After a long hiatus, Palomino, Raven and I (plus a special guest of Raven's) are holding a CDApS meeting at Palomino's abode today.

If you've been following the Belden and CDApS threads, Pal has been busy treating his room and enjoying some new cables.  I had the opportunity to hear his rig briefly before AXPONA and am looking forward it again!  He has great sound.

I'm going to bring a few goodies to swap in.  We'll see where the day takes us!

Sorry rob didn't see you had already started a thread on this.  Probably enough to fill two threads.  

If raven had left the ZMA and you left your coax, I'd be in pretty good shape.

I'm going to try and keep this short. I'm exhausted and today was pretty amazing.

We held today's meet at Palomino's place. I kind of pushed for this because, IMHO he's got the better sounding *room*, and I wanted Jester to hear what a good room does for a system.

I showed up with my ZMA and Directstream. Palo was set with some snacks and drinks, and even had a staging area where we could plug in our amps to little desktop speakers just to warm up!





The blacktop Rachel was on deck in the room, and Palo had all his friggen diffusers in place. It's days like today when I know I'm a bad influence.  I had Jester take the hotseat, and it was immediately apparent that the system and especially the room sounded good!




We eventually went through the whole list of amps. ProggRobs CKCS, Palos Whitetop Torii III, and My ZMA - all running through Palo's gear, with ProgRobbs Digital cable (which we did an A-B-A test on and it was nice!) I have to say, I think it's the best I've heard the ZMA via RCA. That Chord DAC and it's high voltage output rocks.

The Rachel sounds good as always, I've always enjoyed it.

The transparency of the CKCS just shines above everything else. But it stumbles over really dynamic tracks.

The Torii III sounds great, and has horsepower and doesn't stumble at all - I was afraid to bring my gear in because this setup was simply outstanding. But it doesn't have the finesse, grip, and flat out grunt of the ZMA. I was honestly blown away by how good the ZMA sounded in Palo's room. The best I'd heard the ZMA yet.

So, excitedly, after hearing the ZMA just rock the room and handle everything with ease, I grab the DirectStream and my mobile setup and plug it all in and let it warm up a bit. We had a ground loop right of the bat, and some sort of weird gnat like buzzing that poked it's head out with some high frequency notes. Rob and Palo basically ran from the room it sounded so bad. I'm not sure what was going on there, so we packed it up and headed home.

Overall a great night. I'm setting up my ZMA and DirectSteam at home to see if the issue was at my source, or just mobile.

Small update - I have my setup plugged in, warmed up, and my systems back! I'm listening to a album I picked up from Blue Coast Records today.

http://wil.downloadsnow.net/solo-acoustic

I grabbed it because I like how they recorded the guitar. Very chimey and live sounding.

So I'm guessing that whatever caused that ground loop is what was causing the fatiguing noise hidden in the music. I'm back to black background and live sounding music. Not holographic like what Palo is approaching, but no issues.

That digital cable thing - I grew up in the bits is bits crowd, but I've done many tests with the DirectStream that has proven to me that bits might be bits, but jitter/distortion can stick it's ugly head into the mix. I'm not sure what that one digital cable does that Palos cable doesn't, but we all heard tighter, more accurate bass, more texture and micro-detail in general. Again, it wasn't huge, and IMHO I don't think I could afford a cable like this - but it proved a point to both myself and Jester - bits are bits, but there is more to it than that. Even if it's only a 1% improvement. If your room is done well like the one we were listening in, and your gear is right, then those last few percent here and there might be worth the expense. I've said before, it's like a drag car. Sure you can build a 9 second car for $100k, but you want an 8.9 second car and you need to dump another $50k in there to squeeze that extra few percent out. Diminishing returns, but return none the less.

I think this was very eye opening for Jester - he's been listening with me since the very first Zen amp...what, 18 years ago now!?! He purchased one himself shortly after I got mine. And he's been wondering all this time what the sound is I'm striving for - well, Palomino is really close! I'm wondering if Jesters cheap CD player and 18 year old amp and my old Polk LS-70 speakers could be brought into the 21st century with a room full of diffusers.  :)

Lots to mull over, but I can't get over what great time we had. Funny thing was, we hardly talked. It was almost all business - like we were on a mission.  :)

Great experiences, guys. I'm sure it was pretty fun!

I'm about to order the ABB1 type difussors from PI Audio (2 pairs, 4' x 2'), to start with. Once I have them set-up I'll see what else to get to complement them. I definitely need to really improve difussion in my smallish room.

Since apparently the Rachael and Torii seem to be in the middle of that continuum range between the Super Zen and the ZMA, I wonder where my Mini Torii lies in that spread. I guess it runs in a parallel range where it is the only contender (unless an Ultralinear joins it in the near future, given its expected attributes).

I mean, the Mini is not that transparent but it's more dynamic than the Rachael, but with less power than all of them except the Super Zen. I wonder what the coming mods in the Mini would do for it.

Congrats!

I would be very interested in reading about your opinions on the Mini Torii vis à vis the rest of your collective amps. I expect it to be sitting in some niche there, as a small jack of all trades ...

