Food or beryllium tweeters for my DeCapo's

Hi Tubeears
In keeping with the spirit of this thread and to keep it alive I wanted to add my take on the cable changes with the Decapos. Yesterday my friend brought over his cables. When he first brought them over to hear with the Merlins, I had my doubts that there could be too much improvement over what I had. He insisted I would hear an improvement. He isn't one to go gaga over everything he hears and I DO trust his ears. He insisted and I agreed. After the first time I wasn’t too sure I believed what I heard, so profound was the difference. So we did it again with the same result. Ever the skeptic I was convinced it was real enough to be able to discern the differences in a blind test when listening to the cabling as part of a system.
Included were 3 power cords, to the amp, pre-amp and my Modwright Oppo 95. 1 IC, from source to pre-amp, speaker cables, and a power strip. The IC from the pre to the power amp since I've put the DeCapos in the system is Coincident. As mentioned in a previous post the cabling was replaced my Stereovox 600 sei ics and Studio copper speaker cables. I also have several different power cords that I choose for my system back when I was going through the cable swapping game. The cabling has remained as is since about 2007, no changes. I’ve been happy with the results and I'm not one to continue driving myself nuts with finding the "ultimate" cable. What I have works quite satisfactorily with excellent transparency and no glaring issues. Being the obsessive compulsive lot we are, we all know there’s something better but how far to go in finding it?
Not to get into too many details of the process as it was performed over several hours and with the changes I am hearing in the speakers from day to day resulting IME from the drivers settling in, it can be daunting trying to figure out what is going on REALLY. To cut to the chase first the speaker cables. I didn't notice anything substantive. If you THINK you hear something it just doesn't count. Next we put in the IC from the source to the Pre-amp. At this point we both heard the effect that was realized in the Merlins, a greater sense of coherence and clarity, a bit of the richness from the Stereovox was removed but replaced by a greater sense of the instruments and vocals in front of you, more real. Hard to explain this but I can only attribute it to some type of timing phenomenon, who knows what is REALLY going on with cabling you can only believe what your ears tell you. Next we hooked up all the power cables excepting for the digital into the power strip. I didn't want to replace that just yet. I am using a JPS digital power cord that I have been extremely pleased with. I still remember the first day that I got that cable and the improvement it made. All devices are connected to two dedicated 20 amp circuits with cryoed hospital grade receptacles.
When all was in place, particularly with the last change including the power strip it became completely apparent that what we had heard with the Merlins carried over to the DeCapos. The sound just got larger and more natural. The bass went off the charts. Honestly at the dealer there was nothing I heard that would lead me to believe that these speakers were capable of projecting such dynamic drive and energy. The images became larger, on some recordings seemingly as large as life. Reference music during the process includes Reference Recording of Miles Davis’s "All Blues" a quartet recording with Mike Garson on piano. Bach's "Little Fugue in G Minor" on Telarc with Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops. Seal’s "People Asking Why" and Evgeny Kissin J.S. Bach's Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C.
What was focused on in the Bach "Little Fugue.." is the opening oboe with the bassoon coming in. This is very delicate and demonstrated with either cabling the amazing ability of the DeCapos to reproduce the correct timbre of these instruments so correctly, beyond what I consider typical for most box speakers. It is an example of why they grabbed my attention initially, the believability factor. The differences in the cabling were a greater sense of what you are hearing is in front of you and not coming from a box, not unlike Quads if not quite as believable either but pretty darn amazing and very close. This is the coherence part. How does a cable ADD coherence. I don’t think it does. What I believe is it subtracts what is heard from the Stereovox, the bit of richness. It is difficult to put into words but it is apparent. And so it went . Most notable on the Kissin recording was the decay of the harmonics. and how this was even FURTHER refined and realistic, a deeper view into the performance. I am a huge fan of great pianists whether in the jazz or classical genre so this is just a really big deal to me to hear these artists perform in your living space that almost transcends the recording. I was again so amazed at what I was hearing. I have a 6’ Chickering Grand adjacent to the listening space and know how it projects in my space. To hear one so gifted play seemingly in front of me in my 20’X18’ room was itself a gift.
The second set of cables just made everything more focused and right. The power cables seemingly increased the size of everything, more vivid and dynamic. On the Seal the sound almost pressured the room. The bass was very convincing, never boomy but clearly defined with all the fundamentals AND overtones resolved. This is due in no small part to the Berning amp which is dc coupled and is as good as anything I’ve ever heard in controlling bass and going low. I’ve owned it for 11 years and with an ideal load it is about as clear and transparent as anything I’ve ever heard. The Berning showed me the true mettle of these speakers and conversely the speakers did the same with the amp. Nothing more ideal than a mid/bass driver with no crossover coupled with an OTL type amp operating at almost zero feedback, and 70 watts of power, about ideal. When I first hooked up the speakers I got some serious boom, this with the front baffle 36” from the wall. I don’t know why here, certainly not at the dealers. It was quickly remedied by placing 2 home brewed tube traps behind each of the speakers.
Actually after reading the above it sounds like a review for the unnamed cables. I have left them unnamed because the focus of this thread is the DeCapo, BE tweeters or food. This is a concurrence of what Tubeears is hearing. To me the hobby isn’t about changing out gear to hear something different. I love to hear different systems but would much rather do that and come home to something where I can kick back and really enjoy the music, being engaged without that constant desire to chase what’s missing. These speakers first of all produce music, the timbre, balance and believability are all there. What I don’t think I’ve found out is how much there is there, how deep does this go? What I am left with is an unexpected result alright, but in a way I never imagined. Thanks Tony for your kind words. I am just in awe of how superb and capable these speakers are. Their price is a bargain but is partly understandable because of the simplicity of the design, a simple capacitor, no complex crossover, a great mid/bass driver and those BE tweeters all so well integrated, coherent and seamless. I wonder what the Nextel coating and acoustic lens have a hand in what I’m hearing?

