[Kwebb]

It has been a long while since I posted here on AudioCircle. I had some extra time this morning, so I thought I would write a post which I have been planning to do for several months now.

I will share the latest upgrade experiences with John McDonald of Audience "Silence is Golden" fame in this post. John has been around a long time. Over that time, he has incrementally developed and objectively realized what I consider to be the most significant improvement to my high-end audiophile system. I genuinely and sincerely mean this statement. John's components are high-priced. I placed a high-dollar personal purchase seeking how much, if any, his Audience technology could improve my high-resolution system, two-channel, audiophile system.

I approached John with my usual "seeking knowledge" routine before making this purchase. John brought me into the inner circle by explaining all of the technologies that have been compiled and synergized in the making of his products. I learned all that I could about John's technology, including the amazing trail he has blazed in his journey to refine, discover, invent, and incrementally improve his products over the decades. I was highly impressed with the proprietary technologies that John and his team at Audience have designed, developed, and refined over the years. I can say that the Audience technologies are superbly extraordinary and magnificently brilliant. I am not at freedom to disclose the proprietary nature of John's highly effective and unique processes other than to say they are born from mother nature itself (the Universe). Nikola Tesla ("The" man "Nikola Tesla") and current day Elon Musk would be very, very proud of what that John and his team at Audience have found and implemented in the benefit of our beloved audiophile hobby.
Moving forward with my review, I have a two-channel system configured with the following components:

Media Server: Dell laptop running Roon, source music ripped in Flac lossless format.

Power Conditioner: Audience Adept Response high-resolution power conditioner AR6 with Front Row AC power cord.
Media Player: Dell Laptop using Roon player with all music files ripped to lossless FLAC format.
Media Player interconnect – Audience Adept Response USB.

Tube DAC Primaluna EVO 100:
QTY 4, select grade Golden Lion 12AU7 P(ECC82)
QTY 2, Phillips 5R4GYS (Holland).
Power Cord: Audience Adept Response Front Row
Tube DAC to Preamp interconnect: Audience Adept Response Front Row XLR

Tube Preamp Primaluna EVO 400:
QTY 6, select grade Golden Lion 12AU7 (ECC82), and QTY 2 Phillips 5R4GYS (Holland).
Power Cord: Audience Adept Response Front Row
Preamp interconnects to power Amps (Qty 2): Audience Adept Response Front Row XLR.

Power Amplifiers:
AVA DVA SET 600 Mono-Blocks QTY 2, left & right channels, 600 watts per channel.
Power Cord: Audience Adept Response Front Row

Speaker Cables: Audience Adept Response Front Row 1.5 m Bi-wire
Speakers: Salk Sound Song3 encores, Bi-wired

Below is a picture of my two-channel, high-resolution audiophile system.

With regards to the evaluation of power conditioning,  I will convey to the readers of this post the following:

A correctly synergized power conditioner can significantly lower your system's noise floor compared to no power conditioning. You can positively hear the difference. Deeper bass and a more spatial clarity on the top end are what you will hear from a good power conditioner.
 
You must first determine if your system objectively sounds better with a power conditioner (yes? or no?). If you cannot decern a sound quality improvement difference with a power conditioner, then your system is limited in sensitivity for whatever reason. If this is the case, seek to find what in your current system is limiting its sensitivity. Don't waste time on other changes until you find out what the limiting factor or factors are regarding the limited sensitivities.

If your system can decern improved audio quality with the addition of power conditioning then start trying different interconnection cables. The best place to start is with a DAC to preamp interconnections. The DAC is the root of the source music and where the higher and lower signal sensitivities can diminish with lesser quality interconnection technologies. Establish if there is a difference in sound quality and whether it is better or worse with the different interconnection cables you choose to try. If you established that your system could decern the differences in sound quality between different interconnection cables, then try various brands of interconnections to find the best one for your specific system.

Final Thoughts:

I had the fortune of meeting John MacDonald about a year ago. What he taught me and shared with me was profoundly insightful. His mastery of power conditioning, synergized with interconnection technologies, is truly remarkable and genius. John is a true musician in his own right, and we all give thanks to individuals like John, who devote their talents and lives to improving sound reproduction and delivering music to us with all its beauty and grandeur that we all so dearly love.





All the best,

Kyle Webb
Vice President, Engineering & Development

CEYEBER Corp.
4040 MacArthur BLVD
Newport Beach, CA 92660-2509
E: KW@CEYEBER.CO
P: 949 394 2723

About me:
I am an Optical & Mechanical Engineer, and Inventor and have accumulated 32 US Patents Granted, 12 US Patents Pending, several more Patents issued in Europe and Japan.

Also, I am a semi-professional digital photographer, nature lover, and world traveler having visited 42 countries around the world and still counting with my lovely wife Ellen.

I have been an avid hard-core Audiophile Enthusiast and hobbyist for over 50 years.

[Big Red Machine]

And you only hire beautiful women!

Can you get those speakers farther apart? Sure would widen the soundstage.

Here's a tip: ADD-PWR products. Game-changing.

[NIGHTFALL1970]

Welcome back Kyle! Nice setup! It must sound fantastic!👍

[artofaudio]

Thanks for insightful write up.  I currently use an Equ-Core 2400 and recently added a Deep Core 1800 to combat DC offset and it made a remarkable change in sound.  Not just different, but better.  The bass is much deeper and overall soundstage is much better.  I’ve not had much success with XLR’s though.  I tried the Audience Ohno XLR and I could not hear a difference.  They are not in the same league as your Audience Front Row series.  Maybe I will try them in the near future.  The system is so quiet that now I need to do something about my refrigerator & water cooler hum.  It’s driving me nuts.  Your post has me rethinking all of my power cords and interconnects.  Now I can really hear benefits of the SR Purple fuses in my LPS (Uptone JS-2 & Farad Super 3)

[charmerci]

Great system! However, your real weakness there is your Dell laptop and from what I see is the lack of room treatment and (though it might not be possible to make too much of a change) speaker placement.

[newzooreview]

your real weakness there is your Dell laptop

Agreed. Assuming the speaker cannot be moved away from the wall, feeding audio from a general purpose computer is always a limitation. I've experimented with Roon sources over the last year, and putting together a Roon ROCK server on an Intel NUC feeding USB out to my DAC has given the best results. https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/rock-install-guide

A second best option was setting up a Raspberry Pi Roon endpoint running RoPieee using an Allo DigiOne Signature with BNC coax output to the DAC. It doesn't save much money over the better sounding solution of the dedicated Roon ROCK server, however.