[stuartr]

Hello all,
I was just doing a cable comparison, and I figured I would share it with you all. I really enjoyed both of these cables, but it taught me how truly system/component dependent cables are. In any case, you can't really go wrong with either of these cables, but you can certainly do better with them when they are correctly paired. Let me go over the system that I used for comparison.
Amp: Conrad-Johnson CAV-50 (integrated) wired for triode operation. Stock tubes except for older black bottom RCA 6SN7's from about the 60s.
Digital Source: Conrad-Johnson DV2b tubed CD player.
Analog Source: Music Hall MMF-9 turntable.
Phono Preamp: Conrad-Johnson EV-1.
Speakers: B&W 805 Nautilus on lead/sand filled stands with Kimber 4TC speaker cable.
Headphone Amp: Melos SHA/Gold. Still all stock (soon to be maestrobated).
Headphones: Joe Grado HP-2's with signature cable.
Music: I mostly used Kelly Joe Phelps's "Lead Me On" and "Shine-eyed Mister Zen". Both are very well recorded blues with just guitar and voice. Also Mstislav Rostropovich's recording of Bach's 5th cello suite. For analog I used Classic Records 200g 45 rpm test pressing of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. I listened to other stuff, but these are what are fresh in my mind.

On to the meat....
When using the cables between my cd player and my amp, I listened to my speakers. When listening to the prelude to the 5th cello suite, I found the Kimber cables to be just a little too dark to be involving. A little muddled as well. The music was excellent, but just not interesting. The Cardas were much better. They let through more detail, and were brighter. The music opened up and was more involving. It sounded more natural.
With the Melos/HP-2 and the same music though, the Cardas cables sounded bright and almost grating. Not quite, but almost. The music was extremely detailed, but not really that enjoyable to listen to. The Kimbers however sounded perfect. They added another layer of depth to the music, and made the sound far richer and smoother. The brightness in the upper registers was tamed, and the voices (in the Kelly Joe Phelps) sounded more natural and inviting. Little detail was sacrificed, and that which was was not particularly desirable.

Using the cables in an analog setup (between the turntable and phono stage), I listened on the 805s to the Led Zepelin. This recording is really a revelation for people who are used to the Led Zepelin on CD. The old versions of Zepelin were horrible, very compressed and just plain awful. This record was pressed directly from the master. It is a totally different experience. I tried the Kimbers first.
Everything sounded great to start, but what really threw me was when the drums came in. They sounded just like drums...that may not sound like a revelation, but compared to the cd's, it is. They sounded very real. I also noticed that the soundstage was very good, with sound filling the room horizontally. The voices sounded very natural. It was a nice experience.
Switching to the cardas, the first thing that I noticed was the clarity. The voices and flutes were spot on, and the plucked guitar strings were each very distinct. This was also true of the cymbals. I noticed the echoes much more with the cardas, which I think is characteristic of their ability to really get at all the detail in the recording. Overall, the cardas seemed to rock a little more.

I think the problem that I had with the cardas and the melos/HP-2's in the cd player may just have been the inadequacies of the digital format. The HP-2s are incredibly revealing phones, when you add the cardas, you are basically getting every last bit of data, including the ones you don't necessarily want. The Kimbers tamed this harshness and really rounded out the phones while maintaining a sense of naturalness and reality. I think the cardas worked better on my speaker setup since I have a pretty warm (but accurate) system (all tubes). When paired with just the melos and HP-2, it was just too much. In any case, I think they are both great cables, and I have put the Cardas between the cd-player and CAV-50 and the Kimbers between the Melos and the CAV-50. So far so good. Now I just need to find two more used pairs of the neutral reference to go between the turntable and the amp....hmm. Christmas. Anyway, I hope this helps anyone considering these cables.

 

[jude]

Wow, man, I've been wanting to read about the experiences of folks who've heard both. The Kimber Select line is a line I've yet to hear outside of the context of a trade show, so this was of great interest to me. Thanks a lot, stuartr.

 

[stuartr]

Glad you liked it. Let me reiterate that both cables are excellent. They are the two best cables I have heard in my system. Considering the 1010's are the bottom of the barrel in the Select line, I would imagine that the better ones could equal or better the cardas...albeit with a very different character. As I said, I think it really depends on the components...

 

[Dreamslacker]

Quote:

Originally posted by stuartr Glad you liked it. Let me reiterate that both cables are excellent. They are the two best cables I have heard in my system. Considering the 1010's are the bottom of the barrel in the Select line, I would imagine that the better ones could equal or better the cardas...albeit with a very different character. As I said, I think it really depends on the components...

