Mani's Mach III -> Lush˄2 -> NOS1 -> Blaxius˄2

[manisandher]

Hi everyone, I wanted to start a new thread to share my experience with my new chain:

Mach III -> Lush˄2 -> NOS1 B75 -> Blaxius˄2 -> MHz bandwidth mono amps

I think this makes more sense than contributing to the existing threads, which tend to talk about these components separately, as I think they all work together to form the particular sound I’m now hearing.

Firstly, I want to say a massive thanks to Ciska for putting most (all?) of these components together (especially the 8m Blaxius˄2 cables, which must have been a real pain to do), to Peter for being the out-of-the-box thinker he is, and to Paul who I’m sure also played a part somehow.

I spent the whole of yesterday laying the 8m Blaxius˄2 cable pair under the floorboards of our 130-year-old Victorian house. Ordinarily, this should have been a reasonably straightforward job – I planned to use a simple BNC socket-to-socket adaptor to connect one side of the old Blaxius to one side of the new Blaxius˄2, and gently pull on the old Blaxius from the basement, with Satty (my wife) feeding the new Blaxius˄2 from above . However, a couple of years ago we had 100mm insulation blocks installed directly under the floorboards between all the joists. The installers did a great job plugging all the gaps between the joists, so much so that they totally jammed the old Blaxius cables solidly against the joists. No way they were going to budge. Unfortunately, the basement doesn’t sit directly under the listening room – there is just a 1.5 m void under the listening room. So I had to take the floorboards up, take out the guilty insulation blocks, feed the Blaxius˄2 cables into the basement as I had originally planned, and then replace the blocks and floorboards. This took me pretty much 8 hours of constant, ultra-dirty work.

Totally exhausted, after showering up, I managed to hear the first sounds from my new chain at around 10pm.

My first impressions were of an incredibly clean and taut sound. Absolutely no bloom anywhere now. Instruments taking an eternity to decay. Sparkle and beauty everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like this from any system anywhere.

BUT… where had all the bass gone? I wasn’t expecting this at all, as most reports in other threads suggested that switching to a similar chain produces more bass than before, and not less.

I think the key is in “no bloom anywhere now”. Also, I had literally just switched everything on and taken a listen, so no warm up of components, let alone any burn-in.

My suspicion is that I have the basis of something really special, but I think it’s going to take some work to get the sound I want. I intend to document my journey and the evolution of the sound in this thread.

Once again, a massive thanks to Ciska, Peter and Paul. We’re all very lucky to have stumbled on Phasure – there is simply nothing else like it out there.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Ha !

So, you dirty (old) man, it looks we should be happy that this wasn't bought including installation.

First off, like you say yourself, there will be a relatively significant burn-in in order.
Next, please take into account an even longer warm-up time in general. So like I said elsewhere, this seems to have increased from ("my") 20 minutes to maybe double that. Maybe not for the good listening (this starts at ~9 minutes over here) but for the ultimate, yes (and it assumes everything to be on 24/7 to begin with).

Is this related to the bass ? I actually can't tell. But if you can exchange with your other Lush^2 (was it broken in on the same configuration ?), I'd do that. The combination of the two is not to be underestimated and when two together requires a burn-in ... I actually can't remember a (customer) situation where this was in order. For myself not either. Could be extra-bad at first.

Don't forget the (BIOS) tweak that the 14/28 processor is set to be a 10/20 (set to 10 cores instead of 14). I did not do that for you (although you might have expected it). But don't tweak too soon and give burn-in is chance first.

Best regards,
Peter

[acg]

Mani, that's some dedication lifting the floorboards to replace a perfectly good cable. 

Looking forward to hearing about how you go with all the changes.

Anthony

[manisandher]

Thanks Anthony.

(BTW, how are your speakers coming on - all complete now?)

Mani.

[manisandher]

A quick update...

I played full-scale white noise through the system (with amps off!) for a few hours before taking another listen yesterday evening. The sound seemed to have swung in totally the opposite direction. Much 'thicker' than before, and some 'LF bloom' now. I can understand how this might cause someone with well-extended speakers to want to reduce the LF a bit. But in my setup, with my non-assisted speakers, it's welcome.

Right now, I'd say the sound is pretty much on par with what I had before, with my [clock-upgraded] Mach II and original Blaxius cables. It's tauter than before, but with a tad less sparkle. But it's still very early in the settling-in process, and I suspect there's a lot more change to come (hopefully for the better).

Mani.

[manisandher]

But if you can exchange with your other Lush^2 (was it broken in on the same configuration ?), I'd do that.

I tried this, but there seemed to be quite a loose connection between the original Lush^2 cable and my NOS1 B75 - so much so that the NOS1 wouldn't be recognised unless I physically lifted the Lush^2 at the NOS1's input. This is really strange, because I'd been using this exact cable with this exact NOS1 with no problems for the last few months.

In any event, the new Lush^2 fits snugly into the NOS1 B75... and my old Lush^2 fits snugly into the non-B75 NOS1 in my office. So I'm stuck with listening to the Mach III, the Lush^2 and the Blaxius^2 all breaking-in together in my main system. With the way things sound at the moment, this isn't any hardship  .

Mani.

[manisandher]

Another quick update...

The sound has now 'blossomed' to easily the best I've ever managed to achieve during my time in this hobby... and in many ways, better than I've ever heard anywhere else. Describing what you hear in words is always difficult to explain, but I'll try.

The top-end is ultra, ultra clean, but not in an overly clinical way. It remains sweet (not sharp and edgy) and incredibly satisfying. There's a real sparkle to it. I think it has to do with two things:
1) the way things decay
- for example, there's no overly-abrupt damping of cymbals - they seem to continue shimmering for ever, which gives a sense of naturalness, ease and real vibrancy to the sound
2) an ultra-low noise floor
- there's a real blackness for the top-end to 'decay into' (if that makes any sense)

The mids are spectacular. The transient attacks make vocals and instruments totally life-like.
- for example, the strings of a cello sound detailed and textured and yet the wooden body vibrates beautifully and sounds 'hollowed out', as opposed to sounding full of wool and dead

The bass is easily the best I've ever had in my room. The speakers naturally drop away below 40Hz (no ports or LF servo-assistance whatsoever), and yet even without the bottom octave, the sound remains balanced and very satisfying on all genres of music. Very tight and tuneful. You can feel a kick drum on your chest. Etc, etc.

Interesting, I can kill much of the magic by simply changing the power amps to any of the others I have here. I wonder if the attached specs of the amp might give a clue as to why? At 1 watt, the 200kHz square wave is almost perfect. At 1 watt, the noise floor lies at -135dB or so below 1 watt.

Mani.

[PeterSt]