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Transparent , Kubala , Luminous , or RS Poiema

Hi everyone. I am looking to potentially recable my whole system and would love to hear your thoughts on the following cables for interconnects, speaker wire, and digital cables...

Transparent
Kubala-Sosna
Luminous
Ridge Street Audio Poiema!!

My current gear is the following...
Ayre V-3 amp
Krell Showcase Pre/Pro
Vandersteen 2Ce Signatures and VCC-1 Center Channel
Cardas Golden Cross I/C and Digital Lightning 15
Alpha Core MI 2 Speaker Cable

I have heard the Transparent Ultra and Premium digital cable and think they are quite good, but they are very expensive and I have seen glowing reviews on the other cables as well. I am prepared to pay if necessary, but would prefer not to if I can find something comparable at a cheaper price. I know that cables are person and/or system specific and am going to try to audition each, but wanted to hear other thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of each. Please advise...
kmiller5
psychicanimal
1,738 posts
 
I heard of a Valhalla/Kubala/Poiema shootout last summer under very controlled circumstances. That natural insulation does have very strong merits is all I'm going to say...

With psychic power and primal intensity,
kmiller5 OP
86 posts
 
I would like to update a comment that I made previously on this board. Due to the posts on the board, I reauditioned the Kubala line. I would like to retract my previous statement. These cables are quite good and are definitely at the top of the pile. I don't know if there was a defect in the cables I heard before or if there was some other problem, but the results were quite different the second time around. In fact, I am seriously considering the Kubala line for my current system. At this point I've narrowed the field to Kubala, Pranawire, and Synergistic. If anyone can comment on the Emotion vs the Deva vs the Designers' Reference X2 I would love to hear.
dougd1015
7 posts
 
Virtual Dynamics.
henryhk
648 posts
 
I had been using Kharma's Supreme Ref, one notch below the Grand Ref series for both interconnect btwn my DCC2 (used as a DAC only now) and DartZeel Pre as well as for speaker cable. I recently purchased Stealth's Indra for the interconnect and the change was simply stunning. Have tried various cables and they all differ or better on in regard or the other...more about taste. But the Indra, at least to me, is entirely different. The soundstage simply explodes and speakers completely disappear. Resolution, frequency extension in both directions et al are top quiality but its uncanny ability to make your speakers disappear that is truly surprising and attractive. Never thought an interconnect would make so much change.
dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
Not much mentioned here about systems or setups in detail, nor music used. Are any of you guys concert goers? How far apart are your speakers? How close do you sit? What kind of front end? Balanced or single ended? Have you owned a vast assortment of gear and cables? Do you know what real instruments sound like...or is a carly simon box set the new reference standard for critical listening? The best stuff requires proper setup and system synergy to shine...sometimes a cable can be horribly bad and yet make a mal-adjusted system sound alot better. My experience has found that nothing can beat a well tuned system that utilizes networked cables, but they must be the right cable for the job. The problem is most people haven't the foggiest idea of what a live unamplified band sounds like sans processing. Anyone have a new world records disc?...I thought not.
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