New TEO Audio ICs, who has them?

So I went to AXPONA 2019 Friday morning. I visited several exhibitors, including Teo Audio. This is my impression from the High Water Sound Room:

TEO AUDIO (Room 594): This was the last room I went to before leaving, as I discovered Teo Audio was not a main exhibitor this year but was nevertheless present. Teo Audio IC’s and speaker cables were showcased in the High Water Sound Room (Room 594), along with TW-Acustic Phono gear ($22,000 setup featuring the $10,000 GT2 Turntable along with 2x12” Tonearms at $6,000 each) with each tonearm tipped with either an Ortofon Winfeld Ti cartridge ($4,390) or a Miyajima Labs Zero Mono cartridge ($2,150), New Audio Frontiers electronics (Stradivari Phono Stage ($12,000), Stradivari Evolution Line Stage ($12,000) and Ultimate 211 SE Monoblocks ($34,000)) Horning Hybrid Systems Eufrodite Ellipse MK.III speakers ($28,000).

While the sound was clean and listenable, I was shocked by some of the comments from the exhibitor regarding the Teo Audio cables. He said that Taras of Teo Audio liked their lower priced IC’s for their tonality but felt that those cables did not fair well in systems having multiple driver loudspeakers. I asked him to clarify whether he was referring to Teo Audio speaker cables rather than Teo Audio IC’s. My understanding is that Teo Audio IC’s have a rather broad bandwidth, that is, in the GigaHz range. How then could it be that the IC’s having such a broad bandwidth can be so limited on multi-driver loudspeaker systems? The exhibitor maintained his story.

Clearly something was garbled in the CA-US English translation!

He was probably speaking about the bass.

The bass is a hair soft and a hair light on the bottom few Hz....in the lower priced cables.

Others have noted this too. Especially with the last few bottom Hz of subsonic spectaculars off lets say... an organ recording.

Jeff of High Water preferred the higher reaches of our product line, for the larger speakers in the given systems that he may display with at shows...

The fluid really is different than wire. Wire would have the least problems here and trouble everywhere else.

Part of what our higher lines of IC’s (IN RCA format) deal with, is that last bit of power at the bottom ..and they are better in all the other desired areas.

@celander 

To clarify....we have found that the single conductor cables sound best in situations where there isn't a huge voltage or current swing such as a real fire-breathing pre-amp feeding a robust power amp. Such a situation is better dealt with using our 3 conductor cables. Now Jeff's experience with our cables over the last year or so confirmed this, which is the reason he runs a Kronon between a phono or digital stage and  a Reference or a Ne Plus Ultra between the pre and power. Or put another its not so much what the speaker is but more what a speaker requires in term of voltage/current swing that determines what cable is ideal where. Its not the bandwidth its the power handling that is the issue.

Bottom line Jeff is absolutely bang on with his assessment and we at TEO whole heartedly concur.

Hope that clears things up.

My acoustic experience with Teo Audio IC’s (and their Liquid Pre passive preamp) is via ATC SCM20-2A active 2-way monitors. No bottom end to comment about, where the bottom end being maybe 50 Hz at maybe -3dB. So I’m not going to hear what you’re saying until I get my Dunlavy SC-IVa’s in da house.

But confusion is rife, at least in my mind. How much “power” is truly being transmitted in an interconnect—regardless of design?

As an example my pre-amp swings 60 volts and a Kronon doesn’t work as well on the output as a three conductor assembly. But in other applications where the output is significantly less, the Kronon, a single conductor assembly, is my absolute fave cable in our lineup ( because, as Jeff said, it delineates tone and nuance beautifully...whereas the three conductor assemblies provide a more robust presentation...which btw is what Ken tends to gravitate to ).

Now this may well be a simplistic conclusion drawn from a very small sample size but we have similar feedback from several clients.