Any multi-strand braided cable is going to have some amount of smearing to it, but my thoughts are that Cinematic's system isn't anywhere near up to the task of critiquing Jena's cabling.
First of all, the Behringer pieces have a very distinct "SS" and / or "digital" signature to them. That is, they sound sharp, sibilant and somewhat tizzy. There are modifications that one can perform to reduce these problems, but they don't completely remove the effect. Using more revealing cabling will only make this sonic trait more noticeable.
The little Yamaha multi-channel amp isn't exactly a "world class" performer either. Nothing like tinned conductors housed in a cheap plastic ribbon cable within the signal path to clobber high frequency resolution and system transparency. This is yet another factor that could lead to an "edgy" sound, which more revealing cabling would make more noticeable.
As a side note, i've commented many years ago about the sonic potential of the older Yamaha amps, primarily the M-80. In a head to head comparison driving 82 dB 2-4 ohm speakers, the Yamaha obliterated a similarly rated Bryston in every respect. As such, i've got nothing against "mass produced" gear that sounds and works good, especially when it can be bought for a very reasonable price and easily upgraded. In stock form though, these amps are not on the same playing field as many other amps that i've heard and / or owned.
Other than that, the darTZeel doesn't look to be a suitable amp for low impedance, low sensitivity speakers. As i mentioned over at AA, it doesn't measure all that great ( for multiple reasons ), but i'm sure that it sounds very nice. My guess is that the mids are extremely liquid sounding with a great amount of air and separation in the treble region. I'm basing this on the design parameters and quality of parts used, not on an actual listening session.
To me, Hooper's system looks like he's been a regular customer of Mr Tinn's, who is a dealer for most every brand of gear that Hooper is using. I could be wrong about that, but Mr Tinn's shop is located in the Washington, which is on the west coast, so that also fits that criteria. It would also explain Hooper's lack of willingness to divulge the specifics of which dealer he was working with. The fact that Mr Tinn is the distributor for this amp and was quick to defend Hooper's choice in gear almost makes one think that this thread was set-up by Mr Tinn to capitalize on the positive review / massive exposure that the darTZeel recently received in Stereophile. Then again, i could be wrong about everything here and this might just be another one of my conspiracy theories. Do the math and see what figures you come up with.... Sean
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