Review: Swan M200MKIII (UPDATED impressions) - Page 4

The W4S DAC-2 does pair up well with the Swans or my headphone amps.  Nothing but love for the DAC-2.  Plenty of detail and great soundstage with no hint of fatigue or harshness.  I have noticed improvements with better ICs connecting the DAC to my headphone amps.  I live in any apartment so I don't listen to the Swans at loud levels.  The WireWorld ICs are less bright than my Blue Jeans ICs so some top-end harshness does not exist with the WireWorlds.  However, for the money, Blue Jeans ICs are hard to beat.  The Swans also sound pretty good hooked up to something like a iPhone or portable player.  
 

great, thanks.. because right now Im itching to upgrade to higher end dac so dont know if it will make much of a difference. Are the wireworld ICs more warmish, dynamic type ICs? Im looking for ICs that will go well my tube buffer as well, Trying to achieve a mellow and smoothness in the sound. Have you tried any silver ICs?

Oh yeah WNBC, I have another question. Do you have your better/stronger ICs connecting from DAC to LYR or from LYR to Swans? any noticeable difference of where you connect the better ICs through? very curious because i never have 2 sets of the same rca cables thats why.

The WireWorld are not warm, their main goal is to remain neutral and faithful to your music, no coloration.  They sound good with my Lyr or V200 headphone amps.  Haven't tried silver yet.  I think the goal of good ICs is to get out of the way and allow your other equipment to have more influence on tone.  The WireWorld just sound natural to me.  
 

My WireWorld ICs are only 0.5 meter which runs a little over $100 and that's about what I want to spend.  I have my headphone amp right next to the DAC so the distance isn't an issue.  The Blue Jeans Cables are less expensive so I can afford to get longer ICs and that's what I use with the Swans.  I haven't hooked the WireWorld's up to the Swans because I can't physically get them that close to my DAC.  I don't know if putting the DAC in between two speakers is a good thing to do and that's what I'd have to do unless I bought a longer cable.  

In the end, don't get too caught up with the cables.  Spend money on solid equipment and the cables are tweaks that can be done later on.  The DAC-2 is the highest-end I've heard so I can't tell you if a $5000 DAC sounds better than mine.  With higher end DACs one may get other benefits like better USB implementation, multiple inputs/outputs, etc.  All I can say is that my system is dynamic and smooth, no harshness, no fatigue.  If you don't want to buy new equipment then maybe try the WireWorld Equinox 6 to see if you like the results.  They do require some burn-in period as did the Swans.

I heard this in a shop and was very impressed with the vocal clarity. Very nice sounding speaker. And the good thing was the price is lower than expected.