Awhile ago I posted about my journey from Dave's D3 ICs to other brands and back to my original D3s. I'd been substantially upgrading my office system and while mixing up the gear decided some other brand seemed to work better. Once the other gear stabilized I realized the D3 provided the "non-sound" I needed and I bought back the pair I had sold. They won't be leaving again.
The speakers in my office are LaHave Melas, a premium stand mount which uses a Nextel cone Seas Excel woofer with a Jordan 50MM tweeter. The Jordan is very highly resolving, but can sound a bit dry and edgy if not fed properly. They are driven by my modded N-Core NC-400, with a Yulong DA8 DAC and music server as the source. I'd tried at least a half dozen speaker cables, from $200-$1600 list, and the resulting sound was the best I'd had in my office, where I've used over 100 pairs of speakers, but there was still some grain to the highs.
When a 4 ft. pair of SL cables came up for sale, I thought I'd give them a try again in my office. Putting them in was like a breath of fresh air, from the very first measure. The grain disappeared, the highs were clearer and more defined, and the midrange clarity and soundstage improved markedly. They just sound right. I spent 6 hours listening. Everything was better.
I had bought a pair of SLs over 2 years ago after hearing them on the tour. I really liked them. I thought they sounded much like the D3s. After making some other changes, I was having problems getting the bass fullness I wanted, and changed to Acoustic Zen Satori Shotgun bi-wires, 7 ga. equivalent. They had prodigious bass, but not as clean on top as the SL.
The experience in my office has shown me the way back. I'm having my Nuprime 10H, ST-10 stack from the main system upgraded now, and when I get them back and evaluate the sound I'm quite sure I'll get a pair of SLs for the upper range of my Von Schweikert VR5 HSEs, leaving the woofers to my 10 ga. Signal Cable silver Refs. I already use D4s in that system, and they are simply the best.
For me, the D3s, D4s and SL offer the truthfulness I'm looking for in cables, and I think there is synergy in using Zenwave cables in series. I've gone there and back again, as Bilbo Baggins the philosopher once said, a couple of times!
