Hi,
Which kind of music will you consider the most suitable for the GT2 NCF ?
Thanks !
Alright, I have now conducted tests to get to the bottom of the Furutech GT2 NCF sound. Ie, to answer the question of what music they're good at, and where they're weak.
All tests were conducted with HD 800. I have listed most of the songs tested, categorized as Satisfying or Disappointing. For the Disappointing tracks I re-tested several times with different cables, which became fairly time consuming. But I wanted proper answers, and sometimes when I conducted comparisons my impression swapped to a more positive one. For most of these I tried every song on the album. Sometimes only for 20-30 seconds, sometimes for several minutes or entire tracks. I spent extra time when my impression was negative.
Satisfying
9mm Parabellum Bullet - Babel
9mm Parabellum Bullet - Dawning
9mm Parabellum Bullet - Deep Blue
Acoustic Asturias - Bird Eyes View
Acoustic Asturias - Marching Grass On The Hill
Adrenaline Mob - Omerta
agraph - A Day, Phases
agraph - equal
agraph - the shader
Akira Kosemura - Tiny Musical
Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill 3
Alyssa Milano - Look in My Heart
Amon Tobin - Bricolage
Amon Tobin - Permutation
Amon Tobin - Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory (an incredibly good match with GT2 NCF)
Amon Tobin - Supermodified
Anvil - Metal On Metal
Anvil - This is Thirteen
Apocalyptica - Apocalyptica
Apocalyptica - Worlds Collide
ARTMS - <Dall>
ARTMS - <K>
ARTMS - Odd eye Circle
Ayreon - The Human Equation (superb match! Really elevates the album)
Blackpink - Square One
Blackpink - Square Up
Blu-Swing - Flash
Blu-Swing - Panorama
Blu-Swing - Secret of Attraction
Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
Body Count - Bloodlust
Body Count - Manslaughter
Camellia - Crystallized
Camo & Krooked - Red Bull Symphonic (could do with more bass)
Capsule - Fruits Clipper
Capsule - Metro Pulse
Capsule - Wave Runner
Casiopea - Mint Jams
Charlie Winston - Passport
Charlie Winston - Running Still
Chihiro Yamanaka - Molto Cantabile
Chihiro Yamanaka - Prima Del Tramonto
Chihiro Yamanaka - Today Is Another Day
Daft Punk - Discovery
Daft Punk - Human After All
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons
Dream Theater - Awake
Dream Theater - Distance Over Time
Dream Theater - Images And Words
Dream Theater - Live At Budokan 2004
Dream Theater - Once In A Livetime 1998
Dream Theater - Scenes From A Memory
Dream Theater - Score 20th Anniversary Tour
Dream Theater - Train Of Thought
Dream Theater - When Dream And Day Unite
Eilert Pilarm - Best Of Elvis
Frank Zappa - Halloween (2003 DVD Audio)
Frank Zappa - Zappa In New York
Frank Zappa - Make A Jazz Noise Here
Galneryus - One For All, All For One
Hybrid - Disappear Here
Hybrid - Driveclub
Hybrid - Light Of The Fearless
Hybrid - Wider Angle
Initial D Selection 1
Iz*One - Bloom*IZ
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Kamelot - Karma
Kard - Hola Hola
Killswitch Engage - Incarnate
m-flo - Kyo
m-flo - Beat Space Nine
Michael Buble - Crazy Love
Michael Jackson - Bad
Mondo Grosso - Big World
Moonsorrow - V: Hävitetty
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Pendulum - Immersion
Presence of soul - All Creation Mourns
Tool - Fear Inoculum
From Youtube:
BLUE NOTE TOKYO ALL-STAR JAZZ ORCHESTRA by ERIC MIYASHIRO with MONTY ALEXANDER ⧸ LOVE NOTES
BLUE NOTE TOKYO ALL-STAR JAZZ ORCHESTRA by ERIC MIYASHIRO with MONTY ALEXANDER ⧸ REGGAE LATER
BLUE NOTE TOKYO ALL-STAR JAZZ ORCHESTRA＂ ⧸ BLUE NOTE TOKYO
Ai Furusato ＂This Moment＂ BLUE NOTE PLACE
MAYU KISHIMA x TAKASHI MATSUNAGA from BLUE NOTE TOKYO
SIMON PHILLIPS ＂Protocol V＂ ⧸『The Long Road Home』 BLUE NOTE TOKYO Live 2024
Oliver Smith #ABGT250 Live at The Gorge Amphitheatre, Washington State (Full 4K Ultra HD Set)
MC MENTAL at his best
Disappointing
Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill 2 (instruments sound too direct, not enough emphasis on reverb)
Amon Tobin - ISAM (needed just a tad more air, a bit more bass, too direct sounding)
