I recently spent a few weeks getting quite familiar with Wayne’s audition pack and thought I would share my impressions. But I have to apologize for the lack of detail below. My life is INSANELY busy right now and I should be in bed sleeping right now but I want to get these thoughts out before I forget them.
Nitro Power Cord – didn’t care for it. It made my CD player sound sick, but so do most other power cables. The pace was slow and the sound anemic. But it’s just a synergy thing (well, a lack of it). It only sounds good with the cable it came with and the CryoPhon cable from Acoustic Reality (which made it sound awesome, but then it and the other I have went into my amps). It did sound good though powering my Transcendent Sound Balanced power filter, and through that my whole system, but not quite as good as the PS Audio xStream Plus cord that I currently use. The system sounded a bit leaner with the Nitro. I liked the physical construction of the cord though. It is very flexible and just easier to manipulate than most other power cords.
M-80/Cryo’ed M-80 – I couldn’t tell much difference between these two cables, except that the Cryo’ed M-80 was smoother sounding. It was a subtle difference though. The M-80 is an amazingly good cable in general though, and an insanely good deal for the money. Same goes for the M-80 speaker cable which I own. I recently demo-ed the PS Audio xStream Statement speaker cable and MUCH preferred the M-80 speaker cable. That’s a story for another time though.
Mensa D/IO DAC – Wow, this thing is a BIG improvement over the Smart D/IO! I used to own a Smart D/IO, but then I bought an Analog Research Segue DAC, which was better than the Smart D/IO in every way, and sold the Smart D/IO to my brother. Well, wait until he hears about the Mensa! The Mensa sounds almost identical to my Segue DAC. It’s still not quite as good though. Music through the Mensa always sounded great at first, but got fatiguing after a while. The music sounded artificially “up” in some way. It sounds so good, and then I switch to the other DAC and get such a feeling of relief. I don’t know why this is so though, and maybe it just something about me. Compared to my CD player, both the Mensa and the Segue DAC are similar sounding, but the CD player has an ease and naturalness that the other two can’t match. I also had constant sync problems. If I stopped or just paused a track, the D/IO would lose sync and I would have to cycle the power to get it to sync again. I have to admit, though, that I considered selling my CD player, buying a Mensa, and buying a transport that wouldn’t lose sync. The Mensa is not as good as my CD player, but I’m starting to wonder if I really care. How good does my system need to be? How good is good enough? I don’t know how to answer that yet, and in the end I decided to keep my CD player.