I was very impressed by the speaker cable.  The presentation had much less grain compared to the last time I listened to you system, and it managed to smooth things out without sacrificing detail.  That's a perfect combination.

Thanks Lon.

I believe I have read and I think Rob mentioned yesterday that the VCaps are supposed to have more of a "hi-fi" sound.  I think this means smoother presentation.

I'd really like to hear what beeswax sound like in a MK3.  I think it would be a killer combo and bring it closer to the ZMA.

Not disliking the VCapped Torii, just wonder when I hear Rachael and especially the Zen.  I fact the reason Rachael was first up yesterday was because I have been listening to it for lighter, less dynamically challenging music recently.

Also, I liked the bullpen idea with the on-deck amp warming up.  Maybe a Zenfest idea??

BTW, the white diffusers in the pictures are actually the inverse of the styro diffuser on my back wall (not shown in any pics).  These are what those fractal diffusers come packaged in.  Its the original styro block they are cut from, reused as a shipping container.  Anyway, Raven said he took a saw to his and produced inverse diffusers, so I did the same.  I haven't painted them yet because I was just trying them out this weekend.  I like what I hear, but will try them in a couple of different positions.  I wonder if you could model what they are doing?

At the risk of being called nuts and/or a troll, I bring up the fact that ProggRob's digital cable was louder that my Stereovox xv2.  1-2 clicks on his Zen stepped attenuator.  I have read some reviews on this impressive cable, but nothing explaining how a digital cable could be louder.  I did read one review that stated "the CT-1E energized the entire system."

If anyone can venture an explanation, I am all ears.

Hmmm, interesting idea.  I don't recall it changing the volume when I swapped it in for my signal cable coax.  

Something definitely going on there.

Which cables again, did this one beat out?

Another observation I wanted to make was the varying levels of each amp's ability to fill out instruments or voices in the soundstage.

Raven, I have listened to that live recording you were using as an example of the voice filling up space.  With the Torii, the voice still floats on the 3D plane and has good body, but it is not as big as with the ZMA.  I don't believe that we were listening much louder on the ZMA, if at all, but the ZMA still seems to push out a more fuller sound at the same volume.

I also contacted the designer of the fractal diffusers and inquired about the inverse being used.  He said he couldn't be definitive unless he modeled it, but thought they would initially focus, but wasn't sure what the sound wave would be like when it reached your ear.  He didn't encourage it in critical settings.

I am going to continue to experiment with them.  I ran 3 across the front sideways on the bass-traps/diffusers last night and felt it decreased the sound stage.  A single one sideways in the middle seemed to increase the soundstage height.f

Stone, BTW, your old Stereovox VX2 held up pretty well against the 10X more expensive digital cable.  Once we did the A/B the differences became apparent when listening for specific traits, but overall, you had to listen for the differences.  I will say, however, once we heard them, we were spoiled.

Shocker.  Digital Cables matter.  Its got me thinking about USB...

I might pick one up used just to see.  I can't afford the big bucks cables, but used, these look reasonable.  I think you sold one a while back.

Where are you guys using the digital cable: From the PC or Transport to the DAC? Are these Coaxial cables like in S/PDIF? The only digital cable I use is the USB, since I use that interface for my PC to DAC bridge.

I assume RCA's (or XRL if balanced) need to work in the analog realm: After the DAC and before the Preamp or Amp. Am I right?

Thanks for any clarification.

The path was Mac Mini --> USB --> SPDIF Converter --> Digital Coax --> DAC --> RCA to amp.

USB in the original Chord Qute was not optimal.  Sound is greatly enhanced via SPDIF.

I have a borrowed, lower end Pangea USB.  I think the SPDIF converter sorts things out a bit, but just wondered what kind of lift, if any, I could get with a better USB in the chain.

Stone, I believe that beating the Off-Ramp 5 will depend more upon the USB implementation in the Yggy than the choice of cable.  I hear that the USB receiver in the Yggy is their 3rd generation board and that it exceeds even their highly regarded v2 board.  You may find that a decent USB cable (such as the $25 job offered on the Schiit website) may be equal to or superior to having an OR5 in the chain.  Just a thought.

As long as there is free beer.

ahhhh, to funny Pal. ....ransacked!

Yes ProggRob. Their $25 cable into their USB implementation. If the USB & DAC impress come July......what a value the Yggy will turn out to be.

Now.....if I can get my Son to turn over his MacBook Pro?! He probably wants to upgrade anyway.  After all, I am writing him a check to cover some of his expenses at Stanford this Fall Quarter!

I believe the cabling matters, depending on the hardware implementation. The DirectStream is rather cable agnostic because all the inputs ultimately go through the FPGA the same way. So differences in inputs are very much minimized. To me, USB on the DS seemed the best, but that could also be because I have the ability to run DSD 5.6 directly.

I wouldn't mind trying some high priced USB, or other high priced cables. But I wouldn't expect as much of a chance as we heard in Palo's room with the Chord.

Call it synergy, or just leveraging the best input/output hardware.  :)