LessLoss DFPC Signature

Louis, whereas I'm sympathetic to what you are saying, you must also consider that serious mischief has been perpetrated with other people's names and photographs that were published on the internet. Unscrupulous individuals joyriding on other people's identities on a worldwide scale is something I like to avoid being a victim of. We're not talking about the community of Audiogoners but preying eyes that watch every forum on the web for reasons we don't really want to kow. Does that sound exaggerated? (Sorry, I know I'm wandering off the original topic.)
Karel

Karelfd,

Your thought sounds like it is bending towards a conspiracy theory to me. I don't know exactly what you are alluding to.

When one posts on a world-wide forum, one is first and foremost placing content into the mind of anyone who bothers to read it. Otherwise one uses one's own private diary.

True, it has been known throughout the ages that many a writer has used pseudonyms to avoid witch-hunters and the like, as there have been very strong feelings attached to the power and control of the printed word in the past. But in today's world of ubiquitous YouTube clips and self-published blogs, what could be better than a community of real people without the masks?

If by "preying eyes that watch every forum on the web for reasons we don't really want to know" you mean Big Brother, then I think it is indeed exaggerated and out of proportion.

Here in Lithuania I even know people who avoid certain topics by phone (such as even only tax avoidance -- not evasion, mind you) because they are afraid that the phones might be tapped. But really it is ludicrous. Everyone in any business knows that you only have to pay the taxes that you have to pay -- not the ones you can legally avoid. There was even a famous Supreme Court ruling in the USA which stated this explicitly in the verdict (sorry, I don't remember the exact name of the case or judge).

And so when we write on forums, do we imagine that we are more free to write honestly when our names and faces are unexposed? I think rather that we are more inclined to write things we would normally be embarrassed to say in person. And that is the pity I here address, for, to me, it seems, it has led to a steady but sure degradation of the quality of content of the communication.

An analogy is that there used to be duals in battle. Now there is remote controlled weaponry.

There used to be an expressed gentleman's behavior towards women when the man would open the heavy door and let the woman pass first. Now we have automated revolving doors or infrared sensors and sliding automated mechanisms.

We have a handy "delete" key on our keyboards. We don't need to plan the sentences and flow of thought as well.

It seems that at every step we make an obvious advance in pragmatic accomplishment but at the same time risk losing an even more subtle underlying value in the process. And because it is always more subtle, it gets thrown away with the bath water, without too much notice.

Louis Motek

Sorry Louis, that is not what I was alluding to. I am not referring to the contents we write ourselves and whether we want to hide those from "The Authorities" or "Agencies" or whether we think we can be offensive and disrespectful when using a moniker.

I am talking about unauthorized use and abuse of names and faces by third parties. I have seen my own system published and discussed on a Greek website, obviously taken without permission from Audiogon. What could have been easier than to contact me through the mail-link on the 'Gon and ask me? The person choose not to do that. I know that is an (almost) ridiculously harmless example, but that is were it starts. I have seen another US based 'Goner's system published by a dealer in the Netherlands who advertised a show he was organizing with the speakers on that picture. I contacted the owner of the system, he wasn't aware of it, had never been asked. I mean, some people take contents, any contents, from the internet and use them (fake their own identity, publish under other real names, order goods in other names meant not to be paid, manipulate photographs and play dire pranks with them, build entire data-bases to be sold for marketing or other purposes, etc.), not always as harmless as my examples. But enough of that, I repeat I understand your thinking and am sympathetic to it. Yet, my photograph for one thing will not be on the internet, period.

I have been using the original powercords and they are very good. I fact better than a lot of other brands including the very expensive and esoteric ones. A couple of week ago i changed 2 of these for the new Signature and yes, these are even better. A lot better i must say in all respects: more detail, better soundstage, better bass,more color, etc. They are more expensive also, but the price-quality ratio is very good. I can recommend to anyone!

I posted the following on the LessLoss website:
I've been comparing power cords carefully for almost 30 years. I've tried very expensive and well-known brands, relatively inexpensive and more obscure brands, and DIY concoctions from cheap hardware store wire. For the past 8 years or so I'd stuck with various Shunyata Power Snakes, which I still hold in high esteem. They trounced everything else I had tried, and I was especially happy with the King Cobra v2. Despite the claims of Shunyata and some reviewers, I think it was the best power cord Shunyata ever made--at least in my system, which I believe (and others claim) is very neutral.
But like many audiophiles, from time to time I get the itch to try something new. So I bought two very reasonably-priced Original LessLoss DFPCs. To my surprise, despite the price difference (the KCs originally sold for around $2200), the Originals were superior to the KCs. I found them to be even more neutral and more detailed, and somewhat more dynamic. The difference wasn't as striking as I'd heard in some previous cable shoot-outs, but it was clearly audible and a change for the better. And I heard that same difference in various applications: with my VSE-modified Sony SCD-1, powering my PS Audio Power Plant Premier, and also powering a set-up I dedicated to dubbing CDs onto CDRs.
Recently, I learned that LessLoss had improved upon the Original DFPC and produced the Signature. I gladly accepted Louis's upgrade offer and soon thereafter received two new Signature DFPCs. This time, the changes I heard were more dramatic. I compared the Signatures both to the Original DFPCs and to some remaining King Cobra v2s, and there was no doubt that the Signatures were a considerable improvement over both. Compared to the Original DFPC, the Signature produced a bigger, deeper, and more detailed soundstage, and even though the Originals were already very neutral, smooth and extended, the Signatures were (incredibly to me) even more so, with strikingly improved and more realistic reproduction of instrumental timbre. (Perhaps I should mention that I'm a musician [a pianist], and I know what acoustic instruments sound like.) The Signatures had greater low-frequency weight without being bloated or muddy, and I was frequently surprised by the amount of upper-frequency detail I was hearing (or hearing clearly) for the first time. Even the gentle high buzzing sound produced by the Power Plant Premier's CleanWave function emerged with more clarity.
It's not surprising, then, that in a head-to-head comparison with the King Cobra v2, I preferred the Signature by a large margin. As good as the KC was, and as much as I thoroughly enjoyed the sound of my system every time the KCs were installed, replacing them with the Signatures demonstrated, over and over, what an improvement the new cables provided--across the board. The Signatures were significantly more neutral, more balanced, more realistic, and more extended, but never cold or clinical.
In fact, at this point you can probably fill-in the cliches for me; you know what they are when a new component takes one's system to a clearly audible new level of performance and realism. And you probably know the experience of being caught up in the music even when you're trying to listen to the changes wrought by some new component, or hearing unexpected details in recordings you thought you knew well. Those things happened to me as well, time and again.
So make no mistake, the Signature DFPC is a killer power cord, and at its price it's still a bargain. I'm buying more.