I'm with Bob, there's much to share without us getting upset with each other.
After I had the GG Rev's for a week, and reported my initial and final findings to Steve at GG, I figured that I would only share this information with a few close friends who were also on the hunt for the next level of refined ICs. But, reading the continued "greatest on earth" comments here was driving me nuts as my experience indicated otherwise. It was time to share an opposing view - 5000 happy customers vs. Jafox.
I was well aware of the backlash to come, especially since my current reference cables were made by a man here in Mpls whom I befriended 2 years ago. The concern for bias is fair, but it does not at all change the sonic results of the cable shootout. The only reason the Jade Hybrid came into the discussion was because this was the cable that I directly compared to the Rev. at 0 hours, approx. 70 hours and then at 155 hours. But the results would have been the same had I used the Indra or Dominus. And I have no friends at Stealth nor Purist.
What's the value of these forums if everyone reports the same thing? Let's just praise the next product as Class A and grab our folding chairs and head to the beach. And how can one component outperform everything else in every sonic attribute? I like a lot of products out there but I am well aware that each one has a weakness that another product conveys in a much more natural manner.
My 7/9/07 "hint" to get further detail on the 3D attributes of the GG cables only resulted in more of "the best cables on the planet" comments. With the repeated comments that the GG Extremes were so far ahead of the Indra, and the Rev's were yet another level of improvement, I simply had to share here that things were quiet different for me.
So why are my results so very different than the rest of the GG users? It has nothing to do with flavors of ice cream, nor synergy. We are not talking about tonality changes here where one person likes a peak in the mids or a valley in the trebles, etc., to compensate for tonal linearity flaws elsewhere.
As for my own taste - I like a chocolate mint; the flavor lingers on for another 2-3 seconds or so rather than immediately being lost.
I have heard many "high end" systems that have incredible resolution but are very flat in presentation. For such systems, nobody will ever hear my reported differences between these cables. For such a system, one can throw in a Cardas Golden Cross IC to bring on a little more mids emphasis but that's about it; no cable here is going to suddenly turn a Yamaha upright into a Steinway Concert Grand and push it 8 feet behind the speakers.
I had taken note of the system components used by some of the GG praisers here. Some of these components I have compared to my own, in my system and at the homes of others. Posting such information is of value as it gives us context for the component under evaluation. The trick is to get an idea as to how that reviewed component might perform in our own system.
If a product gets a high rating in a system that most likely outperforms our own system, will we be able to reap the benefits of the more refined product? ....or will this refined product only show up the flaws in our system that was pieced together to compensate for flaws elsewhere? - what is often referred to as synergy. A visit by Joe Kubala (Kubala-Sosna) to my home nearly 2 years ago made it very clear that I was guilty of this with a "balancing act" between a pair of ICs and speaker cables. Ultimately both of these cables had to be replaced at once or any cable replacing either of these would be blamed for being a flawed cable. I learned a lot that day.
And what if a product gets a high rating in a system that most likely is outperformed by our own system...will that highly praised product take our system to even higher levels of performance? .... or will our system only show the flaws of that product? .... or does the other system simply not allow for differences to be heard that are clearly conveyed in our own system? There's a lot more going on here than simply praising a product as the new King.
Clio - If you're interested in some information on PCs I have used with the Haley, I can email you some pros and cons on some Stealth and Dream State PCs I have been playing with. The sad thing is that these PCs cost more than the Haley itself but what they do is quite impressive.
John