DeCapo

Tubegroover,

It looks as though we are a mirror image of each other. My wife doesn't just like them... She IS in love with them. However, if they were in the Nextel, that love would have vanished and the speakers would have been made to disappear within moments of their arrival.
I am looking strongly at my cables as well. I like them very much, but what I am seeing in the DeCapos is a speaker like you have so correctly described. They are now able to flesh out every nuance of every fine detail. The cables themselves had well be able to do that trick ... or the DeCapos won't be able to see those small details (to be able to transduce them). The changes to the DeCapos were far from minor ones (with the addition of the new tweeter) and they can now compete with the big boys. As was the case before the new beryllium tweeters were installed, the DeCapos demanded the best in equipment to allow them to become the tasty meals that they were. Now, with the upgrades, the DeCapos have went stellar.
I talked with a very knowledgeable dealer, one that has considerable experience with the DeCapos, both new and old and he feels much in the same way. Sooooo.... Here we sit with speakers that demand cable well in excess of what the little speakers cost ! They should have renamed them "De-Lemas"... Well, we will eek our way thru it, I'm sure.
Right now, the JPS cables are just fine and I have a back up pair of Moanster Cable Retro-Sigma Gold. They are quite wonderful sounding, smooth and with a very musical presentation.... Stereophile howled about them and the matching IC's. I have a pair of them as well. The point is.. All the Howling in the world doesn't mean that they are the best choice for the DeCapos. The DeCapos are just too big for their own pants. Anymore, speaker cable only means HYPE to me. The for instance the Munster Cable. The little darlings come with a ( Halliburton style) all aluminum briefcase. OK, if that's that game, the DeCapos should come wrapped in VW Touareg (brown leather and TDI, please). Anyway, pale-ease cable companies, Just put the money into the cables and put the cables into a bag and just gimme da bag. If I need a briefcase, I'll need a job first ( and one that pays enough to buy the stinking cables on and on). Sooo, we are in a pickle. The DeCapos are in another league altogether from their ancestors. They have evolved, and they are driving us to evolve with them... Like it or not.

Lend me some help here and let me know where I stand. Before I jump ears first into some kind of odd review of the beryllium tweeters ( in addition to how the DeCapos sound as a whole). I want to hear some ideas and opinions on the equipment that I thought was just fine, and even purchased targeting the DeCapos...

