...Rower30 drank the Koolaid...
Hey Elizabeth, don't you hate it, though! A belief is what you think you know, knowledge is what you do. Early on (thirty years ago!) I had the knowledge as to how important cables might be and decided to re-affirm that knowledge as it was is so old that it becomes a belief system. So, you have to re-learn the ropes.
That said, with regards to interconnects and speaker wire, it does provide as much of a differene as any other component aside from speakers which tend to be a bunch different. Funny, speakers are all supposed to be "the same" but in reality are far, far from it. With interconnect and cables I sat down and easily heard the difference and, it pissed me off, initially. Why? I was wrong, that's why! After I got over that, and just listened, I was thrilled with what cables can do in my system. So if that's Koolaide, I'll drink up to what I can afford.
Almarg, yes, unbalanced is a "somewhat" different circuit as in true balanced equipment, the unbalanced side is half the balanced, and often of much higher quality as to the requirements of balanced electrical needs. So I guess it's super quality unbalanced with the XP-10 and MOON W-8! With unbalanced straight through, that's often not the case, corners can be cut for costs. Not always. So far I much prefer the soundstage of the XLR. It is DEEPER, more OPEN, and WIDE! Listen for ninety minutes with XLR, and RCA is hard to go back to with my system. I'll have to drag back a tyr2 RCA lead and use that to even-up the comparison since BOTH channels are now the same level of interconnect.
Xti16, yes, I listened to the OCTAVE integrated tube amp. It was far and awy the best tubes I've heard. too. But, my ear liked the MOON W-8. Remember, though, that the C4's are warmer than the C1's by nature. I listened to the C1's to a great extent auditioning amps. Dynaudio highs are pretty sweet and would be hard to totally get wrong compared to some other products, but the interconnects and speaker cables really bring out the openness and gets the music even more out of the box. The opposite is true, too, in that the C4's bring out the hard edgy sound using 1694A RG6 interconnects with compression cold welded gold RCA's. My speaker leads went form soft (1313A type) to hard, brighter and edgy (multiple pairs premise cable derived leads). 1604A RG6 is fantastic video cable, but for audio it is left behind by the current products in a big way that are audio specific. Likewise with interconnects, general XLR cable is not cutting it.
My now HEAVILY modified 1313A leads (no jackets and leads untwisted and separated 3.0" to virtually remove capacitance and mutual inductance...leaving only self inductance) are sounding pretty good. Good enough to let me attack all the interconnects, first. This "version" of 1313A is very sweet sounding (like tubes!) so it isn't obnoxious to live with. No, it isn't tyr2 cable! That said tyr2 cable is soft in the deep bass, maybe too soft. But I'll give the nod to everything above that, so they "win".
Cables are like buying another component, figure 5K or so...at least, once it's all done, on a budget. I'll buy as good a sound as I can afford. My first issue is pre to power amp as everything sees that cord. So the tyr2 level (so far anyway) seems to be my affordable upper limit. I even moved the amp closer to the equipment rack to save a grand on the tyr2 XLR! But, the longer speaker cable may steal that away. Catch-22 for sure. Speaker leads will still only be 6 feet long.
I've "heard" about the Vahalla's, but never listened to them. The dealer got a set in (I think they are "improved"). I would like to "borrow" the whole channel(s) from my CD player to speakers and give the iterations a listen. People change leads like speakers, too, so I can keep an eye out for(realatively!)affordable interconnects maybe a grade up. But, more $$$ doesn't mean better sound. That's the hard part. I also want to service the dealer fairly since allowing an in-home audition prevent expensive mistakes. So a set of each may go his way and buy used / demo's after that.
The ANALYSIS Plus Silver are a close second to the tyr2 XLR leads. What's everyones experience in using a super high grade pre-power interconnect and using very good CD to PRE RCA's or XLR's? When do the improvements taper off? I guess I'll have to give that a go and see where it "leads" to!
