These are some impressions of my new bybee slipstream RCA inline purifier. This is the new version, with the "slipstream" bybee, and the NextGen WBT male and femal RCA jacks. I had a previous version of the in-line purifier, but it used (I believe) a Cardas female RCA, an Eichman bullet plug, and the previous version of the bybee filter.
I don't review many products anymore because I'm pretty happy with the sound of my system, and I generally only do a write up if something impresses me (which is pretty rare nowadays). Well, this new in-line filter has certainly impressed me, as it has improved the sound of my system in a couple of areas that are very important to me.
After slipping the in-line filter onto the input of my DAC, here is what I heard that was better: Deep bass was stronger, midbass and upper bass was tighter, more percussive, and better defined. Midrange took a big step up at conveying emotion (especially in voices), highs smoothed out becoming less "noisy" while keeping all detail. The overall effect, and what was very impressive to me, was that the tone and sound of each instrument became even more clear and distinct. On Natalie Merchant's "Ophelia" cd, track 5 I was able to really hear the seperation of the low end of the piano from the acoustic bass being played at the same time. I could also more clearly hear those times where she adds in a backing vocal to her singing. On my CD of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, each section of the orchestra was more clear and distinct individually, allowing me to hear their interplay more precisely, which increased the complexity of the emotions conveyed. Very impressive indeed.
My previous version of the in-line filter did a lot of this already, but not nearly as well. It had a tendency to "clean up" the sound, but also make the sound a bit darker in some areas (the upper highs), and make things a bit more analytical sounding in other areas (the upper mids). The new in-line filter I have now does not have those weak points, plus it does everything else a notch or 2 above the old filter. The net result is a much more listenable system that is much more likely to grab my attention because of the extra color, emotion, and beauty. It's harder to do "other stuff" like reading when the music is playing.
