After close to a hundred hours with the Nimak audio 5 acss cable, some listening notes and analysis:
With the Nimak/Valab cable combination and speakers, the sound is delicate. The thing is the cable’s rendering of micro-information and micro-dynamics is absolutely exceptional.
I am listening to the Muligan meets Monk album. This album is all in finesse and very laid back. You need a well resolved setup to retrieve all there is and the finesse of it. At the same time, proper macro-dynamics to render the bass drum kicks. The Nimak does everything well. No exageration or distorsion. The thing is, the dac is even more resolved i thought it was. You need the cable to see it. The sound is even more analog as a result, perhaps the lack of distorsion. Because all conductors sit in flexible material, micro-movements occur. This can affect the sound. This is particularly likely with speaker cables. But also signal cables it seems. Dubravko found a way to prevent this? I guess so...Just speculating.
I am glued to my listening chair, it’s crazy the listening hours i have been logging...
Previously, i have owned a couple of silver RCA cables worth over 1k. I was beating these using acss and diy cables, so i sold them. Now, what i get with the Nimak is significant. Quite an upgrade. I hesitate to say it straight, results will vary depending on your setup, but the Nimak is an exceptional cable, the very best sounding cable i came across in my life. It is a big a jump as going from from a midfi rca cable to a entry-level reference cable. But the starting point is that of a 1k+ rca cable. So overall, it is possibly up there with the big guys or even above, because of acss.
I have also done some listening with headphones, using the he9 and m570 headphones. This took the Valab acss i assembled myself out of the equation. I know it is a fine performer but to some extent, the experience on headphones confirms it is holding the performance back quite a bit. On headphones, i could pick up an even greater performance gain.
For those on a budget owning a valab rca of balanced silver litz interconnect and an audio-gd pre/power amp combo, re-terminating the Valab with 4-pin Xlrs will give very good results, i can attest. However, I am anticipating yet another upgrade with the 4-pin xlr Nimak i ordered.