We'll its been quite some time now. The black gate upgrades did make a difference. But it was hard to judge just how much. I had the DAC sent to John and he was really tied up. I was without it for almost 2months...the first month I just had it sitting here as I used an old Yamaha cdp (ewwwwww) then a Toshiba DVD player (can you say 2-D). When John finally received it in Calgary it took him almost 3 weeks to get it back to me.
At that point I had pretty much stopped listening to music for any length of time, my system was a mess. It's funny, we don't appreciate what we have till we lose it. This is also a good demonstration for those that think source shouldn't be considered as the first priority. Needless to say when I got the DAC back from John with the new cap's it was harsh. I do remember sending an Email to Bwhite trying to calm my nerves. The detail was hyper but it was harsh. I could hear sibilance on almost every female vocal. I then emailed John and he told me give it another week, then send it back if it's still doing the same thing. John suggests because the circuitry runs in class A all the time there is no need to use a transport disc and hit repeat for any lenght of time. Instead just leave it on, but after discussing this again with Bryan White I went ahead and connected the crappy DVD player and let it spin for a day. The differences were staggering.
Now, from memory...and you have to realize with digital things are refined and less colored then speakers, so it takes time to hear differences. But the new DAC's did seem to provide more detail, things were slightly less rolled off, but still musical. But because the period of time was so long between listening to the non Black Gates to listening to the Black gates its tough to gauge how much of an impact it made. My guess is anywhere between 10-20% but it could have been more or less.
I did have the opportunity to listen to Moray's latest Power Cables over Christmas. I used them on my DAC, Transport and Intergrated. The differences were there but too subtle for the money asked. Again, I should have known to not listen to the PC's before giving them back. The last month I've really regreted giving them back and suddenly I can hear alot of noise that otherwise was eliminated when the Moray James cables were used.
Digital and PC's are a tough racket. It takes time to listen to the adding and sometimes SUBTRACTION of information. In closing if you have a system that is over $10k I'd do the BG upgrade in a heartbeat. The DAC might be the best kept secret in Audio. Well untill John releases his totally re-designed own creation he's been working on for some time.
Oh and lastly, I know of two people that have done direct comparisons to a fully modded Bitstream DAC (with black gates) and EMM Lab's DAC. The Bitstream won both times. I have a relative who sold me this Bitstream awhile ago in favor of a Sony 9000 ES SACD player. This past summer he was over and told me he not only regretted selling me the unit, but that he thought some CD's sounded better on the Museatex then some of the same titles of SACD's on the Sony. Last I heard he was selling the Sony and getting John to build him a new Bitstream.
