[tonyptony]

David, don't peek yet , but when you have your final thoughts take a look at my write up. You may be surprised (or not).

How's that for ambiguity?

[davidrs]

Hi Tony,

Ambiguous is as ambiguous was and will be...

I did take a very quick and cursory peek last night, but was really tired, so the eyeballs and neurons were not tracking well.

I will hold off until after I post at the end of the week.

Hope my initial write up was helpful and added point/counterpoint to what your impressions of the cable are.

- David.

[tonyptony]

Hi David. Thought I'd see if you had a chance for the planned listening with the cable.

[davidrs]

I received the Black Cat Veloce digital cable on Friday afternoon from Gopher, who due to component issues was unable to test the cable in his system.

As a note, I did not read Tony’s write-up and am curious as to how each of our observations will play out. As well as those that follow my turn in the tour.

You can view my system under the systems tab. To briefly summarize it: I primarily listen to a Pandora subscription, with digital S/PDIF out from (currently) an ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card. The digital feed goes to an Audio Research DAC7, then to an Ayon Spirit II integrated amp via a Vaughn Interconnect. The amp powers Vaughn Pinot floor standers, via Teresonic Clarison speaker cable.

As luck would have it, I just sold my Harmonic Technology Cyberlink Platinum Silver digital cable. Therefore, unfortunately, it will not be included in the comparisons (if folks are interested in its ‘signature’ in my system, please pm me). My primary digital cable is a Madrigal cable (with RCA to XLR terminations) and it is this cable that serves as my reference and in this instance, as the comparative cable. The Madrigal cable has been in my system for 11 months now.

I am using the Veloce’s RCA connector on the source end and its BNC connector at the DAC end (there was a slight performance upside vs. RCA/RCA). I expect a BNC to BNC connection to be slightly superior to the RCA to RCA connection.

The Veloce improved and stabilized after about two hours of playtime. I believe it is fully broken in and will only require a very short warm up for those downstream in the tour.

The Veloce is not directional, a positive in my opinion. For my purposes, I used it so you can read the lettering on the jacket, left to right, with the left side/start of lettering closest to the source side.

As for my listening ‘test methodology,’ I am not following any particular school of thought other than having the cable in system and listening exactly the way I listen to my music under a normal setting. In other words, no A/Bees on content or switching back and forth between cables after certain tracks/albums/time periods, etc.

I’ve selected the following Pandora stations to do most of my ‘comparative’ listening:

- Maroon (jazz)
- Eddie Vedder
- Lhasa
- Azam Ali
- Arvo Part
- A. R. Rahman
- Anoushka Shankar
- Hector Zazou
- Mercan Dede
- William Ackerman, and
- Xx.

--- in no particular order or preference or time spent. I have also used redbook copies of Sixteen Horsepower and Eva Cassidy for non-Pandora based listening.

These initial impressions, are based on nearly 8 hours of listening to the Black Cat Veloce in my normal listening environment.  And a further 4 hours of listening with the Madrigal in system.

The Veloce is a very good digital cable and is not just a killer value at its price, but an absolute no-brainer given that you can return it over a 60 day trial period, and can recoup its full cost if you upgrade to the Stereolab Reference XV Ultra.

Now for the ‘but’ which applies only to me. Readers can make their own assessments.

For me, this hobby is about preferences, and the Veloce doesn’t quite meet mine.

Having got that out of the way, I still believe it is a very good cable and will work well for any number of folks and systems. There is nothing I can say that it does ‘wrong’ or is a significant weakness of note. So back to that ‘preference’ thing.

Most of the points I am going to make below can be referenced by the phrase “just slightly.” There are not large variances here, and I am sure other ears will prefer the presentation the Veloce delivers based on their idea of what reproduced music sounds like (repeating that theme of preferences and valuations).

To my ears, it is:

Fast, accurate, has clarity, is forward, favors the higher frequencies, has slightly less body and weight across the frequency range  and therefore, sounds lighter than what I prefer.

With the Madrigal in my system, I find the music to be more laid back, more natural, with more body, weight and fullness; and therefore more aligned with what I enjoy and appreciate.