Dream Theater - A View From The Top Of The World (sounds closed in compared to other cables)
Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings (instruments sound excellent, vocals sound closed in & compressed almost)
Dream Theater - Dream Theater (again, excellent instrument sound, but the vocals sometimes sound off)
Dream Theater - Octavarium (strangely hard on the ears)
Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos (good sounding instruments, vocals very flat)
To conclude, the results felt all over the place, and not genre specific. I spent extra time on Dream Theater because my impression varied wildly depending on the album. It seems Furutech GT2 NCF will highlight bad mixing or attempts to cover up bad vocals with excessive processing. With other cables the reduced clarity and more airy presentation pushed mistakes further back, making the music nicer to listen to. The Furutech GT2 NCF handles the vast majority of music just fine. I was often pleasantly surprised by how listenable the songs were, even when mixed super loud with crashing cymbals dominating the sound. I think in most situations the Furutech GT2 NCF will do a great job, regardless of what you listen to. Unless you're obsessed with Dream Theaters Octavarium, because it was one of the worst sounding albums I tested.
EDIT: To adress other posts:
***Also, and this may be a dumb question, but are most created-for-audio USB cables designed to be "directional"? e.g. one end of the cable is meant to be the DAC side and the other the source side
If the cable was designed with direction in mind, then it'll have arrows or maybe just the direction of text and logos will hint at the intended direction.
The Supra usb c is in your budget, and I really recommend them. Im Norwegian living in Sweden, and i love the Supra because their solid, affordable and based on science...
What initially sold me on Supra when I bought their USB cables in 2012 was that they followed the USB spec. That basic minimum of "following the specification of the standard" is apparently super rare, especially among USB cables. If the cable has no stated impedance written in the specs, it's probably not following the USB standard. I can't find the article now, but one of the people who created the USB standard bought a pile of cables off Amazon and measured them, and they had huge error rates and were remarkably low quality and off spec. The reason the cables still "worked fine" is because of the error correction in Printers, HDDs etc when using the bulk transfer mode of USB. Even if the error rate is 40% it'll seemingly work fine because the data will be sent again and again until it's all there. For USB audio the data is streamed realtime with no retransmission in case of errors. That's why the cable quality suddenly matters a lot.
EDIT 2: I hadn't used the combination of 2x Oyaide Neo d+ Class S cables in a while, so this evening I gave the combo a try again. As I remembered, it's a sound with balls. If you listen primarily to rock, metal, or anything performed by a DJ, ie music prioritizing rhythm and excitement, then they're outstanding. Better than anything else I've tried actually, because their "flaw" is a feature for those genres. They give guitars real bite and a raw edge. They make you want to raise the volume louder. I think the 2x combo of these cables is best, with no mixing or matching, because you get a more coherent sound with the most excitement possible. I wouldn't call their sound beautiful, and with reference style recordings the soundstage isn't as convincing. But I see it as a huge positive if a cable evokes an involuntary emotional response. And with the 2x Oyaide Class S combo a different kind of stimulation happens than with Neub 1020 or GT2 NCF. You know how guitarists grimace with their faces to match the emotion of the riff they're playing? The Oyaide Class S combo makes me do that spontaneously. If you have no pretense of ever listening to unamplified music, then give them serious thought.
