I tested the wires on my two downstairs rigs. My main rig consists of an ART audio modded Squeezebox duet with dual linear power supply, Bolder modded Eastern Electric DAC, PrimLuna Dialogue One, ACI Sapphire XL speakers on Sound Anchor stands. Shunyata Venom PC, Audioquest digital cable, AQ King cobra IC, Reality cables speaker wire. Only changed the PC and interconnects (RCA) on this rig. Swapping the Wywires PC for the Shunyata brought modest, but definite, improvement in clarity and air; the Venom sounded slightly congested in comparison. Switching the ICs out wrought a much bigger change. Everything was much smoother and more expansive. The soundstage expanded in all dimensions with the Wywires ICs; very nice indeed! Made me wish I had the Wywires BNC digital cable to throw into the mix....
Rig 2 consists of a Bolder modded Squeezebox Touch, Bolder Linear power supply, Bel Canto DAC ,Bel Canto M300 monoblocks, Morel Octave 5.2 speakers. Luminous audio digital cable, Bel Canto XLR and Reality Cable SC. This is the living room rig, so it had to be small, compact and with speaker positioning dictated by room aesthetics. My main rig blows this one away, sound-wise. Decided to change the XLRs first. The Bel Canto XLRs are made for them by Cardas, so not too shabby. Holy mother of god! I was expecting an incremental improvement in the sound and was not prepared for how much better the Wywires XLR sounded. I hate when people say " the wire completely changed my system", because I really don't think that is possible. That is exactly what this IC did in my system. The soundstage increased dramatically in both width and height and palpability of voices did as well. This rig now sounded close to my main rig. Had I not experienced this myself, I wouldn't have believed it....so the tour is a superb idea! Adding the WW Power cords and WW Speaker cables augmented the coherence of the sound some, but this was an incremental improvement; not the night and day one seen with the XLR. There is a certain bit of system synergy going on here, because switching the IC (XLR) had a much more profound effect here than in the previous rig. Before, with the Bel Canto XLRs, the sound was somewhat clinical and uninvolving. With the Wywires, the slight harshness at the upper end was removed. Everything, instruments and voices, seemed much clearer and the background much blacker. The air surrounding vocalists and instruments was much improved.
If I had to pick a winner, it would be the ICs. They are definitely something special! The SC and PC cables are also very good. The speaker cables were better than the Reality Cables SC I use, though since it is many times the price of the Straleys, it had better be! That being said, the law of diminishing returns applies here and one has to determine the price they are willing to pay for an augmentation in sound quality. The PCs are clearly better than Shunyata Venom 3 and are a good value in their own right. So if I were swapping out, I would go IC first, then Powercord and finally the speaker cables.
Now I am seriously thinking of dipping into my dog's trust fund and getting myself some of these cables....I really feel they are that good!
Ajay