I expect folks who appreciate a slightly forward and slightly airier presentation with an “energy” centered around clarity to love the Veloce.

I can also see the Veloce offering an assist to those with systems they consider warm to their tastes or those who need to squeeze more out of the higher frequencies in their systems.

For me, Chris Sommovigo’s effort with the Veloce has ensured that I will (and I will) be picking up his Reference XV Ultra, as long as it adds just that extra bit of richness and warmth and body I prefer.

The Veloce is going to go back into my system tomorrow and I will be running it for a few days. At that time, I will follow through with final thoughts.

This is the second section of the review of the Black Cat Veloce Digital Cable. The first section is quoted above and can also be seen on Page 1 of this tread.

I wasn’t able to get much 2 channel listening in during the week, but did get back to evaluating the Veloce Friday through Sunday.

For the second evaluation I swapped out the Vaughn Pinots for my Gemme Audio Tanto V2 speakers. The only other change was running the Teresonic Clarison speaker cable for the mid/lows and Rob Fritz’ Audio Art SC-5 SE speaker cable (with upgraded connectors) to the ‘high frequency’ binding posts of the Tanto V2s.

[As a side note, I conducted a short (2 movie) session with the Veloce running from a Panasonic DMP-BD85P-K Blu Ray player, streaming Netflix 2.0 audio to the Audio Research DAC7 (again RCA to BNC). I found no issues with the sound quality and performance. In other words, it just plain worked].

My first evaluation painted a picture of preference. This evaluation found the brush strokes coloring synergy across the canvas. The music from the Gemme Tantos, with the Madrigal / Audio Art in the mix came across as more laid back than it was with the Vaughn Pinots and my seating position shifted back a number of rows.

With the Black Cat Veloce in system, my ‘seating’ position moved up a few rows. Still not as much as with the Vaughn Pinots/Madrigal and definitely not as much with the Pinots/Veloce.

So what does this mean? I have to admit, that the synergy of the system with the Gemme Tantos and the Veloce worked exceptionally well. In this particular setup, I would have absolutely no issues purchasing the Veloce as my primary digital cable.

I still prefer what the Madrigal does with the Tantos vs. the Veloce, but the differences are not as wide as with the Pinots. Again, there is a sense of more body, fullness and weight on tap, which makes the Madrigal more musically engaging, based on my preferences. But with the Tantos, the Veloce comes much closer.

My comments on the Veloce's ‘personality’ from the first evaluation still hold. What changed with the Tantos in the chain was a "calming" of that personality, WHICH makes the Veloce fully acceptable for my needs in this particular system setup.

Preference and synergy. A Cat's Tale and the Kat’s Meow. 

I encourage you to find out for yourself. I’m guessing there is a high probability of you finding the Black Cat Veloce to your liking.

[tonyptony]

Nice work David. IMO I think your impressions and mine are in the same playing field, so we're either both imagining things or we're both hearing something (I prefer the latter ). It really is a nice cable and could be a fine addition to the right system.

For anyone interested (especially Wotan), after this little experiment I decided to call Nordost and see if they could rebuild my Silver Shadow with BNC connectors. Sure enough they could and did; it should be here tomorrow. They actually disassemble the cable and install their BNCs so as not to change the original length - it is returned as though it were originally built that way. I will do a comparison to my cable just to see what the Nordost can do when properly terminated.

[davidrs]

Tony,

Thank you. I have not read your review yet, that is, with my complete attention. Had a social commitment this evening and will give it a full read tomorrow. Looking forward to connecting with your observations and experience with the cable in your system.

I leave my best Imagining to John Lennon. 

- David.

[tonyptony]

I got my BNC'd Silver Shadow back yesterday. I hooked it up and it's now cooking for a while.

Phil, if you're still keeping track of the tour list - and if the rest of the tour group is okay with it - I'd like to ask if I could be inserted back in for a quick review of the Veloce aganist a proper BNC connectorized Nordost. I'll need about a week to get enough hours on my cable, so I would be happy to be like the last guy in this part of the country, after which I'll shoot it off to the next person. I'd only need a day or so and it would be on its way.

It's no problem if the team doesn't want this to happen.

