Parasound JC1's vs. Sim Audio W10

Sean, absolutely agree with you. The mahlers do have a rounded big bass. That was the biggest difference between the Pass X350.5 and cj prem 350. Bass was a lot tighter and more musical on the cj. Someone who owns a speaker with leaner sounding bass may prefer the Pass X350.5.

Re speaker cables. I used transparent ref XL, harmonic pro9 and borrowed some Kimber 3035 for most of the listening. All great insanely expensive cables. The transparent was clearly the least suited to my system sounding warm and bloated with little extension - this all relative compared to the harmonic and kimber.
The transparents can sound wonderful in say a Wilson or brightish sounding system. Any way I have sold them now to someone who will be able to appreciate them better than I.
I have Nordost Valhalla cables from TT to phono, phono to pre and pre to power. Most people think these sound lean or bright. yes they certainly have sounded like that to me as well. However in my current config they sound warm, transparent and focused, which pretty much matches the sound of my components.
If the valhalla's sound bright, it is one of your components that is making the brightness, not the cable.

anyway, happy listening

Downunder: Nordost's "design formula" for cabling can work well for interconnects, but it is simply electrically out of place for speaker cabling in a perfectly balanced system. This is not to say that their speaker cables are horrid, but that they definitely introduces specific sonic characteristics into a system due to the electrical characteristics that Nordost chose to work with.

Let's look at a circuit diagram of our system as a whole. Common sense should tell us that combining an amplifier with an output impedance of less than a tenth of an ohm ( most SS amps ) with a speaker that is roughly eight ohms and connecting the two with cabling that is well above 100 ohms would skew our electrical results. In raw figures, it would look like .1 ohm ( amp ) into 100+ ohms ( Nordost ) into 8 ohms ( speaker ). Obviously, there is an impedance bottle-neck which would create both a mismatch and a lack of proper loading / current flow characteristic. This is exactly what happens and the end result is a reduction in low frequency output, which is current driven.

That lack of current "chokes" the low frequency signal, which in a system that is already on the heavy sounding side, tends to balance things out. That balance is not achieved due to increased control ( exactly the opposite ), but due to a lack of signal being introduced into the speaker to excite that specific problem.

If the speaker is putting out too much bass, simply reducing the amount of signal fed into it helps to achieve a more linear output. This would be equivalent to turning down the low frequency controls on a preamp or equalizer. On the other hand, using an amp / cable with an "iron grip" wouldn't allow the system to over-compensate for a non-linearity in the output of a speaker. It would simply deliver the signal to the speaker which would excite it into the non-linear output of acoustic energy that it tends to naturally display. In effect, the only way that an amplifier could compensate for the non-linear output of a speaker would be if the amplifier itself was non-linear and / or using some type of active circuitry to monitor the output of the speaker itself i.e. "motional feedback".

With that in mind, i've always said that Nordost speaker cables would work well with speakers that lack proper damping in the low frequencies and / or are soft sounding on the top end. They tend to highlight a specific section of the audio spectrum, but do so at the expense of the opposite end of sound. This would explain why you're having such good system synergy with the Valhalla's, the CJ and your Vienna's i.e. both the amp and speaker cabling are somewhat lean sounding / lacking in low frequency capacity, which helps to balance out the abundant "warmth" in the speakers.

The end result is that the system sounds balanced, but in the long run, there really is a "scientific" & "mathematical" reason as to why it sounds as good and / or "tonally balanced" as it does. Had you been using different speakers, you're results would have most assuredly been different in terms of the cabling & amp that you thought sounded best. In your system with your specific componentry, i'm sure that the Nordost's don't sound lean. Then again, you're not just listening to the Nordost's, but to the entire system as a whole.

This is why i've tried to teach that one needs to pick their source, speakers and speaker cabling first, then look at the rest of the system from there. Speakers are the toughest choice, as they involve proper room loading conditions, specific placement considerations, various spl requirements, etc...

Maintaining a high level of electrical and sonic accuracy at both ends of the chain simply means that the components in the middle need to maintain that accuracy with the least amount of distortions. After that, the only other variable involved is how much power one needs in order to properly drive those specific speakers in that specific listening environment. Choosing speaker cabling that is electrically compatible with the speakers and loading characteristics of the amp simply allows one to hear more of what the amp and support components can deliver while minimizing one more variable in the equation.