My set-up as it sits now:
Integrated amp: An Audio Analogue Maestro Setantta rev 2. I had not heard this particular amp. Until I purchased this one ( thru A'gon), The only AA amp that I had owned was an AA Puccini just before the dinosaurs died out, and i loved it. This amp sounds astonishing, looks good and the reviews are solid. It seemed as though it is the perfect match for the DeCapos, even if it is solid state. Get your Google gloves on and take a ride to find out about an amp that is world class and a pure joy to hear. Dig deep enough and you will see some spectacular photos of the insides of this beautiful beast.

I also have a Jolida 202brc that stuffed with premium tubes. The 202brc is a real sleeper in the Jolida lineup. Just a honest, straight forward example of what a good tube amp should be, at a lower price level. There are better tube amps, to be sure, but for the money, this one is very musical and has great pace, authority and responds well to tube change.

Dacs: One is the new Jolida Glass Tube dac. Two 12ax7's drive the out puts. I use either Tung Sols or re issue Mullards. Very well made. Extremely versitel and comes stock with parts that are normally upgrades for other units.

The other is a Michael Yee Dac one. His first but an amazing dac nonetheless. MR. Yee is a master with analog. His head amps are legendary and Dac One is a masterpiece of parts quality and workmanship.

CDP: Jolida JD 100. Very musical, good sounding player/ transport.
Again, two 12ax7's for the output. It has two separate analog outputs and a coax digital. I can switch back and forth between the stock CDP, or thru the upgraded Jolida dac or quickly switch to the Michael Yee.

Tuner. Mcintosh MR-78. I like this tuner better than any that I have ever used or heard. A real chunk of audio candy.

Cassette decks. I have two. A Nakamichi MR-1. It is one of the best. Only balanced ins/outs and every possible function. A spectacular deck.
Number two. Another Nakamichi . A CR-2a. A great sounding piece. Perfect to mate and copy with my MR-1.

Cables. JPS Superconductor plus ic and speaker cable.
Monster Sigma. Ic and speaker cable
Music Metre IC's and Digital cable

Vibro-pods under everything, including me. Also many assorted tweaks, Blue-Tac, bean bags .... Lots of little things that I probably should not have spent money on

Apple TV... I use this a lot for Internet radio. I run the HD channels in to either dac.
It sounds just fine for my casual listening. At time it actually sounds better than I want to believe that it can. I kick my own but every day thinking about all of the money that I wasted on XM Radio ! The Apple cost about a hundred bucks at Bad Buy !

Monster cable HTS 3600 line protection. Nice little inexpensive unit. 10 plug Ins and fairly good protection. A Shunyata is next in line.

Tubegroover, the words in your last post are so exact and so much of what I am finding that I am in hope that everyone can read what we say. It is like there is no need for any other loudspeaker to exist at all. What is ..oh so amazing, is that just about anyone can afford them. Even more so with the new Dulcets. These speakers are really a true gift to the Audiophile community. I rejoice every day that I wasn't born a Newt, blind and deaf in a dark cave with no electricity, my little sticky fingers not able to go around the volume knob on my new amp ( and my body to light to force the buttons down on the remote).
Indeed, I am gifted... I am Newtless and proud of it.

OK... There it is. Blast the hell out of it.

Oh.. Ya, I forgot to add what speakers that I have. Ref. 3a, DeCapo's.
And also a pair of the first PBN Montana SP's. they are in the bedroom closet ( a good place for them IMHO). They are a bit beat up from me throwing various tools and things at them, but they work like they should. Stereophile went GaGa over them. They have a crossover the likes of which I have never seen.... Literally dozens of parts.. All top grade, like Hovland and others. If Tash ever seen the crossover in these, he would have a massive coronary on the spot. It takes a half of a CD for the signal to pass thru all the parts in these things. There are probably still a bunch of words and notes stuck inside them that have to be pryed out. I am giving them to a friend next month.