[ted_b]

Tour stop number 3 and a half.  This will be somewhat different than the previous, for many reasons.  One, I am nowhere near the writers that Tony and David are.  Wow, nice reviews.  Second, S/PDIF cables for me are not that important, and not often used.  So why did I ask to be on this tour?  Because for reason number three, I own the original Chris Sommovigo design, the Stereovox HDXV, an early 2003 $75 cable that caught the digital world by storm.  The Black Cat is Chris’s third or fourth design since then, and he claims it is easily his best….yet counting inflation, is likely cheaper than his original.  The HDXV, with its laboratory grade 75 ohm specs and dual RCA/BNC connectors (sound familiar) has been my go-to S/PDIF cable to date, but a cable I “go-to” very infrequently over the past couple of years, preferring AES/EBU as my non-computer digital interface du jour.  This tour stop may help me understand that. 

I received my Black Cat Veloce S/PDIF cable today.  Thanks David! It is nicely packaged in the old style box, with early French pop art design.  The cable itself is a simple and beautiful design, black (duh!) with blue heatshrinks and label.  It has the Sommovigo stamp all over it; perfect 75 ohm spec and interchangeable RCA/BNC connectors, all on a very thin utilitarian design.
OK, let’s cut to the chase.  Naw, nevermind….let me explain my setup for this tour stop.  As I stated above, I am not an S/PDIF guy, and my Weiss DAC2 is usually simply wired up to receive firewire from my MAC music server, and glass toslink from my Atlona HDMI- de-embedder (for hirez SACD and BlURay PCM’d music from the Oppo BDP-83 SE).  Then, the Weiss usually hands out digital to a visiting DAC via AES/EBU (Dh Labs D-110 $85 digital wunderkind to be specific).  I sue this digital out setup to try and level the playing field when evaluating the DAC-as-DAC, then move on to hear the visiting DAC from his/her computer interface, evaluating DAC-as-computer-interface-and-DAC, taking the Weiss out of the picture. 

In the early days of my past year’s DAC evaluations I would pit S/PDIF input against AES/EBU input; I usually would use both digital outs of the Weiss, with the HDXV serving as S/PDIF cable to the visiting DAC.  I soon decided that the majority, if not all, of the evaluated DACs seem to prefer AES/EBU.  Hmm….never once did I assume the HDXV as doing anything but holding its own against the DH Labs 110 ohm XLR cable.  But then…..the Black Cat arrived.

I am presently waiting on the return (tomorrow) of my March 2011 DAC of the month, the M2Tech Young 32/384k capable DAC.  It will be evaluated for its USB prowess, but I’ll first listen to it via its digital inputs (AES/EBU and S/PDIF) fed by the Weiss.  Since I don’t want to go insane yet, I thought I’d better find out whether the Chris Sommovigo Black Cat was going to sound any different than the almost identical looking Chris Sommovigo HDXV…and let the best, er, animal, win the right to be S/PDIF cable on the Weiss-M2tech evaluation.  (In reality, I’ll listen to both, but wanted to hear them tonight to get an idea).  So to do this I used my Oppo BDP-83 SE as a redbook and DVD-A transport to the Weiss, via S/PDIF.  (Note:  I never listen this way, but what the hell).  HDXV, then Veloce.  RCA connectors, no BNC sadly.

Let me start by saying that the Oppo listening session was not that much fun.  In either case, the transport-via-SPDIF-Weiss combo was noticeably more digital and noisy than my tweaked to the max firewire’d Pure Music computer setup…so much so that it startled me frankly.  It was not close.  BUT….what the session did do was point out that Chris S (I’m tired of typing Sommovigo) has done a lot to evolve his design. 

I used Cassandra Wilson’s collaborative effort with Jacky Terrasson, Rendezvous (Blue Note) as my redbook example cuz it’s beautiful music, very 3-D, and I know it in my sleep.  I used Cannonball Adderly’s Somethin Else HDAD as the hirez example, although I only played one cut, Love For Sale, to hear all I needed to hear.

