Burson Cable+ RCA to RCA
I am not going to go into details about the product because many reviews have done a much greater and more through job than I ever could. Burson also has a nicely detailed website explaining the product and science behind the Cable+.
https://www.bursonaudio.com/products/cable-plus-a2r/
I am only going to express what I heard testing some of my DAPS going into my Sansui 881. I was very curious to see if I could improve the musicality going into the vintage receiver.
As stated I used the well regarded Sansui 881
I used the Cable+ in this configuration using an Aukey Power Bank for isolated power. Since my Cable+ is the RCA to RCA version, I used a quality RCA to 3.5 adapter made with Canare cable and high quality connectors inorder to hook up to the respective Daps.
The draw must not be too great since I never had to recharge the power bank during the week I used it heavily. I also did not hear any extra noise using it in this manner. I did not try it through a wall power outlet to check for noise.
I used my 300 ohm Sennheiser HD540 Reference II which is my favorite of the HD line since it is the most natural and uncolored of the HD line. I also used my VE Zen 2.0 Black which a highend earbud which is 320 ohms so it is a better fit than most iems or earbuds with very high output impedance vintage receiver's headphone outs produce.
I'll admit it was very hard to do comparisons at first since auditory memory is not very long lasting atleast not mine. I finally devised a way to have a very quick back and forth between the Cable+ and a normal cable. I ended up using a splitter on my Daps and connected the Cable+ to the Tape 1 input and the normal cable onto the Tape 2 input. The way the Sansui works is when the Tape input 2 is pushed it takes priority over Tape input 1. Thus I could have Input 1 playing with the Cable+ and then turn on and off Tape input 2 with my old normal cable. I could go back and forth quickly thus being able to focus on specific parts of the music like soundstage, bass quality, instrument separation etc etc.
First up was the old reliable Ipod 5.5 with Rockbox with a combination of high quality Alac files ripped from cds
I am going to group my Ipod and Clip Zip together since they both had similiar improvements once the Cable+ was used. Both are have low output impedance. The ipod is 5ohm and the Zip is between 1 and 2 ohms.
As stated earlier I had the Cable+ on Tape input 1 and when I pushed on Tape input 2 the input with the normal cable would play and Cable+ input 1 would stop. The first thing that was obvious was the Cable+ was louder. This is entirely expected since the Cable+ increases signal strength with higher voltage.
It was very easy to hear that the Cable+ made the bass more apparent and full. I think generally differences in bass are much easier to hear than differences in mids, highs and soundstage. This is where being able to switch back and forth quickly helped me hear and remember the improvements. With the quick switching back and forth I could hear more prominent vocals with them being moved alittle bit forward when using the Cable+. Being a vocal lover, I really enjoyed this aspect.
When it cames to the highs and soundstage I got alittle bit of a WOW moment. I really didnt know what I was missing until I was able to do the quick switching back and forth. I was listening on input 1 with the Cable+ and it was on some Madonna song from the Immaculate Collection. It was an ALAC file on the ipod. I pushed input 2 to switch to the regular cable and I could hear the soundstage very apparently lose width on both sides. But what really got me was the soundstage also sunk on the top and depth went away. In the song there were very prominent strings being played in the right and left corners behind the vocals. They all but disappeared with the regular cable no matter how much louder I made the volume. This proved to me that the Cable+ was adding microdetails, dynamics, soundstage size, separation and most importunately to me 3d Imagery.
Just as a quick mention, I also did the same quick switch test with the recent Walnut V2 Dap using only WAV files ripped from CDs. It is pretty popular here on Head-fi. One odd thing about it is the the output has a strange measurement of 100ohms. When connected with the normal cable to the Sansui 881 the bass was very bloated and mushy. Switching to the Cable+ actually reduced the bass alittle and tightened it up considerably. The rest of the positives mentioned on the Ipod and Zip improvements were also similar. I just separated them because the way the bass was initially and the type of bass improvements made were different.
In the future, I want to try the Cable+ in more different configurations such as between my Dacs and Amps. When I do I'll add to my review. For now in this Daps to Amp setup, the Burson Cable+ certainly hits the target for it's intended improvements.