Oh the Montanas, yes I know a few that have them. One set-up isn't so bad and he's had them for years with ARC gear. I couldn't tell you the model number. Certainly not my cup of tea for most music but he is primarily a rocker listens to quite a bit of jazz and some classical, it works for him just fine. I heard a pair of the big KAS many years back at a dealers. He just loved them, their dynamic capability you know. I just didn't get it and couldn't wait for it to end and besides the things were so big they reminded me of two large coffins. Another guy whose large Montana system I only heard once in his huge listening room was all tweaked out with thick slabs of maple under all components, all the cabling with risers keeping them from touching the ground. To me all the tweaking did was highlight all the issues I had with his system. We listened to a lot of old rock and roll that night including Ted Nugent, the Stones etc. and I throughly enjoyed it. But THEN we put on one of my favorite piano recordings of Earl "Fatha" Hines and immediately realized I never knew a piano could sound like that, very interesting. We talked later and I told him how much I enjoyed the evening, which I really did it was a lot of fun listening to rock and roll with the guys. My only regret is I wished I had brought some of my favorite rock recordings. I mentioned I didn't realize he was such a rock fan. He said he wasn't really but was more into light jazz and female vocalists. Now that was a tough one to figure out. Those big Montana's sure could boogie but for female vocals and jazz? As I always say, to each his own. Audiophiles are a real diverse lot but one thing most are not lacking is passion and opinion. I personally find most multi-driver system problematic with a few exceptions. The coherence is generally blown and you end up listening to a speaker instead of music. The older I get the more apparent it becomes.

Now back to the DeCapos. I think the only thing left for me to do is find the right cables. I may have found them after that last session. They don't cost an arm and a leg and they just sound right when used together. The problem is they look like a bad joke, something Rube Goldberg threw together in an afternoon with the ground wires separate from the helix solid cores wrapped something that seems like mylar. The ICs are app. half inch strips of very thin copper wrapped in the mylar type material with unruly ground wires outside the mylar with VERY minimalist connectors that attached to the components rather loosely, not snug like you would expect. The power cords have round plugs that look like they were procured from an electric supply house that went out of business 80 years ago. Remember the old toastmaster toaster with the cloth cord with the wire wrapped in asbestos inside? Well those plugs would be on the end of that cord. I really haven't seen anything like that for years. The power strip looks like the economy model at Wal-mart wired the same as the power cords sitting on a beautiful 6" slab of solid maple. I would hope that it is at least 12 guage, fires you know. I guess I've given it away now. Totally minimilist Tubeers, no fancy leather or solid dovetailed wood cases with thick felt lining with the brand name printed on fancy silk. In any case, before going that route I am going to reconfigure my system, build a new wood equipment rack so if I do decide on these cables, they can't be seen. Besides, too much clutter in the room, its time for a makeover and my wife agrees.

