The Bigblog!

It's been a while since I made a significant contribution to the blog, which considering all the work I have been undertaking is quite understandable. However, this time of the year has become a period of “catch up”time for me.

The used HiFi market drops off, the Bigbottle Audio/Avalon waiting list empties out, and i get a little bit of time through the summer to put my thoughts into action for my own system. With the events in Ukraine, the rising prices of fuel and the recent cost of living crisis now hitting homes, that period of “catch up” started a little earlier, and it began with mains cables.

I had been in discussion with optical for a little while in regard to a mains distribution block. The eventual idea developed into a copper busbar idea that removed the requirement for any mechanical connections made by spring loaded pressure. The solution was a nut and bolt type connection. Unfortunately, whilst Chris beavered away building his, I got held up. Then of course, Angus and I got to thinking and discussing the merits of shielded or non shielded cables. Next thing I know we are buying & loaning a few cables to try.

The first thing I wanted to address was the UK plug. Brass connections are THE silent killer in your system. Time has proved to me that the more brass connections you can remove, the better off you will be. I originally opted to buy a Furutech Copper plug, which on the end of the Furutech PC-CCC cable worked really well into my Neurochrome 686.

However, whilst i was ampless for a while and raising funds, i sold the cable and the plug. I now needed two more. I decided to give the Neotech plug a try. It’s a pure copper plug, which is silver plated then gold plated. Not my preferred method of plating, but i was not paying £70 a plug for the Furutech.

Now it was down to what cable i wanted to use.

Angus had gotten hold of some Nanotech Powerstrada PC-Triple C mains cable. With a 5mm2+ conductor size i felt this was going to be a big old cable, lacking flexibility. I was wrong, it was huge….but moved like soft spaghetti.

We had also bought some Acoustic revive 2.5mm2 PC-Triple C unshielded cable. Both had copper IECs on the end.

We plugged the Nanotech in to the 686. Wow….. The bass was thick, texture-less, one note monotony that boomed and lacked any kind of control or resolution at all. Then we tried the Acoustic Revive. Our collective heads nearly fell off. Increase in dynamic power, increase in dimensionality, increase in resolution, increase in detail, increase in space….everything was miles better. We tried a kettle lead for the sake of completion, and in truth, I would have taken the kettle lead over the Nanotech. Abysmal stuff.

Bolstered by what we had heard with the Acoustic Revive in the 686, I placed an order for the next part of my mains refinement, a Shuko based mains block.

For the innards of this unit I chose to use 2.5mm2 solid core OCC for reasons of expense. The sockets were all gold plated copper Shukos. I decided to use the Acoustic Revive mains cable for the link from the wall socket to the block.
Once built, I had to make all of the mains cables with Shuko connectors. I picked gold plated Monosaudio plugs.

Once I had everything together, I stripped out my system and dressed the cables. The mains cables are now only long enough for that particular device. There is only one pair of signal carrying interconnects that gets close to one mains cable, and that crosses at 90 degrees.

With all of that sorted, I switched everything on and sat back to listen to Ray Lamontagne - Empty……I kid you not, the change in the sound my system delivered was akin to spending another £10k on it. Absolutely every conceivable improvement you could wish for, there, without a single downside…apart from the cost.

Listening on for a few days and i was hearing things that just were not ever there in the music before, it was insane. It still is.

I highly recommend paying some attention to the cable dressing. I think anything that doesn't cost something to get an improvement from is a great idea.

Next up was the signal cable. I was going to make everything shorter, as I had long interconnects everywhere, but then Angus spotted something else of interest. SAEC SL-5000. It’s a PC-Triple C cable with a twisted pair inside, but the conductors are different to the SL-1980. It has a Solid core with a few strands of PC-CCC wrapped around it.

Unfortunately the cost was ridiculous for a 1m pair. Once again Angus came up trumps. He found another cable, the XR-3000. The exact same cable, but without the dressings of the SL-5000. I bought a pair.

Once they landed, I nicked the WBT plugs off my 1980 cables and rebuilt the XR-3000 into two pairs of cables. I put them into the system, but by this time I had managed to break my tonearm connector box, and I had sold my DAC…so I needed a source.

I picked out a £20 Technics MASH cd player I had been given from the garage and lumped it into the system. It was cold from being outside for about 18 months, so i left it playing for half an hour and sat down to listen to The Who - Live at Leeds on CD. “What a disaster this is going to be” I thought.

WRONG

I burst out laughing…..a genuine laugh……because this thing sounded like the Chord DAVE i had heard many years ago lol

Ok, I am not saying the CDP was as good as the DAVE, but the DAVE did something with this redbook recording that I had never heard before, or since. It made the soundstage sound like I was listening from the side of the stage to the band monologuing, or chatting, but when the music started, it moved you to the front and centre. It’s very odd and something I thought was caused by the DAVE.

