It was great to meet Wayne at VSAC. He was closing down his room by the time I showed up later Sunday afternoon, but was gracious to let me in, let me bend his ear, and sell me a Bybee filter to use with my MENSA. (Wayne, don't forget to bill me). This is the filter that you place in between your transport's digital cable and your MENSA.
I was excited to try out the filter, since I have few tweaks left to try. It seems well made, with nice connectors. I forgot to ask whether to place it on the transport output, or on the MENSA input. I tried both, and seemed to get more differences placing on the transport's digital output. I use a .5 meter run of Wayne's Type 1 digital cable in between the MENSA and my DVD transport.
First impressions were mixed. I couldn't decide if I heard a difference, but my system was not warmed up. After cooking it a few hours, I returned and did quick A/B comparisons, quickly removing the BYBEE filter and listening after first listening to a few selections without the Bybee. Tweaks like this seem subtle compared to larger tweaks such as new cables. I would place the changes I heard on the magnitude of what I heard when I used the HALO tube dampers. Not insignificant, but it took a while to allow my ears to hear differences.
So what did I hear? Bass became more defined; I could follow certain bass lines that seem to blur when I removed the Bybee. Voices became more focused. Certainly more air around the instruments and voices. The real test came when I played a DVD-A and compared the player (a top end Technics DVD A10, used by JA as his reference transport and no slouch when playing DVD-A's) with the MENSA. In most cases, the MENSA kills the Technics on Redbook CD, but the Technics noticeably betters the MENSA when playing DVD-A's (as it should, since DVD-A is a much higher resolution source). With the Bybee filter installed, the differences shrank considerably. Playing the DVD-A disc through the MENSA (the Technics downsamples the digital output to 48 khz), the MENSA now had the airiness and effortless sound I heard when playing DVD-A's at full resolution (not via the MENSA).
Mind you, the Bybee won't make bad recordings sound good. It seems to make bad recordings sound less bad, and makes great recordings sound great. I really noticed the Bybee when I finally removed it after an extended listening session, then listened to one of the cuts again without it. Not as clean. It removes a layer of grunge; maybe this is what people mean when they refer to a lower noise floor.
So is the Bybee worth the $$$? I wish I had tried a Type 1 cable with the filter already installed inline (Wayne says it sounds better than with the Outboard filter I used). But as tweaks go, this one works. I'll try a few more extended sessions and see if my initial thoughts change.
System: VAC Avatar SE/Merlin TSM M with REL Strata III/MENSA/Technics DVD A10/Acoustic Zen Silver Reference IC's and Satori Shotgun speaker cable.