What's in a title.
So up to the Saturday morning blah blah (if I can do otherwise at all) ...
So a few days back I reported about Ciska "being able to" express about "so beautiful !". I left out the few times more she said that because two times was enough. But apparently something "switched" in her and it looks like another audiophile has been born. Mind you, this is about somone who by now has been listening to something like 21900 hours of my music, assumed each day 3 hours on average and no vacations etc. So a few hours less it will be.
Yesterday something was changed in the system again, and at listening to some track she suddenly tells me "hey, I can imagine track XYZ to sound such and so now". So I said "oh, and since when can YOU do this ??".
At that moment we were listening to Rare Earth's Get Ready which is played each 4-5 months since I finally found it on CD (two years or so ago). This is from 1969 and one of the "key stones" from my younger years. It is a kind of a tough album to play, or better, that 20 minute "Get Ready" track. It is from that era, say the beginning of (Pro-)Rock and the recording means were a kind of special (say 1967 - 1972). I *know* that from that era the best recordings emerged (my view of course) but it now depends very much on the performance of the system. Can sound more poor and hollow, can sound too light and dynamical. And everything in between. If things work well you'll "hear" the messages, often present in ProRock (btw, I don't call this Rare Earth specifically ProRock, but it has some properties of it). Those "messages" are only brought across when you can see the intension of the singer, or when you envision the band on a podium doing the performance. All at ease, just representing their era and what all happens around them. That kind of thing.
Yesterday it worked like never before. All fit and all in proper balance. Besides that, a "today's very well done recording".
This is how Ciska now was urged to hear back one of these tracks we played a couple of days back with that message "I can envision now ...". So huh ?
It got worse, because it became a subject in itself and we talked about it somewhat (like I found another pal) and in the end there was a "yea, but that Wicked Game from Chris Isaak is really tear drawing, you know". Okay, I must have missed that this other day. Only the "so beautiful" I noticed. Hmm ...
In advance of this we talked about "more analogue" with my more or less tough explanation what that would be. Actually I said "more analogue but with all the highs sustained from 'digital'". If I would have said this 5 years ago it would have been more clear, but at today's standards the borders are vague to begin with. So, hard to make clear.
And so Wicked Game was put up again;
For me it did what I expected of it, but in 2 fold or maybe 3. There was no ultimate super crystal clear guitar as the first to notice, and there was no super clear beautiful voice as the second. I said "at least the guy is not gay anymore" and you know what ?? after playing this one this few days ago, the next one I put up was George Michael. So go figure how our mind works, because no way I appreciated Chris Isaak as gay. Still it must have been in my mind, and yesterday my expression was "not gay any more !" ?? So I *did* know.
But next there was *her* expression, and while my "more analogue" in advance didn't come across really, she made a "gay he was never, but now it is more NATURAL".
Oh.
The change is so big compared to few days back that I would say the whole recording shifted down an octave. I am serious.
But now I must tell you about the one "minus" I found with this cable fairly much right form the start. Mind you, as how it was before yesterday ...
You can say there's a kind of "bells" in them as a general character. High frequency "belling" which we better call ringing. At least that is what I can think of, were it (all) about reflections. But notice : there is no way that I judge this ringing as something I can't live with, ALTHOUGH it would be my foremost deep down negative if I hear such a thing throughout tracks and albums. Mere point here is : this expresses in rock only (that I noticed) but it also has a sheer upside : singing. And, this is clearly the "vrbrance" I talked about. So wonder oh wonder, day before yesterday I tried Foreigner and Boston and that kind of soft rock bands, which so far never really worked out. Now they play as intended : full with harmonics and this "singing" throughout from the distortion guitars and full sound. So it works, but can be overkill once you only listen to this kind of music because it wil start to be apparent to you that there's a flavor. Still, the only thing on my mind was about what YOU would think about this, might I prepare such a set of interlinks for you. So say a bit scary, but for me I think it would be okay; 99% of music I play will not show it anyway *and* you must be able to recognize it in the first place. But, you could be better at that then me, so still a bit scary.
Hoping that you're still with me and didn't die of the blahblah, now up to yesterday's change ...
See below picture. See or know how totally illegal it is what has been done there; have an interlink that acts as a coil, implying inductance. IL-LE-GAL.
