NAPALM!!!

TheeeChosenOne · « **Reply #20 on:** 7 Aug 2003, 06:35 am »

Satfrat,
I agree with your buying style.

We must KILL the karma of material desire. If you don't acquire the thing you desire, it will haunt you!

Once acquired, one is satisfied.

No further regrets!

Jay S · « **Reply #21 on:** 7 Aug 2003, 07:02 am »

True, 6 is not that many but its amazing how insidious bybees are! Don't tell me they're like the Pringles chips of the audio world... once you pop you can't stop.

I spent a bit of time doing some serious listening 2 nights ago. Wife was out, and so I was able to geek-out to my heart's content. Seems like my system's resolution, sense of spaciousness, bass tightness and image delineation have taken a step forward. The main changes have been the Bybee Nitro power cable and the inline bybee at the digital input of the dac.

bubba966 · « **Reply #22 on:** 13 Aug 2003, 11:41 pm »

Jay was nice enough to send me a pic of his Napalm. It was kind of a quickie pic he took, but it was plenty good enough for me to get an idea of what it looked like.

So Wayne, is Jay's Napalm what they're gonna look like? Or is it still in the prototyping phase?

Wayne1 · « **Reply #23 on:** 14 Aug 2003, 08:43 pm »

Here is a shot of YOUR Silver Bullet Ultra Bybee Cryo'ed NAPALM, Bubba

I received an e-mail today letting me know that the next cryo run will be on Wednesday the 20th. I dropped everything else I had pending to build this today.

The Bybees are spaced roughly 1/3 meter apart from each other and 1/3 meter away from the cable ends.

The cable is completely wraped in ERS fabric. It IS quite a bit thicker than the "standard" digital cable I make.

The cable will go out to Utah tomorrow.

When it comes back, it will spend about a week on the Cable Cooker, then out to Seattle.

Look for it around the middle of September.

bubba966 · « **Reply #24 on:** 14 Aug 2003, 08:50 pm »

Looks good Wayne!

Now if the middle of September would only hurry up and get here...

Wayne1 · « **Reply #25 on:** 30 Aug 2003, 09:37 pm »

Hey BUBBA!!

I received a package from Kimber Kable on Thursday

Your Ultra Bybee'd Silver Bullet, Cryoed NAPALM is back here in CO.

I have it on the Cable Cooker and it should be ready to ship out to you on Tuesday.

Sorry I didn't let you know earlier. I just got my 'net connection back up and working.

audiojerry · « **Reply #26 on:** 4 Sep 2003, 03:21 pm »

G'day Wayne,
I'd like to give that Napalm digital a try myself. How much will it cost?
Did you confirm if it is 75ohm? Do the Bybee's change the impedence at all?

It may not be worth your time, but do you think there would be any demand for an i2s cable? There must to be a number of folks using one with the P-1A and P-3a, including myself. I noticed a vendor on Audiogon making a big deal about his incredible i2s design: http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlconv&1067010101
I wonder what the sonic benefits would be with a high quality i2s, since the P-1A's main function seems to be reclock/jitter reduction, which then transfers this digital signal to the P-3A dac.

Wayne1 · « **Reply #27 on:** 4 Sep 2003, 04:02 pm »

Hello Jerry,

The Napalm with one Bybee will be $255.00.

The Ultra version will be $325.00.

I will try to add these to my website shortly.

Tyson will be taking a listen to Bubba's Naplam this weekend to compare it the "standard" cryo treated Silver bullet digital cable.

I do not have any plans for I2S cables. I do not own anything that uses them so I really have no way of listening to them.

I have not measured the NAPLAM cable for impedance.

pjchappy · « **Reply #28 on:** 5 Sep 2003, 04:55 am »

Wayne,

I have a 1/2 M original Boulder digital cable. . .can a Bybee and the rest of the good stuff be spliced/added to it?

thanks,
p

Wayne1 · « **Reply #29 on:** 5 Sep 2003, 01:10 pm »

p,

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is the price depends. If you have one of the early cables with the Canare plugs, they would have to be replaced.

You will end up with a cable that is just a bit shorter than what you started out with.

I will have to work the numbers a bit, but it MIGHT save you about $25.00 to $45.00 off of the price of the NAPALM to trade in your old cable.

audiojerry · « **Reply #30 on:** 5 Sep 2003, 02:44 pm »

Wayne,
pardon my ignorance, but how and why is a digital cable different from a normal interconnect? I had been told that the main difference was that a digital cable has to be 75 ohm.

