Transparent , Kubala , Luminous , or RS Poiema

John, this sounds great. I have one question/concern however. It sounds like you are running this experiment with your existing, and highly colored/bloated speaker cables still in place. Or did you go get a demo pair of KS speaker cable as we discussed? If no, then please remember your making conclusions (and reporting them)based on how this long interconnect run works with your existing speaker cable, and not how the cable its self actually effects the sonic characteristics.

Just something to consider...

JD

John and Art,

I hope the two of you audition and compare the K-S Emotion and Stereovox interconnects with the Dominus thrown in into the mix. Let us know your observations and your perceived sonic characteristics of each of these. I am keenly interested because I will be upgrading my interconnects and speaker cables in the very near future. The K-S Emotion has been highly recommended and I will definitely try it. But I/Cs and S/Cs tend to be system dependent, so I'm trying to come up with a very short list to audition in my system.

Thanks and Enjoy,
John

JD, was my system not already highly colored and bloated at the time we dropped in that first K-S cable? And yet, what each subsequent K-S power cable and the IC, from DAC to Callisto, did as it replaced what I had was simply amazing. If we are going to focus so much on the flaws of the speaker cable, then we should continue on with this theme for probably everything in my system except the amps.

I was immediately made aware of the exaggerated lower midrange of the speaker cable. But does this prevent me from hearing the many differences in the two long ICs? This should apply to the flaws in the rest of the components elsewhere in my system. And if it does, then I have no business at all reporting my findings including the Power cords and that first IC.

John

Sorry John if I said something wrong. I was just asking if you borrowed KS speaker cables from the dealer. I am not questioning your findings or your process, just asking...

Jafox, very insightful comments; I did hear many of the same things you mention. (By the way, I also used Carly Simon to test out the cables--her voice is an excellent measure of performance with vocals, male or female, as it is has a deep resonance & some roughness & grain, and is very distinctive. Her boxed set, Clouds in my Coffee, is my favorite.)

Yep, I admit my speakers were not broken in much at the time I tried the cables, so you may be right. Also, my speaker cables are *only* Cardas GRs, so this also affected things.

I did find that the PAD (Rev Bs) did immediately stand out as involving and drew me in, but it was almost too much of a good thing, a kind of larger-than-life, extra-saturated, super-sonorous sound that grew tiring after a while.

The Kubala Emotions produce a smaller, leaner, but, to my ears, a more honest sound.

(To restate, I strongly recommend trying the Kubalas with headphones.)

I also think you would enjoy give Stelth Indras (ICs) a try. They seem to have no signature sound at all.

Thanks for reading.

Rich