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Strange Cable Experiment

I have an inexpensive UTurn Orbit turntable (Ortofon Blue cartridge). a cheap Cambridge Audio phono preamp on purpose. My main front end is CD's, so my real money has gone there (relatively speaking). Recently, through a unexpected complicated swap out deal, I've connected my phono stuff together with cables which retail for more than the components I've just mentioned. Previously they were linked by some low price Pangea RCAs. (Maybe $50 per pair). Now the interconnect between the turntable is the Mad Scientist Ultra Black ($399)and from the Phono pre the Tellurium Q Black II. ($500) And let me tell you...the leap in quality has been nothing short of mind blowing. This cheap rig seriously competes with my CD set up. No I can't believe my ears either. A very strange experiment indeed. But how? Why? Stupid transparent and vocals are ....scary real. I never would recommend doing this on purpose but the results are bewildering! Opinions?

allears4u
jasonbourne71's avatar
jasonbourne71
1,255 posts
 

Did you do a blind listening test? If not, such is the power of expectation bias. Any change is perceived as positive in a majority of the times. 

noromance's avatar
noromance
9,922 posts
 

Don’t mind Jason. Cables can and do make a difference. Better quality materials, construction and terminations.

However, I always do an ABA (original-new-original) test—revert to the originals and play the same record. Just to be sure.

allears4u OP
148 posts
 

No I did not do a blind test. I really wasn't thinking about keeping the set up and put them in just for fun and on a whim. But, my goodness golly gosh jee whiz!!! One wouldn't need ears to hear this improvement!! not close. Not just different. But I went from el cheap to almost a $1000 worth of cables. Shielded maybe made a difference but BOY HOWDEE! Huge improvement...like crazy time

soix
9,772 posts
 

Glad you’re so happy with the results, and I guess in the scheme of things it’s still cheaper than upgrading the turntable/cartridge/phono pre.  I’ve always found interconnects closest to the source make the biggest difference. 

ghdprentice
7,262 posts
 

Congratulations. Great when something this counterintuitive works out. Certainly not an approach that would likely always work, but it can. 

A dealer of mine was so overwhelmed by the performance of some phonostage interconnects that he sent me a pair to try. Although my phonostage was only valued at around $2.5K... it was worth the $2K for the Nirvana interconnects. It happens

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