DCaps

Tubegroover,

I'm still chuckling over the Montana experience that you had. I have as well, a friend that lives his life for them.. He is only "half" deaf at this point. I believe that Montana's theory is this... The more deaf you get, you progressively increase the size of the Montana that you buy. Once completly deaf, you are left with only their subwoofers and a giant Krell amp on a rolling pallet. I personally do not like my clothes and body hair removed by air waves produced by a speaker the size of a battleship. Ironically, from what I have heard, the founder of Montana, Peter Norbeak (sorry, I'm not sure of the spelling ) originally got his start working at Cary Audio. He put together the Cary CS 301 (or could be the SP301... Not sure). Anyway, it could be bought as a kit. Those are the ones in my closet. They could also be bought pre-built. They were nice looking, sort of Merlin-like and used the De-appolito driver arrangement using high quality Vifa mid/woofs and A Scan-Speak 9500 series Tweeter. The cabinet is a real nice composite of some kind and was black lacquered. A very good arrangement till Peter found a big bucket of crossover parts. After shoveling them onto a board full of silicone sealent, he turned ... What started as "Nice" to "nasty" ...real fast. I'm going to CYA here a just bit and say that all of what I know about all of this is just folk lore and Is just here-say.... Anyway, the way that I heard it , when Peter left Cary (for whatever reason) he formed the PBN Montana line. To me, it looked like he took the speaker he designed at Cary with him, and re-named it the Montana SP. At that time, Stereophile nailed it for a formal review and it was off to the loudspeaker races for Montana. If you look way back to the Sphile reviews, you will find that one reviewer, in particular, was Very enamored (and again, for whatever reasons) by Montanas speaker line up. I don't believe that there were the Montanasaurus offerings at that time. Anyway, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a lust filled reviewer from a big audio rag slobbering accolades on their keyboard for you. So, anyway, the speakers got bigger and the sound got louder. Some people love them. And as you rightfully say, they can engage you with dynamics like no other and somehow remain coherent. As a side note: I don't pay much attention to the magazine reviews anymore. Much of the reason is because of antics of some of the reviewers, their biases and admiration for their chosen demigods. Their reviews seem to parallel watching them climb the rocky cliffs, to their favorite oracle, just to share some fine wine and a piece of cheese... All the while, sitting with their mentors, starry-eyed listening to their most resent product. I much more enjoy and absorb the the words that continue on in the forums and also from what dedicated and informed salon dealers say. Those dealers that are all that is left to display what we so undyingly seek.. I would still pick the DeCapos over the KAS's, or any other mammoth shrouded in exotic finishes belching out SPL's that would cave my walls in. My loud days are.. quite thankfully, all over and if a speaker can't show me greatness at low volumes.... I don't want it in front of me (or sneaking around behind me either). A scant few speaker can play well at below speaking level, and the DeCapo is at the very-most top of that list.
A little about pianos....
I was actually picking out some of my better piano flavored music as I read your post. Technically speaking, I don't know much about pianos... except, I feel that they are much like hi-end audio componants. The best of brands are very much argued about. Some will say... This piano is better ... That piano is better, and on and on the battle for best goes. Owners or afectionatos of them will throw their favorite picks into the ring like big wooden pit bulls to see who's best. I would think that a piano, whatever the brand, could have a fare amount of trick tuning done to it to give it a sound that the player likes. I can tell a difference in brands, at times, but sorry to say that I haven't chosen a preference. I am fond of both uprights and standard. I like most of the piano sounds that I hear, but it is mainly due to the artist and/or the performance. I can put up with poor recordings (to a point) if the artist/performance are there (in the presentation) for me. One great CD that I can't seem to find tonight is my Holy Cole Trio, with the cut... "I can see clearly now" on it. After a just a few lines of just her singing.... a piano makes its amazingly vibrant introduction and ... Wow. Is it breathtaking. I really want the DeCapos to take a look at that. I don't know the brand of the piano. Then of course there are all,of the old Audiophile standards... Lincoln Mayorga and Amanda McBroom .... Dave Crusin and then on cassette tape, most of the Windom Hill recordings. Windom Hill seems to do piano very well, on their tapes.. and on a good cassette machine (like the Nakamichi MR-1), it is so so pleasing and musically captivating. I really envy you for being able to play one of the things. I would give it a try, but I have too many Vibra-Pods stuck to my fingers.
Back to the DeCapos. So far, what piano that I have listened to has been a real surprise. They present a piano in true life form. I did not think that they could create and hold (with substance) the mass of a piano. They not only engage you with the sound, but the emotion of the performer. They cast an image so wide and deep that it feels as though the piano is sitting in the room along with you ...with all else that is on stage. Usually, the vast majority of speakers reduce the piano to a small, vague and smeared outline of itself, with little or no weight. The DeCapos show the piano for what it is. I am very, very impressed. I also feel very lucky, both for myself and others that own them. We have something that so many others are searching for, I'm sure happy my search is finally over. I love the idea of the Grand Veena's, but I'm afraid that my small listening area dictates the use of the DeCapos. I just could not be happier.

If you guys want an amazing "goose bump" listening experience, pick up a copy of Sade's latest album, Soldier Of Love, and play track 3, "Morning Bird." I played it for an audiophile friend of mine on the De Capo's (who has some very good speakers at home) and he was stunned. Just sat there saying "wow" and "my speakers won't do that." :-)