I should think so too. I've had the chance to listen to both the KS1020 & KS1030. The KS1030 is more neutral & revealing than the KS1020.
I reckon it's due to the KS1030 running 4 pure silver conductors as opposed to the KS1020's 2 silver & 2 copper. =)

 

[Ebonyks]

Your experences with the cardas are very simliar to mine. The only thing i'm unsure about is about the brightness aspect, whether it's just bringing out the brightness in sources, or the cables are just plain bright. What's your personal opinion on the subject?

 

[stuartr]

Brightness might be the wrong word. It was more along the lines of harshness. It was only pronounced when between the cd player and the melos/hp-2's. Since the cd-player is good, and not particularly bright (it is a tubed cd player that is generally warm and relaxed), I think it is the cables. Not that they are bright themselves though, just that they are so resolving that they pick up the digital ickyness in the cd player, and the melos and HP-2's are also so resolving as to pick it up. In the case of the cd player, they are too revealing of a cable; they expose shortcomings in the system/format that were not otherwise there. It would have been interesting if I had a SACD player to see if the same problem was evident on the SACD layer...oh well, unless anyone wants to donate a XA777ES, I will leave it to someone else to verify.

 

[Ebonyks]

hmm, i guess our opinions just differ. On every source i've heard the cardas on, it's been slightly on the bright/harsh side, including my MMF 5, so it seems to not simply be limited to digital sources in my experences. Perhaps my ears are just broken

I suppose i've got an Ns500v if you want to play around with SACD though

I'm really just arguing semantics though. Whether they're bringing out the brightness in sources, or are just plain bright, if it sounds flawed, it's the damned cables

 

[stuartr]

ha, perhaps that's it! It may be the differences in our setup as well...are you running a solid-state setup? Are you speakers/headphones very resolving? If so, perhaps the cardas are just not great in your system....or maybe it's the cables

 

[Hirsch]

When I originally tried the Virtual Dynamics Master Series, I thought it was too bright. I spoke about this with Rick at Virtual Dynamics, and he told me that what I was hearing was my source. In particular, he believes that the mechanical vibration of the transformer creates a static charge that can affect the sound, appearing as brightness. A very revealing cable would disclose this.

The cure he proposed was to use brass cones under the CD player, making sure that one was located under the transformer. I thought he was nuts. However, I had some Mapleshade Surefeet I was using with speakers, and moved a set under the CD53. The brightness went away, and hasn't been back. Now I think I'm nuts. However, I've played this system for other people, and nobody's complained about brightness since I started using the cones. If you've got an otherwise great cable that seems overly bright, particularly coming out of a CD player, it's worth a shot.

 

[Ebonyks]

stu, i use an ety-melos combination, not too different from your own. For tubes, i'm using amperex gold pin tubes.

Perhaps that would help hirsch. The feet on the MMF 5 do seem pretty flimbsy...

 

[stuartr]

Hmm, that's interesting. The MMF9 has spiked feet, and the cd player has rubber feet...it sounds a little voodoo-ish for me, but perhaps I will try it sometime.

 

[AC1]

Dealing with vibration in components has helped a lot in eliminating the high end harshness that comes with digital. That probably is one area that has seen the most change when dealing with vibration.
However there are still isolation devices that can still be "voiced" bright. For instance Aurios are known to give a brighter sound, where in comparison the Stillpoints are considerably warmer. But they all help smooth out the top end irregardless of how they are voiced.

 

[carlo]

Stuart,

Awesome. I'm currently trying KS-1030 (borrowed from a Head-Fier currently trying my Neutral Reference). To me, the Neutral Reference sounds darker up top and glossier with female vocals, and doesn't sound as clean, linear, or unobtrusive as the Kimber.

The Cardas doesn't lose detail, but there's a little extra that I don't get from other cables: I think its arguable that the Cardas lets more through than the rest, but I still think its a coloration. Female vocals and trumpets sound too round, if that makes sense, and its only apparent with the rest the cable does so well. The Kimber has all the detail without accentuation.

We have similar set-ups, and I know we have similar tastes for music reproduction

, so I think you assumption about the Select series is accurate. Its interesting that the 1010 sounds dark when compared to the Neutral Reference in your rig (and your ears), and the Neutral Reference sounds dark when compared to the 1030 in my rig (with my ears).

When kelly was trying cables he said he suspected manufacturers flavored them on purpose, so the unflavored cables could cost much more. I'm still skeptical, but sometimes...

What do you think?