Still I did it out of curiosity, plus I maybe didn't know how to put this 7 meters too long cable otherwise easily. So this is Mani's cable at ~10m40 while my own is 3m15. You can see it in the back ground. Thus, 7 meters of coil there.
This interesting part of this could be that inductance and capacitance are linearly related. With the emphasis on me now knowing exactly how all works out, this should tell something like : when the inductance gets higher because of this coil format, the capacitance will be lower. Okayyy, it could even be that the net result of the inductance is lower because of this format, and if that is so then the capacitance is higher. Or something quite else may happen.
What I sure know though is that both capacitance and inductance of such a cable should be as low as possible. This now can never be achieved because whatever is done to achieve the lower capacitance will higher the inductance. And the other way around. One thing I (thus) do not know, and this is whether this applies "within the cable('s properties)" only, and whether external influences may disobey this rule. In this case the cable itself being a coil could be such an external influence and who knows now both capacitance and inductance lowered (if you'd (could) add the both values of them).
Point is, this setup changes the sound drastically AGAIN.
Of course this has been a few hours listening only so any final judgement is a few days away as always, but this ringing is not be there any more. What came in place of that is "more grey" but with my emphasis that grey is relative and all what happens (I think) is that the false harmonic "bells" disappeared and probably no Foreigner will work again. So no false vibrance and "singing". This seems also how a Chris Isaak's voice shifts down an octave.
The whole perception is also one of more laid back. This is a bit of a strange form of it because it isn't much about flat or farther away, but merely about "ease". And I am fairly sure it is this which makes me say "more analoge". Someone else makes that "more natural".
The least what it does is once again give all more body but I am not sure yet what the real cause is. So, if an octave from Chris Isaak is remove at the upper side, the lower side which does not need to change a bit gets more profound automatically. So, more body. The Get Ready is not "smashing dynamical" at all. We explicitly observed the now infinitely possible loudness. Notice that this is about 20 minutes of hitting a snare drum on the same beat and when that too dynamically renedered at some stage you'll get crazy of it.
I also played "Who do we think we are" from Deep Purple which I always play when things drastically changed; The cymbals in there seem to be of "DSP'd" quality hence abnormally good for Rock. I listened to it yesterday and I tried to observe where the so much more laid back of it was for the better or worse. And well, whatever I tried I could not see where it was wrong, no matter so different. All was there and more profouind than ever before, but all so super silky that it seems impossible that it has been in there all the time. And yes, what is the most apparent to ME and relative to the past 6 days with my own cable, is that extra layer of ringing not being there. Al so normal ...
Some say natural.
The danger I could see at this moment is that I can run into a perceived lack of power because that is how it feels initially. Not because of the lack of slam (no way) but because of a possible lack of dynamics. But then I have been used to crazy dynamics for a long time, and all what happens with these changes for the better is that it gradually gets less and less. This is not about high frequency detail, but somewhere in the (higher ?) mid that makes a snare drum hurt from realism as how it was before - or jut not enough because too much rounded as how it is now. This is why again more days will be needed to judge this from various types of music. So that not only Get Ready works from now on.
So ... Nice story perhaps, but what actually happened ?
I put a cable in coil form and one should never do that. But I also used a 10m40 cable instead of 3m15. What does actually which ?
A longer cable, theoretically, is never for the better. This is now not about a too high capacitance and too much HF roll off, but about the longer the worse the reflections. Still I feel it went the other way around unless the ringing is now rolled off because the high frequencies are somewhat. Thus what I try to tell is that the highest frequencies causing the mere "bell" sound are actually reflections after all, but now those frequencies are rolled off to some extend because the length of the able itself. Notice that this should be about 30 meters for one "ring" (echo). So amp reflects back to DAC which reflects back towards amp and is played through the speaker. And that assumed one time of reflection. In my 3m15 case it would be about 9 meters. Or, because it is shorter a next reflection comes through before being rolled off too much.
All hard to say and still assumed reflections do this in the first place. So what about the filter which is time domain oriented ? I mean, it just as well can be so that this more false high frequencies can now finally be heard well. Thus nothing about reflections. And *now* all what happens is that the longer cable may roll off *that*.
What the coil thing does can be tested. Just un-coil it. So I guess I will do that today. Will be a bit messy in the room but with one more audiophile present there's more who cares less.
Peter
