So Rx8man (Pat) came over today to listen to some speakers, meet some new friends, and share audio stories. We had a good time. He brought a couple of goodies to try in my setup. The first were the Kool Cables Silkworm custom large gauge gold rca Eichmann cables. VERY nice. They replaced my demo pair of Synergistic Research Tesla Accelerator active (electrically charged dialectic) XLR cables, which are likely gonna be my reference cables. The Silkworms were basically an exact replacement at two-thirds the cost at 1.5M. The dynamic organic no-cable sound continued regardless of the swap. Very impressive. (Note: My eventual setup will require 6M lengths, and although the Silkworms are cheaper at short lengths, due to the simplicity of their architecture, they are much more, read prohibitively more, expensive at 6M lengths, due to their gold wiring).
Next up was the Karsten Memorial setup.....Nuforce 9SE V2's into the Revelations! We kept the Silkworms in the system, fired up the NuForces and voila......the dynamics were good but not great (huh?), the air around instruments was great but not spectacular (huh?) and the overall live feel was just slightly deadened. Damn! It appeared as though the NuForce are just not the equal of the mighty McCormack DNA-500. Well, there was one other thing to do: try the NuForces in balanced mode. We knew already that the RCA Silkworms were excellent, a 1.5M equal of the Tesla's, so why try again? Cuz some amps just like balanced configurations, that's why. Steve McCormack says his DNA-500, although fully balanced, is architected to accept RCA and still bring balanced virtues....and I guess he's right. So, let's see if the NuForce amps react any differently. So we swapped out the Silkworms and put the XLR Tesla's back in.
Let me digress a moment. Pat and I exchanged some music today, and one of the new sounds I turned him on to was the great Ambisonic recording of Cowboy Junkies' bluesy 1988 Whites Off Earth Now (2007 Mofi remaster). He LOVES it and will buy it soon. The dynamics of this recording, along with the "Marshall Amp" sound (Pat's term) is uncanny. So, it was this album that we focused on as we did a number of swaps. OK, so back to the NuForce in balanced mode. Does it like balanced vs RCA? HELL yes it does. All the virtues of listening to the DNA-500 with either SOTA cable set came back in spades. Pat, go get John to put XLR's on those golden Silkworms and you are all set, my new friend!!!
The Marshall Amps were humming, the air was electric, the blues was smoky and the sounds were rockin.
The Nuforce/SP Tech synergy is quite something. And to think that Karsten can take this combo even further with a few tweeks is something I'm gonna have to look after. No, I'm not selling my DNA-500, but I sure have my eyes opened to the magic of NuForce.
