Soundstage,depth of field,height of stage,detail,bass and even greater tonality and textures which these cables are becoming famous for occur after the 300 hour mark.
Wow! That pretty much covers it for a perfect cable.
I went into the GG Revelations with huge expectations because of this thread. And right out of the box, they were severely flat compared to the Jade Hybrid. The Indra that I had been using (but loaned out to a friend during this audition) was never dimensionally flat. The Jade conveys depth greater than the Indra, but the Indra beautifully preserves the decays and harmonics of the piano ...... something completely lacking with the out-of-the-box GG Rev. How anyone can describe soundstage, height, depth, textures, etc., with the GG cables with zero hours is beyond me. I guess it comes down to the system for which the cables are evaluated.
I described my findings with Steve who was baffled as nobody had ever before described these cables this way right out of the box. Hmmmm. He suggested I wait for 150 hours which I did, and again, the presentation was flat as can be. Thinking it was all in my head, I took the pair to a friend's home, and the first word out of his mouth? .... you guessed it: "FLAT"! I never told him anything about my findings ..... we simply dropped these in his system which was connected with Jade Hybrids at that time.
So we can talk about all the improvements in bass and reduced treble brightness, but none of these issues did I experience with my previously mentioned components. There are always some balancing acts that we have to do with aligning tonalities, what is often refered to as "synergy", but there was nothing I could do to bring back the decays and harmonic overtones of piano and voice with the GG Rev's. Playing one set of strengths over another with various tube changes in the CAT and Aesthetix gear could not bring back the 3D that instantly returned upon going back to the Jade Hybrid.
So even though I prefer the Jade Hybrid, the Indra is just a hair behind.....the GG Rev did not work out here at all. In all fairness, the Jade and Indra are $1000 more on the A'gon market. So as Bob writes about how far beyond the GG Extremes were over the Indra, and the Rev's at yet another level of performance, this was simply not the case in my system.
Clio - it's interesting that you tried the Jade Vermeil and prefered the GG Rev. The Vermeil in my system has some issues with the reduction of portrayal of space, but not as severe as the GGs. For lower cost systems, a direct shootout between the Vermeil and Extreme would be of value.
As for how a cable is changing overtime, it is hard for me to imagine how accurate such memories can be. I have heard my system sound significantly different from one night to another where no system changes occured. Without the ability to quickly swap in a reference (for me, the well burned-in Jade Hybrid), going by memories of how something sounded 2-3 days ago is a little too much of a leap in faith.
I wish I had been told of the 300 hour mark instead of the 150. I likely would have held onto the GG Rev for one more week of burn-in to find out how they might fare. But in all honesty, with virtually no improvments at the 150 hour mark, it is highly unlikely a miracle was to occur after 150 more hours. Had I experienced some improvements along the way, I may have had a different view on the situation.
For all the high praise that this is THE cable to beat all else, my experiences with the APL-Denon/Callisto/CAT/SoundLab setup resulted in a far different outcome. Thank goodness there are many products to choose from for our music system.
John
