This is a common trade-off as you move up to more technically capable components, you lose some of the body, bloom, "fun" in the bass region in favour of tighter, better controlled bass, and technicalities in general like you described with clarity, better extension... I've faced the same...

Should be a tremendous jump going from the Venom to Alpha line, like getting a new amp. There are a ton of great power cord brands out there but imo only a small handful plays well with tubes and one of them is Shunyata. They do need a good 50-100hrs to "settle and break in" out of the box. Let...

How does the HM1 compare with the 465?

If possible, always upgrade components before cables of any sort. Getting a higher end streamer/music server will yield significantly more improvements than cables unless we're talking about the insane cables, that's a different story... I'd only begin going down the cable rabbit hole when...

I tried a bunch and didn't find any of them better than the stock Sus pads, just slightly different, and in one area worse than stock, the opening of all the ZMF pads are smaller and there was a noticeable decrease in overall size and spaciousness of the soundstage. Overall I like the stock pads...

Sus infinite scaling memes do be true

I'm familiar with Lampizator DACs but not their power products. In general I highly recommend getting a demo for power conditioners, even moreso than any other component, like a DAC or Amp. The right fit in your system can take sound to levels unimagined, the rising wave, but the wrong synergy...

I have almost as much invested in power components/cords as actual components. Highly highly underrated part of hifi. I'd say that order you listed is in order of importance power cable >>> interconnect > headphone cables. You can significantly tune & improve a system with power cables...

Awesome! That'd be one hell of a shootout between the amps you have, any initial impressions so far?

I commend you on still using those stock hifiman cables... you try the Sus on the AIC's speaker taps?

Which 300b preamp did you have? I prev had a WA33 EE JPS and preamped my Bakoon 13R at the time with a Manley 300b, didn't have CFA3 then and it was the tubiest sound I've heard, but made the TCs too soft.

Just replaced the stock fuse in my ARC Ref 6SE Tube Preamp with the SR Master Fuse, been putting off upgrading it for months and finally pulled the trigger. This is my first fuse upgrade ever so I wasn't sure what to expect. It's been playing for about 30 minutes and I can say I'm already...

Our brain/ears are incredibly flexible and we can get accustomed to any sound signature over time. However, in my experience, I've found that gear that sounds natural don't need adjusting to, it just sounds "right", like you don't need time to adjust to real/live music because it's just right.

I find all summit fi tier headphones to be very chain dependent, some more so than others. The magical 'synergy' is definitely real and if you're willing to put the effort to finding it with your favourite headphones you won't believe the level of performance they can scale to

Mine has no issue staying very securely in the Susvara's sockets, might be worth checking with Danacables if the connectors on your cable isn't as secure as it could be. I listen exclusively at my desk so I mould the cables so it's directly underneath the Susvaras and in a way they almost hold...

Get off your high horse dude, your last few posts just reek of snobbery

That's why you gotta have the 1266 and some good techno tracks on hand, aint nobody not in the hobby's gonna be impressed by the Susvaras in a 10 minute listen

New CFA3? I vaguely recall reading something along those lines in the CFA3 thread

.

You got about 12 years of content to go through here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/show-us-your-head-fi-station-at-its-current-state-no-old-pictures-please.529140/

To get the component level change, which is what I think you're after, you're looking at component level pricing. Ones that are really airy, accentuate the treble, and have spacious sound signature are the Shunyata Sigma V2, Transparent Ultra XL, and Synergistic Research Galileo series. Any of...

Sums it up nicely, the Benchmark and "transparent" sound in general, they're transparent because it's lighter as a feather, no weight, tonal density, body, timber might be good but sounds extremely digital. No engagement or musicality whatsoever. High level of transparency with organic, note...

It's called a hype train and FOTM for a reason, that's why you gotta try stuff and decide for yourself, even it means taking a loss and reselling. Even if 100 people buy it, rave about it and keep it forever, it's no guarantee you will like it.

Try moving the Clear around as well, if it's your 'best' power cord you may find the overall performance of your system to be even greater if it's on the DAC or Source and move the prev PC on DAC to amp. This is an interesting diagram from Nordost and mirrors my experience pretty closely in...

I find Focals to do better on warmer chain to flesh out the sound, it doesn't have to be a tube amp, though most tubes are inherently warmer. Both Utopia and Stellia sounded great off of Bakoon 13R which is a warmer solid state or a solid state with a warmer DAC like Morpheus and Aqua La Scala...