Acoustic Zen vs Homegrown or Mapleshade

Gary, I using the Zen matrix between power and pre. I'm running the satori as speaker wire but I'm using thin mapleshade jumper ribbons on the newform ribbons and between the dual 8" peerless drivers.....when I put the mapleshade jumpers on, it was obvious I was hearing a whole new level from the speakers. Pierre, at Mapleshade, explained that this ribbon is similar to their $1600 omega wire.....I can only say that the line must be pretty serious, if this is any indication. I do like the acoustic zens however. I'm using an ixos ixotica on the cd....both the acoustic zen and the mapleshade get out of the way of the music in my set-up. They also appear to work well or compliment each other. This can be tricky as not all wires work well together....enjoy, Bluenose

Bluenose, I also have the paper thin ribbon jumpers. They sure don't look like much, but sound noticely better than the Analysis Plus Oval 12 jumpers with banana plugs that I had been using. Only the edge of the ribbon comes into contact with the binding post, which leads me to question all the hype I read about the importance of contact area. As for the speaker wire, it is not terminated, and only the bare end comes into contact with the binding post. Oxidation is not a concern, because the bare end is completely covered after the posts are screwed down, and I have them treated with Pro Gold. When you think about it, does having an extra gram or so of metal at the ends of your wire really help current delivery?

Garyl. I agree they don't look like much but mapleshade wants us to use bare wire. I didn't think that edge of foil would be a great connection either but it works. The jumpers on the newform ribbons are longer than need be and Pierre said just to snip the ends off to shorten them....well, I was thinking I could put a little notch in the end to slide the ribbon like a spade ending....I have plenty of length to do it...it would appear that the quality of the connection, [in this case the bare ribbon], is as important as the total area of the connection. Any thoughts on this? I always thought the more mass of the connecting surfaces the better.....By the way the blue cicle is nice gear, you've got a very musical system.....cheers, Bluenose

will pierre sell the jumpers only w/o buying the cables?

Yes to Kitch29....Pierre sells the jumpers on the Mapleshade website....He will actually cut them to the size you request. Excellent chap to talk to...These are jumper ribbons seperate from his speaker wires but similar to the omega speaker wires he sells. A huge jump over the standard jumpers I had. www.mapleshaderecords.com is the website if you need it to look around...cheers, Bluenose