The Lush

[acg]

Thanks everyone, I saw the comment by hols on CA. I would appreciate a more thorough comparison though. I am especially interested in how the Lush behaves in the bass department.

Bass is excellent with the Lush.  More than excellent really.  Not soft, gooey, one-note bass but luscious, fleshed out, clean, soft bass with a wonderful harmonic tail.

[Articnoise]

Only 30 hours of burn in with the Lush before some critical listening yesterday evening. The sound with Lush USB in my non-Phasure system is truly staggering. Not only has the SQ increased in the normal “better cable” manner, the whole presentation is actually quite fundamental different, more naturally and true (sorry, but no other way of describe it). The micro details, transparency, dynamic, bass punch etc, etc is first class as well and is much superior to my JCAT USB.   

(Btw, the sound after only 6 hour was a bit over sharped and lean, so some burn in is needed IME)

[PeterSt]

Thank you for your feedback Abbe !

Peter

[HenSch]

After receiving the Lush on Thursday this week I have appr. 6 hours of listening behind me. My audio pc is running Daphile and I'm using a heavily modded Silverstone USB card with Dexa Neutron Star clock. The Lush is directly going into the USB receiver of my artistic fidelity Afi USB DDC which is then feeding a TotalDAC D1 Dual DAC via AES/EBU.

Before the Lush I was using a short DIY USB A->B Adapter with Neotech upocc silver leads inside. That adapter was giving a slightly better sound than the Tellurium Q Black Diamond USB cable I was using before that, the difference was however only in nuances.

The Lush now is more of a night-and-day sort of thing to me. It is really stunning how transformative this cable is to my whole system. Music sounds like real now, something I was looking for a very long time when tuning around my DIY power supplies and all that stuff. Now I'm so much closer to the sound I'm dreaming of - thank you very much Peter!

My system is already sounding relatively warm and "dark", but the Lush has not changed the balance further, which is a good thing for me.

Biggest improvement with the Lush is pinpoint imaging, width and depth(!) of the soundstage and the 'oh so' natural timbre of both instruments and voices. Pure beauty!

All the best,
Henning

[Mark V.]

Would like to be on the list for 1 meter Lush cable.

Thanks,

Mark.

[PeterSt]

Thank you Mark.

And thank you Henning !

Regards,
Peter

[Articnoise]

Peter it sounds like someone must have swiped out my Marantz amp and instead put in VAC Signature 200 

[Matt]

Hi Peter,

a russian friend, who does not speak english, asked my whether there is a right to return the Lush in the case not being satisfied.

Thanks

Matt

[PeterSt]

a russian friend, who does not speak english, asked my whether there is a right to return the Lush in the case not being satisfied.

Ah Matt, but you don't know Russian as well !
haha
You must see my conversations with people from there via (real time) Google Translate. Works wonderful ! Especially the real time translation which you see happening (via Teamviewer) is the most helpful. This is really without any issues that I ever noticed.
Now try email; that does not work at all ! (still using Google Translate)

Anyway to answer the question you will have for yourself (haha) :
I have been thinking of this as a standard offer (one of the texts introducing the Lush incorporated that), but it is very difficult for me to make this consistent and "right". This is about the shipping costs (or the too low price of the Lush, perhaps). So envision :
The cable (which won't even transfer directly to Russia just because your friend will not like that, so other routes are used) will cost 44 euros for any "far" country. However, this can only work in "high transfer times" which means many packages per week because that gives a discount. Otherwise for such a low weight / low volume package it will be ~55 euros (but say 10 more).

Side note : outside of UPS nothing works, or at least I won't allow it because too much trouble. So shipping itself may be less expensive all right, but the extra time it takes for us should make it more expensive only. And add to that the lousy tracking of normal means and the always unpredictable costs to begin with, and that does not work out.

So, generally we must assume 55 euros, and this will be lost.
Then the package has to be send back and while this also costs a little, there is no guarantee anywhere that it will arrive, will be in customs for months without knowing and that people start to be very nervous. And really, it can take a month while after two weeks you will be sure it is lost. So you don't have a cable but also no money back.
Of course we can use UPS again, so there goes another 55 euros down the drain.

Then there's the stupidness of needing to import the thing again. This is the same stuipdness we talked about with the NOS1a to G3 upgrade, because all upgrades cost 55 euros only because of that. This will be maybe 25 or so for the cable (15 is just administration fees) and this too I don't like to pay, so the Russian friend etc. needs to pay for that. I think I am at 135 euros now for shipping stupidness for a cable which costs 200 only.
And thus : NOT a good idea at all, no matter I would like to offer it very much.

I realize that for people from Russia (and many more countries) 200 euros is very much (can easily be 2000 for some people because in the country of concern one earns 10 times less money) but so is the 135 equivalent to 1350.

It just has to work out !!

In the very end I won't say no, but people need to understand that shipping costs can not be refunded just as well that import duties on this side are for the one who likes to send back.

Best regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

Peter it sounds like someone must have swiped out my Marantz amp and instead put in VAC Signature 200 

Hahaha, great !
Maybe you can sell your Lush for $7000 and promise 50% discount on that amp for the buyer ?

No wait, I will higher the price of the Lush. Others come away with such prices too. So ?



Peter

[Matt]

Hi Peter,
the shipping of the Lush would go to a german address and in the case of dissatisfaction he would pay the shipping back from Germany to you, so the refund would be related to the price of cable only.

Matt

[PeterSt]

Matt, and you will send it through unopened, right ?
hahaha
Not that I'd care. Or maybe a little because I like all to arrive as how it was shipped to avoid *any* strangeness. So if it does not work, we need to be sure we did something wrong (but we test them all) or that the intended recepient did something to it. Not that anyone will be blamed (but we ourselves) but now it is about *you* do should not be blamed.

And might the person read this who had to return his Clairixa because it stopped working ... this was caused by a poorly designed computer port which simply destroyed the connector. It is a one occasion out of 100s, but it could still happen to you.

Anyway, all fine; please go ahead with it.
Regards and thanks,
Peter

[Matt]

Peter,

I know him very well. He is a passionate audiophile and would never manipulate something or open the Lush.
It is simple that he tried some USB cables in the past and was not satisfied.

Matt

[PeterSt]

Matt, I wasn't even remotely suggesting something like that. But maybe I manged to transfer my thinking to you, because the one DAC that was returned, was returned from China and a very strange way. So I sure was thinking about such a thing in general when I wrote about that DAC.

Anyway, thank you very much !
Peter

[doak]

Greetings Peter,

Newbie here from CA.
I've heard enough and want to hear The Lush in my system.
Here's my request for a .7m edition.

Uncertain as to how the transaction proceeds, so I'll just hang tight.
Best Regards,
Doak