zip cord? All brands of zip cord will sound different. All gauges will sound different. The directionality of the wire makes a difference....and of course, you want the cables off the floor. If you listen to zip cord with bare ends the you have a serious advantage. All speaker connectors suck. Use bare wires and binding post bypass system (my invention). Zip cord is not serious wire for audio.....ordinary wire, ordinary insulation....makes for ordinary sound. PVC sucks as a dialetric.
IceEdge: The stock IceEdge is OK. If you put a tube in front of it....like PS Audio does....and upgrade the tube to NOS then you get good sound. If you modifiy the IceEdge module then you get really good sound without a tube needed. However, no matter what you do to it.....it will never be state of the art......just fantastic for the money.
The writing on the wall is clear. The class D amps of the future will be what we will all be using. The AGD amps are getting raves ($7500 5 lb. mono blocks....20 day home trial).....Mytek is releasing 500 watt mono GaN based amps in two months for $20K and right after that a dual mono stereo 200 watt GaN based amp for $7K. These may compete with the big boys.....and even the 500 watters weigh only 30lbs each. More tweaky class D is in progress including $5K Gan based amp from Atmasphere.
Would love to see Jay make an open baffle speaker using the top of the line 10 inch Cube full range driver. Have you guys read the reviews of the $16K Nenuphar?.....that uses these drivers. The stock Nenuphar is limited by its construction. The speaker box is veiling the sound, the binding posts on the back are veiling the sound and the tip jacks on the speaker and the bananas that they must be using there are really veiling the sound. So, if you mounted the drivers ($8500 a pair delivered to your door) on a four foot high by 2 foot wide baffle and used one foot by 4 foot wings directly pointing back on the sides.....you would get a flat response to around 40 hz. You buy some great $15 a foot speaker wire without connectors and you connect to your mono blocks right behind the speaker and hard wire the speaker wire directly to the voice coil wire. This would be way more transparent than the Nenuphar......probably would blow you mind. I would make the baffles out of 3 pieces of three quarter inch material (2.25 inches thick total).....all different types to kill the resonances. I would use bamboo plywood, highly refined particle board and 13 ply baltic birch. You could use a solid piece of Oak or Maple as the front as well..... no binding posts, no crossover, no veiling box.....just pure open sound. If I had the money, this is what I would do......for $10K it would probably beat most $100K speakers except for power, bass and dynamics. However, you would be amazed at the purity of sound......the phase perfect imaging, time aligned by God. I am drooling at the possibilities. Lots of cool stuff out there for way less money.........Of course, you could run open baffle woofs next to them and limit the low end response of the Cube speakers by inserting a small super transparent cap in line with the main amp to limit the response to say 100 hz and then bring in a pair of big bad 15 incher’s driven by their own class D modded IceEdge for bass that would knock your walls down.....maybe another $5k.
I know Jay won’t do this.....but someone reading this might. You would be in for a serious treat. Most of us reading this thread cannot afford a single item Jay is using. This is just entertainment.....like following Supercar Blonde. However a $10K speaker is doable for many.......My friend in Pocoima, CA is using the $1200 a pair Lii Audio 10 inch silver full range driver on a baffle exactly as I described. He is adding 2 15 inch woofs right now on another open baffle for each side. He loves the Lii drivers.....once burned in and wired directly to the voice coil. He is getting flat to 40hz and the speaker is 95db sensitive......for less than $2K you can build this speaker. Best speaker he has ever had. He has added an ESS medium size AMT on top with copper foil cap for a slight improvement on top.
IceEdge: The stock IceEdge is OK. If you put a tube in front of it....like PS Audio does....and upgrade the tube to NOS then you get good sound. If you modifiy the IceEdge module then you get really good sound without a tube needed. However, no matter what you do to it.....it will never be state of the art......just fantastic for the money.
The writing on the wall is clear. The class D amps of the future will be what we will all be using. The AGD amps are getting raves ($7500 5 lb. mono blocks....20 day home trial).....Mytek is releasing 500 watt mono GaN based amps in two months for $20K and right after that a dual mono stereo 200 watt GaN based amp for $7K. These may compete with the big boys.....and even the 500 watters weigh only 30lbs each. More tweaky class D is in progress including $5K Gan based amp from Atmasphere.
Would love to see Jay make an open baffle speaker using the top of the line 10 inch Cube full range driver. Have you guys read the reviews of the $16K Nenuphar?.....that uses these drivers. The stock Nenuphar is limited by its construction. The speaker box is veiling the sound, the binding posts on the back are veiling the sound and the tip jacks on the speaker and the bananas that they must be using there are really veiling the sound. So, if you mounted the drivers ($8500 a pair delivered to your door) on a four foot high by 2 foot wide baffle and used one foot by 4 foot wings directly pointing back on the sides.....you would get a flat response to around 40 hz. You buy some great $15 a foot speaker wire without connectors and you connect to your mono blocks right behind the speaker and hard wire the speaker wire directly to the voice coil wire. This would be way more transparent than the Nenuphar......probably would blow you mind. I would make the baffles out of 3 pieces of three quarter inch material (2.25 inches thick total).....all different types to kill the resonances. I would use bamboo plywood, highly refined particle board and 13 ply baltic birch. You could use a solid piece of Oak or Maple as the front as well..... no binding posts, no crossover, no veiling box.....just pure open sound. If I had the money, this is what I would do......for $10K it would probably beat most $100K speakers except for power, bass and dynamics. However, you would be amazed at the purity of sound......the phase perfect imaging, time aligned by God. I am drooling at the possibilities. Lots of cool stuff out there for way less money.........Of course, you could run open baffle woofs next to them and limit the low end response of the Cube speakers by inserting a small super transparent cap in line with the main amp to limit the response to say 100 hz and then bring in a pair of big bad 15 incher’s driven by their own class D modded IceEdge for bass that would knock your walls down.....maybe another $5k.
I know Jay won’t do this.....but someone reading this might. You would be in for a serious treat. Most of us reading this thread cannot afford a single item Jay is using. This is just entertainment.....like following Supercar Blonde. However a $10K speaker is doable for many.......My friend in Pocoima, CA is using the $1200 a pair Lii Audio 10 inch silver full range driver on a baffle exactly as I described. He is adding 2 15 inch woofs right now on another open baffle for each side. He loves the Lii drivers.....once burned in and wired directly to the voice coil. He is getting flat to 40hz and the speaker is 95db sensitive......for less than $2K you can build this speaker. Best speaker he has ever had. He has added an ESS medium size AMT on top with copper foil cap for a slight improvement on top.