First up was the HDXV, lined up like the Veloce, with signal path directionality assumed as the left-to-right writing on the label.  Hearing Cassandra’s take on “It Might As Well be Spring” is my usual first stop, and this time the tune was difficult to get excited about.  The first thought was that the Oppo combo just doesn’t cut it, but I paid attention regardless, thinking that if the Veloce cures all evils then I need to explain what I heard as a cable problem, period.  Well, the noise floor was higher and, er, noisier than I expected, the high frequencies exhibited classic digititis, with phasey cymbals and a complete lack of air around instruments.  Bass was fairly well controlled, but not tuneful, as it got masked in the haze.  Moving on to “My Ship” with a great opening acoustic bass, the song usually comes out of blackness.  Now it is coming out of light greyness, and the bass is a bit boomy and sloppy.  Cassandra’s wonderfully subtle breathing/voicings are completely obliterated by the haze…it sounds as if the music has been downrez’d to MP3 frankly.  I moved over to Cannonball’s “Love For Sale” and Coltrane’s sax sounded ok, but very 2 dimensional.  This HDAD sounds like you are in the master tape room (hiss and all), yet tonight it sounds like the “life” has been removed…still sounds great compared to 90% of the toher stuff out there, but not the Classic HDAD I know and love.

OK, then.  WTF.  I replace the HDXV with the Black Cat Veloce cable, wait a few minutes for the cable to settle in, and try again.  Mind you, this is so far from a double blind test it isn’t funny.  I mean, I’m pulling like hell for the Veloce to make everything go away.  It doesn’t, but it makes everything sound much better, and not a close call by any means.  The Cassandra stuff now has air and depth and feeling, with cymbals decaying at a normal rate, and with bass much more controlled.  The noise floor has dropped to the sub-basement (it’s at the vacuum formed by the heat of the core of the earth with my music server setup though  ) and music is now listenable again.  I once again implore the highly educated WTF!  Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin Else HDAD is improved slightly, but strangely not nearly what redbook’s improvement was.  I will revisit this (as I will revisit all of this again, before the tour leaves).

So, as I await the REAL test of the Veloce cable, that is, to hear it reproduce the Weiss’s pristine music server feed to the M2tech Young DAC, and compete with the world-class (ok, Ted-class) DH Labs D-110 AES/EBU cable (btw, Positive Feedback loves this cheap DH Labs AES cable too) I summarize my feelings about the Veloice this way.  It is clearly better than the HDXV older cousin, and it creates a very liveable sound with soundstage depth, air and dynamics…it has me believing that it may very well hold its own when trying to recreate the excellent soundstage and palpability I have come to expect from my firewire setup.  Stay tuned.  The Young arrives tomorrow and I’ll give it a few days to warm up (it’s not brand new, just returning from having a new board and new firmware installed).

[tonyptony]

Awesome Ted. I find the comparison to the older Chris S design to be very interesting. Can't wait to hear your thoughts hooked up the the "big rig".

[tonyptony]

Ted, any updates?

[rklein]

I received the Black Cat Veloce cable a little less than one week ago from Ted_B and I can now share my impressions with the rest of you.  The associated gear is as follows:

Nightshade Audio NS-60 SE amp which is being driven by 4 GL KT-88’s, 3 6SN7’s in the first and secondary positions with tube rectification

Nightshade Audio Beacon III pre-amp with 3 6SN7’s in play.

Stock EE MiniDAC (not exactly as I have the ACME silver fuse in it )
The EE MiniDAC is feeding a John Kenny modded boxed HiFace MKII USB/SPDIF converter being run off of a 12v rechargeable battery.

I am running Foobar 2000 on a Nettop with only a little Intel Atom 230 cpu, which allows it to be fanless. (Thanks to M Galusha for building this!)  My library consists of flac both redbook and some HiRez material.

My Speaker cable is Morrow Audio SP3 Bi-Wired along with Morrow Audio MA-3 IC’s.

My speakers are the TRT model(ScanSpeak drivers) from Rick Craig at Selah Audio which I built from a kit.

I compared the Veloce cable to my existing StereoVox HDXV cable running RCA out(with a 6 db attenuator) from the EE minidac to BNC at the modded Boxed HiFace MKII.

