[Patrick82]

I added 3 Feet of Silence under the 4 Magix levitation feet, it didn't fix the problem of Verdi. I still got harshness in the sound whenever I turned the Verdi on.

Then I plugged in the digital cables between Verdi and Elgar. The brightness was horrible. The digital cables are about 75% of the brightness and the AC noise is about 25%.

Then I plugged in my Cary CD transport and connected it to Elgar with a cheap RCA cable. When I turned on the Cary I got little more brightness, but I was surprised that the Cary gives less noise than the Verdi.

Then I moved the Verdi from the Quintet into the Premier Power Plant which the Elgar DAC uses. I was surprised that the further increase in brightness wasn't as big as I thought. Normally when plugging in extra gear into the Premier it makes it horribly bright and fatiguing because of more distortion inside the Premier. But it wasn't too fatiguing. I also found that using the MultiWave for the Verdi gave a cool sound signature similar to Oyaide 037 connectors.

When turning the Verdi on it sounds harsh and fatiguing. But when putting the Verdi in standby it makes the computer sound very clean, smooth and white. There is whiteness all over the music and it comes from fat Valhalla power cord combined with jitter.
When listening to Verdi, it sounds more neutral but it doesn't really sound that good because of the noise problems. There is a lot of potential in sound quality in reference CD transports because of that reason. I don't know what the manufacturers are thinking when they design the components. Someone should make a proper functioning transport with optical connection.

The Verdi Encore + tweaks is $80k, and the computer just uses a modified Valhalla power cord and Magix levitation feet for $4k. Which of these transports is better overall I don't know yet, but I like the flavor of the computer better. People who say it's insane to plug a Valhalla power cord into the computer, think again. The Valhalla veils out the edginess to make it smooth and white, and with the Toslink connection, it makes it sound very clean.