[Rocket]

Hi Guys,

I have been lucky enough to have received from ic's, digital cables and a speaker from lonewolf42 (chris) who sent them to me from the states (i live in perth, western australia).

Well after have an Awful time with australian customs i finally received the cables in mid may.

Zu Speaker cable:  I decided to compare my axon cable (25 per metre) with this speaker cable, i had heard a lot of comment about this cables and thought it would be interesting.

The Zu speaker cables have some large spaded termination which i'm not used familiar with.  Anyway i was a little impatient and didn't turn my components off when i connected it up to my amp.  I accidently crossed the two cables, saw a flashing light in my amp and smelt a burning smell in the amp.

I quickly disconnected the amp and removed the zu's from the amp.  I played the amp again and heard some pretty distorted music coming from one channel.  Oh well i removed the amp board and sent it to Hugh (aspen amplifiers) for checking.  I received them back from him in one week after he repaired a couple of fuses and resistors   .

Okay the amp was back in action and i could finally listen to the speaker cables.  I do not profess to have a golden ear and this is only my comments.  I actually found that when i compared the zu to the axon cable that the zu was more closed in (smaller soundstage), seemed to lack dynamics and generally the sound was unappealing.  I don't know if it was a system matching problem or not but this is what i heard.

Anyway i have played with various cables in my system.  Including some zu's, stereovox and onix cables.  To be honest i couldn't really hear any improvement except for the stereovox cable which i believe sounded a little better than my Bolder terminated bullet plug cable.

Unfortunately i'm not articulate enough to describe what i heard and this is as good as it gets   .

Anyway a huge thankx to lonewolf for sending his valuable cables halfway around the world for me to listen.  I don't know many people who would do that.

Regards

Rocket

[lonewolfny42]

Thank you Rocket/Rod for posting your views on the cables I sent you. Sorry to hear about the amp problem and the customs problem...never knew that mailing things to OZ could turn out to be a problem . The following is what I sent:

1 pair Zu Wax SC 6ft.[/list:u]
1 Stereovox HDXV digital[/list:u]
1 Onix Thunder digital[/list:u]
1 pair Zu Warmouth IC's[/list:u]
1 pair Kimber KC-1 IC's[/list:u]
1 pair Zu Disco IC's[/list:u]
1 pair RE Designs (Dan B.) IC's[/list:u]
1 pair Modern Audio Designs(MAD) Pearl 1 IC's[/list:u]
I was happy to send the cables to you to compare with what you have available there. Since the cables are in Australia now, if any Oz AC members would like to give them a listen, please let Rocket know and see if something can be worked out.  Hopefully this will lead to other members exchanging items to compare. [/list:u]

So Rocket, any comments on the 14 cdr's I sent too ?? [/list:u]

[Rocket]

Hi Chris,

Yes customs did put me thru the ringer.

I would like to clarify one thing in my post.  I find it a little difficult hearing differences between cables as by the time i've swapped everything it really sounds similiar to me.

That said i do truely believe the stereovox was better than my type 1 bolder digital cable.

best wishes

rocket

[Mad DOg]

Hi Chris,

Yes customs did put me thru the ringer.

I would like to clarify one thing in my post.  I find it a little difficult hearing differences between cables as by the time i've swapped everything it really sounds similiar to me.

That said i do truely believe the stereovox was better than my type 1 bolder digital cable.

best wishes

rocket

hello rod,

i would recommend choosing one track to use for the purpose of demoing cables/components/gear...memorize the nuances of this one track on your own gear. how's the bass? how are the mids? how's the singer's voice when he/she hits the high notes? what kind of soundstage depth and width do you experience? know where the instruments are placed in the soundstage. try to get to know every in and out for this one track. then when you swap gear, use this one track and see if you notice anything different...in the under $100 range for digital cables, i've found that the digital cable from cryotweaks is the best performing digital cable. if you've got more money, the Argent Audio digital cable is even better. hope this helps some...