My playlist consisted of:
Acoustic Alchemy                Casino
Melody Gardot      Over The Rainbow
The Cleveland Orchestra   Madrigal from Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet
Taylor Engesti      Promenade
Stevie Ray Vaughn      Tin Pan Alley
Herbie Hancock      Sting singing Sister Moon(Possibilities Album)

The way I audition gear is that my existing gear is the “reigning champ” so to speak.  In other words, the “challenger” needs to be clearly better for me to make a change.  I end up playing each track over and over listening for specific things each time such as upper treble, mid-range, bass, overall soundstage, imaging, etc.  I just can’t listen for everything at the same time.

In Casino, the Veloce had a more engaging sound.  It was fuller than the Stereovox.  The acoustic guitars sounded... well like a acoustic guitar should sound like.  No more no less.  The bass and percussion seemed a little more taut than the Stereovox.

In Melody Gardot’s rendition of Over the Rainbow, the thing that I immediately noticed was that her voice was a bit more recessed on the Stereovox and in addition, I noticed a little less sibilance as well with the Veloce.

In The Cleveland Orchestra’s playing of the Madrigal from Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet, I thought the two cables were very close.  In multiple playings, I have to admit that I very much enjoyed hearing The Cleveland Orchestra’s excellent wind section on the Veloce.  The sound was a bit smoother as well with the Veloce.

With Taylor Engisi playing a very cool jazz version of The Promenade from Moussorski’s Pictures At an Exhibition, it was again very close between the Veloce and the Stereovox.  Again, the nod goes to the Veloce.  The opening String Bass solo just had more texture – more “meat of the bone” so to speak.

In Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Tin Pan Alley, The Stereovox was more treble(maybe bright) sounding which is not all bad on this particular recording.  However, the Veloce gave a more balanced presentation overall between the treble, mid-range and bass.  I will say that while the singer’s voice had more depth with the Veloce, I preferred the Stereovox because of the grittier sound on this blues piece.

By the time I got to Sting singing Sister Moon from Herbie Hancock’s Possibilities Album, it was becoming apparent that the Veloce had a bit more imaging and a more three dimensional sound than my Stereovox HDXV cable.  Was the Veloce earth shatteringly better?  Nope.  Would I spend the money that the Veloce costs for the slight difference between the two?  Absolutely without question.  Folks, we are not talking about a silly expensive digital cable here and as Ted states, with inflation,the Veloce is less expensive than the Stereovox.  The sound was most enjoyable.

Thanks for the opportunity to participate on the Veloce Tour.  I will be sending the Veloce off to the next AC member tomorrow.

Regards,

Randy

[tonyptony]

Ah, Randy. I hadn't realized Ted had sent it off to you. Another nice review. I'd been curious about the HDXV ever since it came out. It sounds like Chris had been able to make some real improvements over what was a very nicely regarded cable. I continue to be impressed with these additional comments.

[Nick77]

I have been listening to the Veloce for several days now with my new DAC. It appears to be very well made and very attractive, small in stature.

Equipment:
Squeezebox Touch modded PSU
Audio-gd NFB-2
Pass B1 Buffer
SDS254 ClassD Amp
GR Research OB/7 Speakers
WyWire Cables


I first compared the Veloce to my Zu  Firemine coax cable which has served me well, but I was thinking about upgradeing hince the tour signup.
The Veloce was clearly a cut above the Zu in added weight and dynamics, the resolution was also up a notch. Micro details were clearer with the Veloce in place.
It had a nice punchy bass and midrange and detailed highs. The soundstage grew a bit also but the standout was nice tight bass.

I then compared the Veloce to my very new WyWire digital cable. It was clearly outclassed by the nearly 3 times as much WyWire. The WyWire cable took away every once of digital and presented an analog sound much closer to a live experience. The WyWire had more weight and presence and superior resolution.

The Veloce is a very nice cable at its price point. If I hadnt just tried a more expensive WyWire digital cable, I would be looking to pick up a Veloce. Thanks again.

[tonyptony]

Nick, I assume you used the Veloce with the supplied BNC-RCA adapters?