Apparently not….this CD player (£20) is doing the same bloody thing lol
It’s a ridiculous moment in my hifi journey. A £20 CD player sounding as good as it does should just not be. It’s not “perfect”. It has little bits of grain in the HF at time and can sound a little lean, but damn, it’s decent. I am now about 30 CD’s deep and it’s improving as the cables burn in…..oh! The cables…i forgot.

The 3000’s are the best cables I have tried to date. I compared it to the SL-1980, which will wipe the floor with almost anything you can throw at them. The 3000’s are different gravy. They are utterly holographic, HIGHLY transparent, accurate and the resolution is now surpassing my Acoustic Revive solid core cable.

The Lyra Helikon now sounds like it’s in the same league as Windfeld, when the Windfeld was using the SL-1980. Honestly, there is magic in this SAEC stuff. It doesn't seem to matter which cable, they all out perform anything I have heard before.

Which is why I have bought a SAEC SL-5000 tonearm cable to complete the set.

Part 2 - DAC tribulations……..

Just had a look at the top end Accouctic Revive IC's.

acousticrevive-jp.translate.goog/portfolio-item/pc-triplec-absolute/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB

£5356 a pair to you guv'nor!

Zenmarket mate. It's unshielded so you have to dress things correctly, but I think it's worth it.

Thanks Andy.

It's been an interesting experiment, but ultimately it's been VERY worthwhile. My system has responded really well to the Shuko box and AR cables, but the interconnects are all SAEC now. They are stunning.

Thanks, I couldn't find it. That is an amazing price too, even with carriage and import costs.  May hold off for a while as I have one or two interesting audio items to pick up next week....   No harm in working out what I might want though. 

I might have a go!

I've made a purchase:

It's a Parasound D/AC 1600HD!

Frequency Response:
2 Hz - 20 kHz, I0.25 dB
Signal to Noise Ratio:
> 108 dB, 113 dB typical
Channel Separation:
> 100 dB @ I kHz
Total Harmonic Distortion:
< 0.0015% @ 1 kHz
Total Harmonic Distortion:
< 0.0015% @ 1 kHz
Amplitude Linearity:
> 100 dB; 102 dB Typical
Phase Linearity:
+/- 0.1 deg @ 20 kHz
Maximum Jitter:
< 50 picoseconds RMS, using selected low jitter Crystal
8412 Digital Interface Receiver
D-A Converters:
Four Burr-Brown PCM 63P-K (highest grade) 20 bit,push-pull for each channel and fully balanced digital operation
Oversampling Rate:
8 X (352.8-kHz)
Digital Input:
32 kHz, 4.1 kHz, 48 kHz; Consumer standard SPDIF
Digital Filters:
PMD-100 High Definition Compatable DigitalDigital Process Decoder
Absolute Polarity:
0 deg or 180 deg switchable
Digital Inputs:
Coaxial:
75 Ω RCA
TOSlink fiber optic:
EIAJ Standard CP-340/RC-5720,660 nm typical wavelength
ST module fiber optic:
AT&T Standard, 820 nm typical wavelength
AES/EBU Balanced XLR
Outputs:
Unbalanced Analog Line Out: 3 V nominal, 600 Ω
Balanced Analog Line Out: 6 V nominal, 1.2 k Ω
Digital: 750 RCA coaxial, 0.5 V peak-to-peak
Power Supplies:
3 separate transformers and nine regulators for digitalcircuits and for each analog channel
Power Requirement:
120 V, 60 Hz, 18W; may be re-wired for 220 - 240 V, 50 Hz
Dimensions:
19" W x 3" H (3 5/8 with feet) x 13 1/8" D
Net Weight:
13.5 lb.

HOPEFULLY this arrives as it's an internet purchase from a fella in Europe.....I don't know why I keep doing this to myself lol

Some pics from the net...not actual unit:














Who fancies recapping it for me? 🤣

Good looking equipment IMO, I especially like that it has proper 'Japanese' feet and rack mounts, and that the feet are gold.

Grabs bucket of popcorn and watches thread. (again) 😉

Let's hope it arrives safely and you enjoy it.

Morning Oli

That a good choice to get to grips with a quality old skool sound, absolutely bags of potential in there over the years have seen quite a few of these come through the lab.

Majors on depth, texture and timbre a natural full bodied dac still shows up a lot of these new fangled uber dac in many departments, but it does have one key feature that many, many digital pieces omit these day, it plays music well

Oli,

Start by bringing it back to original performnace before 'changing big bits' then you will be able to asses whether its for you. If not so can pass it on knowing its back to original spec.

If you like (which I feel you will) then I can point you in the right direction no problem.

First observation I would suggest is put ot back to tip top spec

I would just check it is making its required specification so you can asses its perfomnace and if its for you, you have an LCR meter so you an check the caps suitability. also check the Tx's and rectification circuits.

Exactly my point about Old Digital when it's done well.

You might not get the last layer of rez and transparency, but give it a chance and you just might find yourself emotionally transported to the original musical event.