Wow, great review. How fortunate you were to find the hum issue and fix it so easily. Such problems can be next to impossible to find.
I remember your 31SE review a couple years ago that I responded too. And you were quite the happy camper with that.
If you think you have improvements now, wait until you try some different ICs than the Audioquest and Cardas Golden Cross. In the past I found that Audioquest cables significantly reduced the portrayal of space and decays vs. just about all other cables I tried. And the CGC has way too much of a good thing in the midrange which causes it to mask off a lot of low-level resolution. When I changed from CGC to NBS Signature the difference was very dramatic across the board; there was a far greater tonal coherency which allowed the details in the music to come through far more clearly. And the interesting thing was, the NBS Signature cables were selling for the same price as the CGC....in the $400 range for 1m XLRs. A year or so later, I tried NBS Statement and this continued on with the same refinements but not as huge as changing from the CGC.
Due to changes in my system, I have some NBS Sig and Stmt cables that you can borrow if you'd like to try them out. I have found that the link from line stage to amp is a bigger factor than phono stage ot line stage, but it might be worthwhile trying both and see how things work in your setup. Throw me an email if you're interested.
Again, congratulations.
John
I remember your 31SE review a couple years ago that I responded too. And you were quite the happy camper with that.
If you think you have improvements now, wait until you try some different ICs than the Audioquest and Cardas Golden Cross. In the past I found that Audioquest cables significantly reduced the portrayal of space and decays vs. just about all other cables I tried. And the CGC has way too much of a good thing in the midrange which causes it to mask off a lot of low-level resolution. When I changed from CGC to NBS Signature the difference was very dramatic across the board; there was a far greater tonal coherency which allowed the details in the music to come through far more clearly. And the interesting thing was, the NBS Signature cables were selling for the same price as the CGC....in the $400 range for 1m XLRs. A year or so later, I tried NBS Statement and this continued on with the same refinements but not as huge as changing from the CGC.
Due to changes in my system, I have some NBS Sig and Stmt cables that you can borrow if you'd like to try them out. I have found that the link from line stage to amp is a bigger factor than phono stage ot line stage, but it might be worthwhile trying both and see how things work in your setup. Throw me an email if you're interested.
Again, congratulations.
John