[Nick77]

Yes I used the supplied RCA adapters, unable to test with BNC.

[Jon L]

Digital Cable Comparison

It’s been quite interesting to directly compare 3 digital cables from the same designer, again all compared to my usual home reference, (“unobtanium”) single crystal silver coax in foamed polyethylene dielectric.   All 4 cables mentioned are a large cut above the usual copper coax cables out there, i.e. Beldens, Canares, especially in terms of apparent detail resolution and speed, which are the strengths of Stereovox, who uses mil-spec silver-plated copper coax.
What’s the difference among the 3 cables?  Veloce and Ultra receive cryogenic treatments, while Ultra also gets RF carbon fiber shielding.  Although Veloce and Ultra reportedly use a “better” BNC connector over XV2, visual inspection seems to show that XV2 and Ultra use the same BNC connector while Veloce uses a different one.



Now to the interesting part.  Sonic impressions and differences. 



Scale: 1 (best) to 3 (worst)

                          Veloce  XV2  Ultra Silver
Richness/tone             2      3      1      1.5
Apparent Detail          1.5      2      2       1
Lack of Grain/Crunch   3      2       2       1
Speed                       1        1       1      1
Bass Tightness           1      1       1       2
Bass Quantity             3     3       2        1
Treble Air                  3      2       3       1



The above table tries to summarize my own findings, and I will mention a few things that especially struck me.  When you first place the Veloce into the system, there is almost an overwhelming sense of vividness and detail, which will be more apparent if you are coming from a copper coax.  Notes start and stop on a dime, and there is plenty of precision and “presence.”  If your system was on the warm, mellow side, you will likely think you have finally hit the sweet spot.  On the other hand, if your system was already on the fast, detailed, lean side, music may become too edgy and threadbare, especially poorly-recorded CD’s.

I found Veloce to have the most edge-definition of 4 cables, sounding the most crunchy and crispy, which many would call “grain,” kind of akin to when you turn up the contrast on TV.  The effect was impressive and suited certain types of music very well, but on others, tended to give the impression of unnaturalness after a while.  I was somewhat surprised to find that XV2 actually seemed to be more finely-grained and smoother, at the cost of less vividness. 

XV-Ultra actually shared a portion of this vividness with Veloce, perhaps due to the cryo treatment, but Ultra’s extra smoothness and roundness tended to balance this trait better, resulting in an overall more natural presentation.  Ultra had the most richness, tone, and weight to notes among the Stereovox cables.  It also had the most bass weight and warmth compared to XV2 and Veloce; however, none of the Stereovox cables could ever be called “bassy” cables.  In fact, the lack of enough (perceived) bass quantity is the most common complaint heard regarding these cables, so the little extra bass weight offered by Ultra will be a welcome feature to many.  So is the Ultra, the most expensive entry, a perfect cable that combines all the strengths of various cables?  I wish I could say so, but there is a proverbial fly in the ointment.  Ultra seems to shift energy from upper treble/ upper-mids and relocate them to the low-midrange/ bass area, so the tonal balance becomes warmer, but with less apparent treble air and sparkle, even compared to XV2 and Veloce.  So if your system already sounds a bit too polite up top, XV-Ultra may not be the cable to choose among the Stereovox offerings.  On the other hand, if your system is a bit too lean, overly airy/ethereal, and “digital,” XV-Ultra is the cable to choose.  I can only presume that RF carbon fiber shielding of Ultra is what contributes to this trait.
 
I will only mention my “DIY Silver” cable in the context that a high-quality single-crystal pure silver coax cable can make an excellent digital cable.  I won’t be specific only because this particular wire cannot be obtained anymore, even by me. 

Another interesting aspect of these cables is the BNC-RCA adapter used.  Above comments pertain to the cables being used with the RCA ends, which is how most people are using them.  Taking off the adapter and using the BNC ends into true 75-Ohm BNC female jacks seems to decrease some of the crunchyness and enhanced edge-definition.  Things become smoother up top and more airy, but the downside is some loss of densely chiselled, accented emphasis on the midrange.  Overall, I really like all of Stereovox digital cables despite the seeming nit-picking above.  I have tried many, many digital cables in the past, commercial and DIY, and the Stereovox offerings really stand apart from the crowd, especially if you treasure vividness, speed, and detail.  As with all things in audio, one still needs to consider system synergy and try first-hand whenever possible.   

