Aether Audio Black Box or Nuforce Magic Cube ???

I actually thought the Nuforce units reduced the dynamics.
Upon first listen they sounded impressive, especially the center image.
But after a week of going back and forth I came to the conclusion it makes the music too polite.
Perhaps it was because the included jumper cable is of a low quality compared to my SR Apex speaker cables.

I just got my Magic Cubes without any filters. I hooked one channel up and purposely left the other channel the same as it was; did this quickly while I was struggling to get out of the house this morning. Anyways, the Magic Cube channel sounder louder, smoother, and a bit more forward than the other channel. Will hook the other one up tonite to my Magnepan 1.7's.

My head hurts with all of the upgrades popping up! They are driving me broke. I am a tweaker deluxe. The Synergistic cells are more costly but seem to have very positive buzz about them. Anyone listened to the Magic Cubes as well as the Synergistic cells and have an opinion about which one sounds better?

Actually listened this morning to my system with Magic Cubes installed; heavily modded Audio Van Alstine 250 wpc fet-valve amp (daikom filters on terminals), heavily modded air-tight tube preamp, Alesis ML 9600 Balanced power technology modded CD player/recorder, locally made copper cable interconnect and speaker cable (by automotive cable engineer), and Magnepan 1.7's with enacom speaker filters attached.

The addition of the Magic Cubes produced startling improvements in the air around instruments, the separation of instruments, the tone colors, dynamics, imaging (now extends clearly beyond the speakers) and increased the overall body of the music across the frequency spectrum. No frequency was accentuated. The changes overall were a very noticeable improvement to a fine sounding system. The system was just cleaner and clearer with a perceived lower noise floor.

I give the Magic Cubes very high marks. I have tried many, many tweeks. I have had good, bad, and everything in between. It is hard for me to imagine what you could do for your system of about 500 bucks that would get you close to what the Magic Cubes did in my system. It also seems to clearly provide incremental benefit to the other tweaks in my system.

I can't wait until they truly break in.

Jaymark, play them for a week or two then take them out.
Like I had posted earlier:

"Upon first listen they sounded impressive, especially the center image.
But after a week of going back and forth I came to the conclusion it makes the music too polite.
Perhaps it was because the included jumper cable is of a low quality".

Now, maybe the design has been improved upon since I last demoed them.

So, based on your return comments in a couple of weeks, I may try them again.

Ozzy - I will try taking them in and out as well as listening to them without the enacom speaker filters. My initial listening impression detected no taming of the music in my system making it more polite. In fact, it was more in the opposite direction - a bit more forward, more bite, dimensionality, etc.

Who knows - different systems and interactions with different equipment, different ears/brain, different musical tastes???