Kinki EX M1 user comments

@veroguy

I don’t think the glare is coming from the cables. I’m personally using a Kinki dac and ex-m1, and I have 3 silver power cords in my system from Cabledyne (Virtuoso & Synergy). Interconnects are silver ribbons from MG Audio Design and speakers are the Spatial M4TMs.

If anything, I could do with an even brighter sound. Good quality silver cables don’t necessary add brightness. The Neutral Cable USB Reference is a solid core 7n silver usb cable, and it’s among the smoothest and most musical USB cables I’ve ever tried.

A glare could be due to the room accentuating certain frequencies, and shifting your speakers around may help with it. Try that first before spending on cables.

@veroguy, that must have been an older post as I use silver for my speaker cabling and have for quite some time. Right now I'm using Cabledyne Silver Synergy SCs and they work really well. They are 12 GA stranded silver with a copper woven shield and terminated with gold BFA bananas.

Before that I used Tempo Electric SCs which are solid silver with oversized Teflon sleeving and bare ends. As much as I liked the Tempo Electric, the Cabledyne had better focus and tighter images, which sounds counter intuitive, but it is what it is.

I have no brightness or aggressiveness but the images are stark and revealing with great extension, which is how I like it. I could always use a more romantic presentation but it always ends up at the expense of detail, air, separation, timbre, etc.

All the best,
Nonoise

Thanks @benlzy and @nonoise  - very helpful.

My room is certainly not ideal.  I'll play with moving the speakers around.  I've liked the detail with my current silver cables, so I'll demo some as an upgrade.

With two weak links (dac and cables, well maybe 3 including the room), finding the ideal upgrade path is challenging for me.

In May, I got rid of some twenty year old gear and bought a Rotel rc/rb 1590 preamp/amp combo and rcd 1572 CD player thinking I was done. Sadly, I read Nonoise’s Kinki review and wondered....

Several months later, with and without a switch between the amps, using all the Rotel gear, a Nuprime dac10, a nuprime cdt 8 pro, and KEF R 900 speakers, my subjective conclusions are:

1. The Kinki just sounds better or smoother, though not greatly so, and I can listen to the Kinki for hours without fatigue, since the Rotel gear seems to have a slightly sharp edge;

2. The little Schitt Loki (with the Kinki) works wonders for problematic source or room conditions;

3. Both brands have wonderful, wide soundstage but the Rotel combo has somewhat superior 3d placement; and,

4. The Kinki’s detail, under identical conditions, with identical sources, is much more noticeable.

So, I’ve made my decision. The Kinki will be my primary system, and Rotel secondary.

Some will be surprised at my very subjective conclusions in that I merely “prefer” the Kinki, but these things are hard to quantify. I thought the matter in equipoise until I realized the Kinki is pleasing for hours on end.

Sum: thanks a lot, Nonoise, as you cost She Who Must Be Obeyed a nicer Christmas. 🙀

Oh, I should add that the Rotel gear has slightly superior bass power or impact, but it is slightly less controlled than the Kinki.