[tonyptony]

Jon, what a great review! I'd been very interested in the Stereovox offerings, so this comparison against something I've now heard is most appreciated. The Veloce seems to have held up well, making it a choice to consider for systems that need what it brings. I agree so much of this is system dependent. Where does the cable go now?

[Jon L]

Where does the cable go now?

It's on its way to goldlizsts, New York.

[goldlizsts]

Now that I have been specifically named, I have to show face .  Guess as part of the arrangement, I have to jot down some of my impressions.

Got the wire about 2 weeks ago.  When I first plugged it in, my first impression was that I thought "Wow, I like the sound."  I first judge a wire, or an amp, by its tonality.  I was struck by its good tonality, what I call musicality.  I've had a number of coax wires over the years, including a Kimber D60 (so far back not even sure if it's the right name/#).  I sold it soon after, simply because I wasn't impressed (IMHO now) with its tonality, or that I didn't know better then.  I still have a Canare somewhere, but haven't used it a long while.  This Black Cat is a dark horse. First, I came across it by accident when I was perusing A/C one day.  I inquired 'bout auditing it, and Phil helped to make it happen (Gracias!) :thumb:It is open and musical. 

When I got it, I presumed it's been played for years (kidding!), so it's susbtantially broken in.  I thought it was very transparent.  The bass was very firm.  Another positive impression was I thought it presented a deeper soundstage.  I could sense the instruments deeper on the stage.  The coax I have been using is the PS Audio xStream.  I liked very much its warmth and musicality, tho it lacked a little in transparency.  This Black Cat allowed me to place the instruments a lot better.

Be it  that the Black Cat is very transparent, giving the sense of a very clean sound, perhaps associated with it is a certain leanness.  I thought it was a little short in the upper bass and low mid section.  However, I also had a little problem with the fact that the RCAs felt quite loose.  Perhaps of its mileage, having gone through a lot of "ins" and "outs" behind CDPs and DACs, even though I tried to press in the outer shells of the male RCAs, there has always been a looseness to them.  So, perhaps signal transmission/transfer hasn't been more ideal?  Oh, I did take off one of the RCAs and used the BNC plug into my DAC, which is an Eastern Electric DAC.  The sound did get denser.  However, I thought the resultant sound was not transparent enough.  I must also state that I didn't listen with the BNC for too long.

Bottom line - for the money, it's a great wire.  Oh, I guess I must also mention the associated equipment.  Preamp - DIY Cary AES-3 (6SN7-based) with tube rectification.  CD player Meridian 508.24.  Power amp - Rowland, model don't (care) remember, 15 I guess.  Oh, speakers, Dennis Murphy design, 3-way DIY boxes.

[goldlizsts]

Update/Amend.....

This is being written because since my audition of the Veloce I have gotten my own wire.  The reason for writing this is that IMO my wire is very different from the audition sample.

I got my own Veloce about 2 seeks ago, when Chris supposedly has re-stocked up.  Now, 2 weeks later, I presume my wire has been broken in to such an extent that its basic personality is there.

In earlier postings, the tour wire was labeled as (somewhat) leaner and cleaner.  I had the same perception when I auditioned it.  It has a certain openness and shine which drove me to order one for myself.  Out of the box, I already noticed that my wire was sounding different.  It wasn't that dynamic I thought.  Now, 2 weeks later, my obnservation is that my wire is somehow heavier in the mid section, as I reported that the tour wire was somewhat leaner.  Also, the new wire, relatively, is darker in tonality.  I bought my wire because of the personality of the tour wire.  Now, my wire has turned out to have a very different tonality.  One might say it's warmer.  Fine.  But... I just don't find it as open and dynamic, and engaging as the tour version. 

That left me scratching my head somewhat, I thought.    It's still a good wire, but.... it's just not what I wanted in a way.  Does anyone have that kind of observation?  Or, what's the chance it'll yet "morph" into sounding like the tour wire?