 

[Stoney]

When testing cables, methodology is problematic in a few ways.

Make sure not to move the cables around much, and then let them settle in for, say, 24 hours of signal applied before listening critically. There is definitely a break-in effect, even when simply moving around a cable (which can create triboelectric and even piezoelectric charges that can affect propagation until the charges even out and are somewhat dissipated.) I've heard the result of moving cabled and it can cause differences that are startling, even larger than differences among cable brands!

Cardas - cable break in
Cardas - cable and connector longevity
Demonstrations of triboelectric charging exhibited by everyday objects
The Triboelectric Series of Materials Causing Static Electricity - Succeed in Physical Science
triboelectric noise defined
Minnisota wire & cable, triboelectric noise

What this means is that you are much better off doing long-term listening rather than a-b comparisons. Cable settling may be a contributing reason why many people feel long-term listening is more successful in revealing differences (and whether they are improvements or just differences) than short-term testing.

Actually, that is another key issue: differences that are heard need to be further assessed to find whether they are improvements or just differences. You know what I mean, at least, when a difference is clearly an improvement? One can hear things "coming together" and "making sense" that wasn't present before? For example an odd sound reveals itself to be a reverberation; a choice in mixing the record reveals itself to be an appropriate artistic choice and not just some random thing.

This is tough, especially if the system isn't totally neutral and revealing (and whose is?). I find that speakers can be much than headphones, in that headphones have many colorations (including the pinnae-related filtration issues, and hearing canal resonance differences, perhaps, not to mention intermodulation distortion). Speakers that are excellent at imaging are like magnifying glasses for differences in comparison tests, because the image is very easily altered or damaged by tiny differences. Treble might move forward, or images may become vague, or textures may appear to change slightly. If your attention is slightly drawn to a different part of the instrumental sound, this can be a tip of something subtle but real. These aren't likely to appear in headphones at such small amounts.

Lastly, one can do bypass tests on line stages and cables. A good quality passive preamp (and experience with using it in bypass mode) helps a lot in doing bypass tests of cables and even other passive line stages. The methodology is still a bit tricky. Try using a tape loop for cable bypass tests... but, you need to make sure the connectors and switches and wiring don't alter the sound much. (I tested a couple of ARC SP-9 units in 1989 that had horrible sound changes just from adding passive components to the signal path... a truly bad sounding unit that was probably ruined in part from passive parts). Even the leads on components (like silver-coated leads on the new DynamiCaps) can alter the sound badly.

With a passive preamp, you will avoid changes due to output buffer stages. You can test cables in short and long lengths, switching a cable in and out using a switch, and thus not jostling the cable which can alter its sound for up to a day or two.

If the sound is the same in both short and long lengths, you have an excellent cable. If the sound is essentially the same in and out, this is also likely to be an excellent cable (but again be careful that the preamp components are not causing the difference). If there is added brightness, or a change in the location of images, or simply a change in the part of the instrumental timbre which draws your attention most, this can reveal valid differences.

These kind of methodology issues can result in conflicting results if not attended to. Could be why people disagree on the sound of a given cable.

I find the Cardas Neutral Reference to be just that, very neutral. Cross tends to the warm, and older Hexlink interconnect had a robust bass and hard edge in the treble.

Many recent cable brands do not sound neutral at all, and when people get used to them, they judge other cables or products wrongly. Silver cables, small solid-core cables, and flat cables tend to sound bright, so any comparison is thrown off. (See George Cardas' comments near the bottom of Jude's review of Cardas Neutral Reference Interconnects, which would explain what I've detected in listening tests).

Break-in is also a big problem in headphones themselves. Have you noticed that nobody seems to agree on which Grados are best, and by how much? This is becasue the differences between models are small, but break-in issues relatively large, plus unit-to-unit variations (which are large in general with headphones, and very large among Grados). I suppose this suggests that it might be best to buy used Grados that you can listen to first, and which are already broken in.

 

[babykenny]

Quote:

Originally posted by jude Wow, man, I've been wanting to read about the experiences of folks who've heard both. The Kimber Select line is a line I've yet to hear outside of the context of a trade show, so this was of great interest to me. Thanks a lot, stuartr.

I'm in the middle of a cable hunt. So far I've listened to Synergistic Research Looking Glass, and Kaleidescope Phase 2, Cardas Neutral Reference, and Golden Reference, Kimber Select KS-1011, and KS-1030. I also have a KS-1021 on the way. When I get that and some time on it I'll Let you know what I think. So far I've kept both Kimber Selects. Ken