This approach may not be as fun as the "trial & error" approach of buying and trying a million different speaker cables and / or components, but it is surely more consistent and far less costly. Whether one likes the "electrical accuracy" that such an approach brings with it is strictly a matter of personal preference and how good of a job they did in choosing the source and speakers. That takes into account that the other parts of the signal chain aren't extremely lossy or introducing their own distortions into the equation. Sean
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PS... It should be pointed out that the above comments are specifically discussing Nordost's speaker cabling and their electrical characteristics, not the entire line of Nordost products. As mentioned above, the electrical characteristics of their interconnects shouldn't present a problem / introduce gross electrical errors into most systems. That is, so long as the nominal impedance of the cable "somewhat agrees" with the nominal input and output impedances of the mating components. I'm not familiar with the design of their digital, video or power cords, so i can't comment on those.

As is usual, i'm simply sharing my point of view on the subjects being discussed. How much weight or validity one wants to assign to my comments is strictly up to them as an individual.

Sean,
What low impedance speaker cabling are you talking about?
I would like to know - any brands?
Thanks,
bill

Sean. You seem to be getting a little technical for me at least.
Not sure how you know that Nordost have an impedance of over 100+ ohms. The only technical information on thye Nordost or Harmonic technology site ie resistance of approx 0.002 ohms per ft.

BTW, I do not have Nordost speaker cables, only their interconnects.

Interestingly a lot of users and reviewers use Nordost speraker cable on a lot more than "fat" sounding speakers. I guess they must have something else fat or dull sounding in their system to compensate - yes??

First time I have ever heard cj referred to as lean sounding, but I guess you have heard the new prem 350 as well as the Valhalla speaker cables which are not part of my system, but are contributing to my balancing act of my fat speakers. doh!

Rather than come up with quite interesting technical stories, why not give some examples of the low impedance cables you so strongly recommend.

cheers

Mr Bill: I mentioned a specific value for speaker cable impedances i.e. less than 20 ohms. There are quite a few cables that achieve that figure or better. The first that come to mind are Goertz, Electrofluidics, which is a generic clone of Goertz made in the UK, several different Kimber models, Empirical Audio, etc... Whether or not all of these cables meet other particular electrical criteria or are to one's liking is another matter.

Downunder: I re-read your above post and found my mistake. You specifically mention having the Valhalla's as interconnects, but you did so right after being critical of the Transparent speaker cables. I leapt to the assumption that you had replaced them, along with the other cabling in your system, with Nordost products. My mistake and i appologize.

As to the CJ SS amps that i've heard in the past, they typically tend to sound somewhat soft in the deep bass, a little elevated in the warmth region and slightly soft and smooth up top. It is a pleasant presentation albeit somewhat reminiscent of a "moderate" tubed sound. In effect, they are "lean" sounding to me as they don't have the commanding low frequency response that one expects from a large, high powered SS amp. In effect, an amp without "slam" is "leaner" than an amp with great low frequency slam and impact. I guess it is a relative term with varying degrees, but i could see how one could be confused by my terminology.

As to what reviewers use or endorse, does that make the component or cabling "good"? Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on the reviewer and what they were discussing. I've used / heard many products that reviewers think sounds good and i know them to be horrid performers, both electrically and sonically. To be specific, the Valhalla speaker cables may work quite well with poorly designed vented speakers that lack damping, of which there are 10x more available than there are good speakers on the market. As such, mating a coloured cable with a speaker of the opposite colouration might help to balance things out.

As to the Vienna's being "fat", if you read a review of one of their products in Stereophile and their later comments about those speakers, they specifically state that they had a very hard time positioning these speakers in-room when trying to achieve natural sounding bass. I'm not making that up, nor have my own ears deceived me when forming a similar opinion of their product line after listening to them on several different occassions. When first hearing them, i thought the bottom end sounded very reminiscent of a few different Legacy models i.e. heavy bass peaking with a complete lack of definition or articulation. Sean
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