Meier Audio Corda Cross-1

[john_jcb]

The Corda Cross-1 is a passive crossfeed filter that is intended to make the listening experience more enjoyable and less fatiguing. The following is extracted from the Corda Cross manual and explains crossfeed:

“Due to the close contact to your ears, headphones provide an extreme channel separation whilst listening to stereo recordings. Unlike loudspeakers, none of the sonic information in the left channel is acoustically transferred to the right ear and vice versa. Although this adds to the extreme high level of detail that can be achieved with headphones, it subconsciously also introduces mental stress. The natural correlation of stereo sound interpreted by the brain is lost. The CORDA CROSS-1 offers a facility to add some of the left channel information to that of the right channel and vice versa. Thus mental stress is reduced and music can be enjoyed with more ease.”

The entire manual can be found on Jan’s website
http://home.t-online.de/home/meier-audio/

I included a bit of the manual to illustrate the clear in concise writing that is found throughout the manual. It is easy to read and for the more experienced reader provides plenty of information on the units operation.

The build of the Corda Cross-1 is on a par with the amplifiers in the Meier line. The finish is excellent and the switches are very crisp in their operation. The unit I evaluated was serial number 002. The recommend connections place the unit between the source and amplifier. This is the configuration used for the evaluation.

Sources:
Philips DVD963SA

Phones:
Sennheiser HD600/Cardas
AKG 401
Koss KSC-35
Audio Technica ATH-EM7
Koss Porta Pro

Amp:
Ray Samuels Audio Emmeline HR-2
Headroom Cosmic
Headroom Total Airhead

Music:
Holly Cole "Temptation" Tracks 2,6,7 and 11
Aimee Mann "Lost in Space" Track 2
Diana Krall SACD "When I Look In Your Eyes" Tracks 1,2,5 and 12
Gladiator Soundtrack Tracks 3 and 10
Mark Knopfler “Ragpicker’s Dream” Tracks 3, 4, and 9
Led Zeppelin I Tracks 2, 7 and 8

The unit has four controls from left to right; 1) crossfeed on/off 2) bass response, 6 levels incremented over a range of 3dB 3) Crossfeed level Low, Medium and High 4) treble response, 6 levels incremented over a range of 3dB. If you know your source and load impedances the level can be matched to what you would hear without crossfeed. The settings are thoroughly explained in the manual.

The first thing I do when evaluating any crossfeed is to disconnect one channel. With both channels connected is more difficult to evaluate the impact of the different settings. With one channel it is very easy to hear the impacts of each adjustment. The manual recommends various levels based on the recording. With the music I listened to I found it very useful to be able to adjust the amount of crossfeed. Led Zeppelin in particular benefited from the highest setting. For the other tracks I selected the medium level and adjusted bass and treble to the third click starting at the 11 o’clock position. The volume level is attenuated by 2.2 dB with crossfeed engaged so you must adjust the volume to compensate for this.

I found that the Meier crossfeed circuit made listening easier and the mental fatigue that can be caused by some recordings did not occur. I found that the crossfeed improved my listening enjoyment especially with the older rock recordings. Like a child that discovers candy the engineers got carried away with the stereo effects on many recordings. They cannot be blamed though; I recall my fascination with the effects when I first heard a stereo in the mid 60’s. The more recent recording benefited least and the effect was more subtle. I think that for long periods of listening crossfeed is definitely an aid. Some people will never like what it does to the sound but once your mind becomes accustomed to the changes it is very pleasing to the ear.

I briefly compared the Meier crossfeed with the Headroom crossfeed in the Cosmic and Total Air Head. Playing around with the adjustments on the Cosmic and Corda I was able to find a point where the differences were indistinguishable. I found the Corda effect a little more subtle than the Total Air head’s crossfeed.

I would without reservation recommend this piece to anyone that desires the reduction in listening fatigue that can be achieved with the Corda Cross-1. To my ears it greatly improves some recordings and with others the impact is more subtle but noticeable. My only regret in doing this review is that I did not have a couple of tube amps to try out with the unit.