Wayne1 · « **Reply #31 on:** 5 Sep 2003, 03:47 pm »

Jerry,

A lot of people have different thoughts on this subjet.

To me, a cable used for digital signals should keep as close to a nominal 75 ohm impedance as possible. I like to have quite a bit of shielding to prevent the signal from transmiting to other nearby components and also to isolate the signal from external RFI/EMI.

None of this is absolutely neccessary to carry a digital signal from one point to another. Almost any wire will do in a pinch. Kimber Kable PBJ has the needed bandwith to let the signal move through it. There are other cables that do sound better.

How the cable allows the digital square wave to pass through it, to some way determines how it will end up sounding. How quickly does the leading edge of the square wave rise? Does it overshoot? Does it ring? If so, for how long? What are the cable's properties on the trailing edge?

As I said, PBJ will pass the signal but the square wave isn't too pretty. The basic digital cable I make does very nice on square waves.

audiojerry · « **Reply #32 on:** 12 Sep 2003, 08:49 pm »

I wasn't aware of the square waves, but I know what you mean about the PBJ. I don't understand how anyone could like it after using it.

Jay S · « **Reply #33 on:** 27 Sep 2003, 11:28 am »

Hi all,

My wife and I did a quick comparison of the Napalm vs a "regular" Bolder digital cable with bullet plugs. First up was the Napalm (which has been in my system for the last 6-8 weeks). We listened to several tracks from Marvin Gaye's greatest hits. When we switched to the "regular" Bolder digital we noticed that the noise floor seemed to get noisier, and small details got somewhat obscured. The bass seemed less deep and tight. Mids seems a bit veiled. Highs seemed less crystal clear and also a bit veiled. Hmm, clearly not as nice. I switched back to the Napalm and the sound improved back to the way it was before.

Seems that the ERS plus the bybee of the Napalm really do help.

I may get around to trying the Napalm vs the combo of the regular digital cable + an inline bybee adaptor. But, probably not - I can't see why the addition of an extra set of connectors and the subtraction of ERS could help the sound. And, besides, the Napalm is more cost-effective than a digital cable + inlne bybee.

I think you've got a winner, Wayne.

Wayne1 · « **Reply #34 on:** 27 Sep 2003, 12:20 pm »

Jay,

Thank you for you and Shy taking to time out to listen to cables. That is some wife you have there!

Bubba should finally have his Cryo'ed Ultra Bybee version. It took Tyson a couple of weeks to get it back to me so I could ship it to him.

Hopefully we will hear from him.

I have been fairly busy getting ready for VSAC, so I have not yet had a chance to add the Napalm to the website.

Tonto Yoder · « **Reply #35 on:** 27 Sep 2003, 04:51 pm »

Wayne,
I'm not sure why you would choose a name like "Napalm" for an audio cable?? I don't think I could buy such a cable no matter what its sonic merits.

Jay S · « **Reply #36 on:** 28 Sep 2003, 01:40 am »

By the way, the "regular" Bolder digital sounds fine... but the Napalm sounds better. We reversed the test, starting with the better sounding cable as sometimes differences are clearer that way.

Jay S · « **Reply #37 on:** 28 Sep 2003, 02:12 am »

Robin,

I did not hear it. I was certainly listening for it given what these guys had reported. Might it be system dependent?

I heard clearer highs as well as more low level details (due to a lower noise floor), quite the opposite of what they heard. Shy (my wife) heard it too.

I was hoping to NOT like the Napalm compared to the regular digital cable since, well, cheaper is better!

bubba966 · « **Reply #38 on:** 28 Sep 2003, 06:30 pm »

Well, I did get my Cryo'd Napalm Ultra Friday. It looks thicker than it did in the pic Wayne posted earlier in this thread.

I've not had a whole lot of time to do too many listening tests yet as I've been working most of the time since I picked it up.

But I will say that so far it is noticeably cleaner/quieter than Wayne's regular digital w/cryo & silver bullets. I'm going to have to get used to the lack of noise in the signal. Lack of noise is a good thing, it's just going to take a bit to get used to things sounding so different.

But I was definitely hearing a lot that I wasn't hearing before. And more info is always a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Tyson · « **Reply #39 on:** 28 Sep 2003, 06:37 pm »

That "lack of noise" you get w/the bybees is very similar to the non-oversampling type of sound that people like about the SN tubeDAC and other non-oversampling DAC's. It takes some getting used to. I prefer the bybee'd digital cable w/the Mensa because it still gives you better bass and better dynamics than the SN tubeDAC gave in my system.