[Vertigo-1]

I found this little tidbit on the Audiogon forums during my daily PC research these last couple days, and I thought it worth hashing out a little further among you guys:

Quote:

First impression of the Nites was, wow oh so dynamic. However upon further listening back and forth the Nites were only loud. Playing multiple discs of various types of music I noticed that the sound stage never varied nor did the dynamic structure of the music really change, everything was always big and loud.. How could every cd I played,have been produced, engineered, recorded, mixed and manufactured by the same people at the same point in time. This is how the Nite's sounded to me.

Anybody that owns Nites here experience this phenomenon (or want to start seeing if you do)? I ask this because I've experienced it myself in my interconnect auditions. Certain cables seem to create a stagnant soundstage that refuses to shift from recording to recording, while others seem much better at shifting as needed. My take is that I want a cable that does shift around the soundstage from recording to recording, which IMO shows transparency to the recording, rather then a cable that is always upfront or laid back, which IMO shows a qualitative coloration of the cable.

Also, if owners of other VD products besides the Nite want to chime in, feel free to.

 

[RVD]

I don't own the Nites, but I do own the Signatures. I realize that the Sigs are not the Nites, but I figured they would share some similar characteristic's.

I think I know what the guy is referring to as I think I hear the same. The soundstage on the Sigs is always huge and never seems to shift depending on recording. I don't really mind this and consider it a good thing.

I don't think the Sigs make everything big and loud. They definitely do that to some recordings, but when things need to be soft it is soft and vice versa, but maybe not as soft as it supposed to be. Still I don't think it is bad. If I interpreted your post wrong then I apologize in advance.

EDIT: Also the power cords seem to do add the "bigness" to the sound much more so then the interconnects do. Also the VD cords definitely fill things out and never sound thin with any recording for the most part so maybe this is the bigness he was referring to.

 

[Vertigo-1]

RVD, nope, you're right on track. Thanks for chiming in. I forgot to mention that anybody that owns any VD product can chime in on this one, not just the Nite owners.

 

[RVD]

Cool. Also I should say that I admit that my experience with cables is limited. I have only compared the VD IC's to the Cardas Neutral Ref's and the VD PC's to the stock power cords so what I said was what I had noticed compared to the Cardas and stock pcs.

 

[markl]

Quote:

I noticed that the sound stage never varied

I think that what that guy is reacting to is the ability of the cables to allow the full soundstage to appear. These cables allow the natural 3D effect that vinyl lovers would recognize to come out even with digital components/recordings. Super-low noise floor really helps in this area. Every CD will sound new, due to this effect, it's like switching from 2D to 3D, maybe it gets distracting or disorienting to him. It definitely will sound "different". But is that "different good" or "different bad", and that depends on the listener. Maybe he panicked-- "you want the truth?? You can't handle the truth!!"

Anyway, I think you know how I feel about them!

Quote:

nor did the dynamic structure of the music really change

I have no idea what "dynamic structure" is, sorry...

Quote:

My take is that I want a cable that does shift around the soundstage from recording to recording, which IMO shows transparency to the recording, rather then a cable that is always upfront or laid back, which IMO shows a qualitative coloration of the cable.

My hunch is that you would really like these cables. Give it a shot!

Mark

 

[Hirsch]

I can see where he's going. The Nites are a dynamic setup. Soundstage is big, particularly with both power cords and interconnects. Dynamics are powerful. This has proven to be one way to get some punch into the R10, which loves this kind of signal. OTOH, the Grado HP-1 isn't really happy with quite that much zing flying around, and sounds slightly strained. Switching out to the Cardas Golden Reference fixes that in a hurry (keeping the Nites for power). I suspect that ultimately its a matter of matching the interconnect/PC to amp/transducer/source. I don't think any cable, up to and including the Nite, is right with every system. When the Nite is out of place, you hear it as exaggerated dynamics, and consequent distortions of imaging. When the Nite is the right cable, everything locks into place and you can't imagine being without it.

I like to listen to varied kinds of music, to make sure that any component that I'm listening to is subservient to the music, whatever music I'm playing. If a component (cable or anything else) is imposing its own signature on the music in a highly audible way, something's wrong. The Nite's are more than capable of doing this in some setups. However, in the right setups they vanish, as a good interconnect should. I suspect this kind of phenomenon appears to a greater or lesser extend to most interconnects.

If you spend enough, you can get around this. If you buy the big dollar Transparent Audio interconnects, they'll tune them to your system, and retune as needed when you change components. No more compatibility worries...but they cost...

 

[DarkAngel]

Well a statement like mentioned above really means nothing to me unless I know what other equipment was used, what other cables he was comparing, and the experience level of author. Even then it means little since the only thing important is what I like for my music.

We have had very long discussions about sound characteristics of Nites at VD thread. Also I have to remind you that headphones very inadequate for revealing the 3D capabilities of cables, but I realize this is what most here are interested in.

But just to save you time from re-reading VD thread I don't agree with anything from above statement. VD Nites are the best AC cords I have heard at producing maximum soundstage size in a full stereo system set-up, which also means they are allowing more fine detail to emerge from quieter background. If that's what the guy above doen't like, then he has different values in sound reproduction vs me. There may also be the chance that for some reason Nite cables don't work to full potential because of some less than optimal compatibility with his gear.

These comment apply to Nite AC cords, the VD Sig IC I tried was not really impressive compared to other ICs I own.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

I did a test switching back and forth from my Nite PC to the stock PC. The first thing I heard was the same instruments came from different places, IOW the soundstage collapsed. It got a bit smaller in almost every dimension when I switched to the stock PC. As soon as I switched back the 3D soundstage came right back. The layering of instruments is definitely one strong point of this cable. I am going to do some more A/B listening one of these days to see what will happen now that the cables have a couple of months of break-in on them. I just need the time to do this as it takes a while with that BLOOB circuit on the RKV that makes it wait a minute to warm-up before applying full power to the tubes. It will be easier to test the CDP first, then focus on the amp second.

OBTW, this was done with an Arcam CD23 and RKV setup. YMMV with other equipment. The RKV is one great amp for soundstaging, so it was particularly easy to pick up the differences when this aspect changed.