. I am coming on May 7th. You know the hotel we are staying at.

Dekay: I wish you the fast return to work and let us know how long run of OTA works. I wouldn't be overly optimistic but then, it may work... Haven't tried it as I keep runs always as short as possible, longest I tried was 3m but that was in the show. Normally, I use 2m for speakers and rarely longer IC than 0.7m.

Asa: ... nothing for you this time... I see you are quite happy not everyone like the cable you haven't even heard (which, of course didn't prevent you from disqualifying it automatically). I always like to see people happy. :-)

To all those who like and use OTA: Try to keep the cables off the floor, in the air. You may use fishing line or some cable elevators. No need for fancy stuff, just something non-metallic to keep the cable in the air. Fishing line is even better, hung from the ceiling, gets closer to the real air floating which would be the ideal position for OTA (as for any other cable).

To those who doesn't like OTA: cheer up, it is not the end of the world.

Cheers,
Sead

Sead - I am actually quite offended by YOUR comment and less offended by Ivo's.

Bwhite, asa, sead. I have corresponded with all three of you by e-mail, bought equipment from two of you, and know for certain that you ALL are extremely gentlemanly, highly experienced audiophiles. Why is it that you are so prickly towards one another? Is it the anonymous aspect of the internet? I can't help but feel that the three of you would get along quite well in person. Sead knows that Asa patiently sold me his old NBS Statements--with the best advice about them that I have ever heard. But does Asa know that Sead, travelling from Sarajevo to Frankfurt, personally delivered my 47 Labs PhonoCube? It seems we are getting to the stage in this forum where people are stating conclusions about A/B tests between OTA and CABLE X. This inevitably involves a high degree of personal judgement and taste, which can give rise to some difficult argumentation. In addition, some of us are running OTA with 47 Labs equipment (a totally synergetic application), and some not. There also seems to be other personal factors related to our exchanges. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems Asa personally influenced Bwhite to buy AN and NBS cables, and thus Asa has a personal interest in Bwhite liking NBS and AN cables: after all, they did cost Bwhite alot. If Bwhite liked OTA better, then buying expensive NBS and AN Kondo cables would have been a mistake. Even though I was interested in NBS cables before I contacted him, Asa would probably like me to be satisfied with his old NBS Statements. And then there is sead, who sold me two full OTA Kits, who probably wants me to like them as much as he likes them. What a strange interlacing of interests. Added to this, people who love 47 Labs equipment tend to have a certain sonic bias, sometimes severely opposed to the generic (e.g. Krell) high end sound, so that their opinions will be opposed to this sector. I take it that ivo is one of these. Please forgive me if I have got this all wrong. Just an effort at diplomacy.

Yes, Slawney, I'll correct you.

1. Where do you get off insinuating that I "personally" got someone to buy cable and now have some kind of vested "personal" interest that they keep them? You'd better read this stuff again because you are thinking too much. I like you so I'll chalk it up to quick fingers on keys and not enough self-reflection. The next time you insinuate that someone "influenced" someone else, the insinuation being that there was something subtlely nefarious in the motivation, you'd better think twice. Frankly, its an off-handed swipe at Bwhite that somehow he can't make his own decisions - which he can.

2. Sead (all the way back in November...) wouldn't honestly engage on a dialogue - failing to offer arguments for his positions while criticizing others' positions and finally resorting to the childishness of calling me names - and I called him out on it. He chose, evidently, to quiet-up and I let it go. What I don't get is your riding to his defense, mistakenly and months later (because, if you look, I haven't said anything to him since then, even ignoring his 4-29-02 swipe).

To wit: anyone who reads Sead's 4-29-02 comment above can readily discern his flippancy and to claim differently is, well...You know what really gets me about this? Inauthentic chimers-in who start off a post with a bunch of statements about how nice everyone is - establishing how nice they are - and then proceed to deride (Sead insinuating that Bwhite is trying to posture himself as an audio "God") and mischaracterize (saying that I "disqualified automatically" OTA - a complete lie) to others detriment and then end it all with a "cheers" (Sead's MO), or some other self-serving smarm thats supposed to make it all sweet again. And now a further mischaracterization from you, Slawney, that Sead did not commit these, um, "errors", and that he's just so-so misunderstood. Maybe Sead is alright in a deal, or over the phone, or shooting the audio bull one-on-one, but so far, he has a penchant of popping into discussions with an inauthentic sweet tone masking an actual derision.

3. No one is stating "conclusions", just opinions, and the thread is just fine. Where you've perceived the circumstance that's its getting out of hand - as in, insinuating that an opinion becomes a "conclusion" when, allegedly, offered to shut someone else up - perhaps has more to do with your desire to defend Sead, assumably, than the tone of this dialogue presently.

4. As much as we would all like to maintain out egalitarian self-delusions, ears are not equal and opinion is not radically subjective; in context, some opinion is more true than others. But dialogue works fine when everyone offers theirs' authentically, as an adult, and is willing to state why and how they arrived at that opinion. I'm soooo tired of hearing on these threads people who evidentally have a strong sense of opinion on the gear they like - which, Slawney, I know you do - to then at some juncture say that all opinions are equal, as if, by offering this observation, they are settling down a class of schoolchildren (and they the lone adult seeing from on high the foibles of others). There is a difference between the democratic notion that all have equal access to voice opinion and the fact that some opinion is better than another - all displines of knowledge depend on it. Yes, I know that opinion in audio is system-dependant, but that does not reduce all opinion into an undifferentiated morase of, er, "equality". Why people who obviously have a strong opinion feel compelled to at some point trot out a position that then claims all opinion is equal is beyond me. It does always seem to happen though when someone is being "diplomatic".

Slawney, in the future, let Sead defend his own "errors"; you get caught up in them when you try. Oh, and the next time you are wondering if, in fact, I "influenced" someone, you have my personal e-mail address. Just ask me.

Er, cheers,

Mark (Asa)

Whoa! While I would have enjoyed giving Sead a piece of my mind after reading his post, I felt that my unabridged response to him wasn't appropriate for this forum. I restrained and thus settled on simply letting him know that I was offended by his remark.

Sead has been an informative contributor to this forum over the past 9 months, however he has been rather defensive in situations regarding those who post comparisons - or in the case of Asa - who simply suggested that other manufacturers have been very successful with small gague wire. Sead's flippant attitude toward Asa ever since he drew that parallel between thin gague OTA and thin gague Kondo has been totally unfair and completely without merit.

The fact that Sead is a dealer for OTA should also be mentioned and may help to clarify his interest in this product.

Ivo (whoever HE is) posted as an unregistered Audiogon user and we all know how much credibility those folks have. It seems that Sead is the only one here who knows Ivo. Interesting.