Transparent MM2

Mikelavigne, that your Opus and Valhalla cables have not suffered embarrassingly relevant depreciation at resale is certainly a testimony to their inherent value but gives me scant reassurance that I will be so lucky now that my XLMM1s are "obsolete".

My sour grape to crush is that I was unwittingly sold $60k of XLMM1 (and some RefMM1) without ever being informed of the imminent arrival of the same cost MM2 technology.

The breathlessly cheery email I got from TA a mere 7 months later "congratulating" me that for another $10k I could "upgrade" my newly rendered has-beens to the MM2 version did not have the effect on me I suppose they had hoped for:

The difficulty of concomitantly evaluating MM1 vs MM2 at the XL, MM and Opus levels in real time seems calculated.

Mostly what I am seeing is that people send in their old TA cables for "upgrading" and like the new version better. At these prices, what if you were wrong? Perfect aural memory doesn't come cheap.

WoW. Critical listening redefined.

And who are these 'Silent Source' spoil sports, anyway?

Khrys,

i don't blame you for feeling like you are holding the bag. i purchased the set of Opus speaker cables i am upgrading 3 years ago.....i have been a very good customer of this dealer for 14 years (in the 6 figure range....although i don't do the business with them i once did) and i did get a very good deal. so i'm kinda ok with the upgrade timing.....7 years since MM1 was introduced.

i assume you have spoken to your Transparent dealer about possibly giving you a large break on the price of the upgrade in consideration of your recent 'investment' and then 'surprise' upgrade. i think you will have some traction with them depending on how much of a discount/trade-in etc. on the XLMM1 cables you purchased.

most dealers who might carry Transparent are considerate of customer relationships. good luck with that.

regarding the 'Silent Source'; it will be interesting to see what Mike Malinowski does in the long run. i'm not doubting his sincereity; only the likely 'staying' power of the 'Silent Source' in his system. sometimes we like something new only to discover it's just different and we miss what we had.

anyway, it's only some damn wire we are talking about.

Mikelavigne,

I have not spoken directly with my Transparent dealer about giving me a large break on any price consideration because my reputation and obvious full price first buy purchase capability with a new vendor should have established me as a worthy client instead of a sucker.

I won't make that mistake again. Ever.

I've since re-cabled the entire system with something significantly more preferable but significantly less costly.

And it will be hard for me to sucker some impressionable 'goner into paying
more than 5-6 x the price "some damn wire" might otherwise command since it happened to me.

The Ultra MM2 speaker cable is pretty darn good. I can only imagine what the reference is like. The lack of grain moving from MM1 Super was laugh-out-loud shocking...and much better dynamics. Much, MUCH better than the MM1s.

Just curious: are the TA Ref series or Ultra series are made of same cable from the point of copper material or cable construction? What make them different are just the networks? So except for the networks, Ref=Ref xl=Ref MM=Ref MM2=Opus MM2.....?