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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
allears4u OP
149 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
9,787 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
7,286 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

immatthewj
2,304 posts
 

I am not at all surprised by your findings.

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
5,396 posts
 

Strange? Not at all. It would be strange if the cables didn’t make a difference in a resolving system. No blind test needed. Although with those cataract glasses I bet Jason is an expert in blind testing. 

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