I am not going to go into details about the product because many reviews have done a much greater and more through job than I ever could. Burson also has a nicely detailed website explaining the product and science behind the Cable+.
https://www.bursonaudio.com/products/cable-plus-a2r/
I am only going to express what I heard testing some of my DAPS going into my Sansui 881. I was very curious to see if I could improve the musicality going into the vintage receiver.
As stated I used the well regarded Sansui 881
I used the Cable+ in this configuration using an Aukey Power Bank for isolated power. Since my Cable+ is the RCA to RCA version, I used a quality RCA to 3.5 adapter made with Canare cable and high quality connectors inorder to hook up to the respective Daps.
The draw must not be too great since I never had to recharge the power bank during the week I used it heavily. I also did not hear any extra noise using it in this manner. I did not try it through a wall power outlet to check for noise.
I used my 300 ohm Sennheiser HD540 Reference II which is my favorite of the HD line since it is the most natural and uncolored of the HD line. I also used my VE Zen 2.0 Black which a highend earbud which is 320 ohms so it is a better fit than most iems or earbuds with very high output impedance vintage receiver's headphone outs produce.
I'll admit it was very hard to do comparisons at first since auditory memory is not very long lasting atleast not mine. I finally devised a way to have a very quick back and forth between the Cable+ and a normal cable. I ended up using a splitter on my Daps and connected the Cable+ to the Tape 1 input and the normal cable onto the Tape 2 input. The way the Sansui works is when the Tape input 2 is pushed it takes priority over Tape input 1. Thus I could have Input 1 playing with the Cable+ and then turn on and off Tape input 2 with my old normal cable. I could go back and forth quickly thus being able to focus on specific parts of the music like soundstage, bass quality, instrument separation etc etc.
First up was the old reliable Ipod 5.5 with Rockbox with a combination of high quality Alac files ripped from cds
I am going to group my Ipod and Clip Zip together since they both had similiar improvements once the Cable+ was used. Both are have low output impedance. The ipod is 5ohm and the Zip is between 1 and 2 ohms.
As stated earlier I had the Cable+ on Tape input 1 and when I pushed on Tape input 2 the input with the normal cable would play and Cable+ input 1 would stop. The first thing that was obvious was the Cable+ was louder. This is entirely expected since the Cable+ increases signal strength with higher voltage.
It was very easy to hear that the Cable+ made the bass more apparent and full. I think generally differences in bass are much easier to hear than differences in mids, highs and soundstage. This is where being able to switch back and forth quickly helped me hear and remember the improvements. With the quick switching back and forth I could hear more prominent vocals with them being moved alittle bit forward when using the Cable+. Being a vocal lover, I really enjoyed this aspect.
When it cames to the highs and soundstage I got alittle bit of a WOW moment. I really didnt know what I was missing until I was able to do the quick switching back and forth. I was listening on input 1 with the Cable+ and it was on some Madonna song from the Immaculate Collection. It was an ALAC file on the ipod. I pushed input 2 to switch to the regular cable and I could hear the soundstage very apparently lose width on both sides. But what really got me was the soundstage also sunk on the top and depth went away. In the song there were very prominent strings being played in the right and left corners behind the vocals. They all but disappeared with the regular cable no matter how much louder I made the volume. This proved to me that the Cable+ was adding microdetails, dynamics, soundstage size, separation and most importunately to me 3d Imagery.
Just as a quick mention, I also did the same quick switch test with the recent Walnut V2 Dap using only WAV files ripped from CDs. It is pretty popular here on Head-fi. One odd thing about it is the the output has a strange measurement of 100ohms. When connected with the normal cable to the Sansui 881 the bass was very bloated and mushy. Switching to the Cable+ actually reduced the bass alittle and tightened it up considerably. The rest of the positives mentioned on the Ipod and Zip improvements were also similar. I just separated them because the way the bass was initially and the type of bass improvements made were different.
In the future, I want to try the Cable+ in more different configurations such as between my Dacs and Amps. When I do I'll add to my review. For now in this Daps to Amp setup, the Burson Cable+ certainly hits the target for it's intended improvements.
