Simon C. Hong Kong
Just a mere 200mm length of a connecting cable, how much of a difference was I suppose to expect?
Anyhow, after a week of listening and comparisons, I can no long sequester my observations! This kind of revelation doesn't come around that often and, doesn't manifest itself so perfectly. Ever!
The difference was noticeable immediately but, I needed time to run through my collection playing all the different types of music before summarising mine comments. Obviously, with the well-recorded acoustical music there is more to be revealed, but even with the bad ones (old or new), there is always something new to surprise me too! Also, the bass just keeps getting deeper and better all the time too!
This short piece of cable is probably the best price-performance item in my whole system!
The first thing I noticed was an overall sense of space on the soundstage and, the "un-digitizing" of the music. Even before the music starts, or during the silent moments of an acoustical recording, you can feel the space of the stage that just wasn't there nor as palpable before.
There is no rounding off or limiting of anything at all, not altering anything in the tonality but really giving each note, each tone more vibrancy, more timbral textures, more spatial richness, and much better delineations of attack and decay.
To sum it all up, the end result is a very balanced sounding cable with a very rich and lively sound that digs out every little nuance in the recording.
Sit back a little bit, widen your perspective, the whole soundstage is now deeper, wider, much much taller with vivid and solid imaging. Especially, the way-outside and behind out of the speakers imaging and, over the top and room-filling 3D cues are nothing short of spectacular too. Onto headphone listening, it's like you are not listening to headphones but still listening to speakers. A more plausible analogy to me is that it reminded me of the kind of soundstage and imaging like listening to the Focal Utopia or the Stax electrostatic earspeakers (but with my Audeze LCD-3). With some recordings, the imaging was nearly binaural and, don't forget that bass, it is extended, musical and, well defined.
A "curiously" magical cable!
Post Script, It's now more than one month, and I frequently have friends over to audition my system. As soon as I switch out the Curious USB and replace it with my previous USB cable, QED Reference, the magic is gone. The general consensus, the tonal balance is about the same but, the musicality and soundstage just become as flat as a pancake by comparison.
iMac + HQPlayerDesktop3 + Sonore microRendu + iFi iPower +"Curious" USB- microUSB cable + Hugo2 (black) + Inakustik Ref NF 202 + NuPrime STA-9 + Rogers LS 3/5a (15 Ohms) on ISO-L8R130 or Audeze LCD-3
Just a mere 200mm length of a connecting cable, how much of a difference was I suppose to expect?
Anyhow, after a week of listening and comparisons, I can no long sequester my observations! This kind of revelation doesn't come around that often and, doesn't manifest itself so perfectly. Ever!
The difference was noticeable immediately but, I needed time to run through my collection playing all the different types of music before summarising mine comments. Obviously, with the well-recorded acoustical music there is more to be revealed, but even with the bad ones (old or new), there is always something new to surprise me too! Also, the bass just keeps getting deeper and better all the time too!
This short piece of cable is probably the best price-performance item in my whole system!
The first thing I noticed was an overall sense of space on the soundstage and, the "un-digitizing" of the music. Even before the music starts, or during the silent moments of an acoustical recording, you can feel the space of the stage that just wasn't there nor as palpable before.
There is no rounding off or limiting of anything at all, not altering anything in the tonality but really giving each note, each tone more vibrancy, more timbral textures, more spatial richness, and much better delineations of attack and decay.
To sum it all up, the end result is a very balanced sounding cable with a very rich and lively sound that digs out every little nuance in the recording.
Sit back a little bit, widen your perspective, the whole soundstage is now deeper, wider, much much taller with vivid and solid imaging. Especially, the way-outside and behind out of the speakers imaging and, over the top and room-filling 3D cues are nothing short of spectacular too. Onto headphone listening, it's like you are not listening to headphones but still listening to speakers. A more plausible analogy to me is that it reminded me of the kind of soundstage and imaging like listening to the Focal Utopia or the Stax electrostatic earspeakers (but with my Audeze LCD-3). With some recordings, the imaging was nearly binaural and, don't forget that bass, it is extended, musical and, well defined.
A "curiously" magical cable!
Post Script, It's now more than one month, and I frequently have friends over to audition my system. As soon as I switch out the Curious USB and replace it with my previous USB cable, QED Reference, the magic is gone. The general consensus, the tonal balance is about the same but, the musicality and soundstage just become as flat as a pancake by comparison.
iMac + HQPlayerDesktop3 + Sonore microRendu + iFi iPower +"Curious" USB- microUSB cable + Hugo2 (black) + Inakustik Ref NF 202 + NuPrime STA-9 + Rogers LS 3/5a (15 Ohms) on ISO-L8R130 or Audeze LCD-3
