The Verites Closed are up to 100 hours and the Wywires Platinum headphone cables are almost at 200 hours. What an amazing combo. I will have my graphen impreg mad scientist cables back in a couple weeks from NZ and can do direct comparisons, but I don't think the mad sci's are going to be the cable of choice anymore. Had an interesting convo with Alex at Wywires yesterday and also today. He uses extremely expensive very fine copper litz wire in different configurations. He maintains that is the key to the sound of his wires. They pretty much beat the Mad Sci's in every parameter except maybe absolute liquidity but even in that regard they are very close and the Platinums still need more burn in. I am going off of My Auteurs performance with them since I have not heard My Verite Closed with that wire. Remember too, a shameless plug for Alex, the Wywires are 40% off right now. Worth every penny! The most immediate thing you notice about the Wywires is Dynamics, Bass, PRAT, Very large staging and very low noise floor. Then you after a few hours start hearing all the other things. I have yet to hear a cable that does these initial things nearly as well. I am seriously thinking about a Platinum USB cable based on what these are doing. The Verite Closed Leopardwoods are blowing my Mind. What is really fun is how this combination just plane slams and whacks while still being absolutely refined and subtle, midrange tonality and overall harmonics with the Auteur Hybrid pads is close but not quite Auteur Blackwoods, but these are so much more fun and impressive. On live Rock stuff they just plain kick ASS!. Pyromania has never sounded this good before, when I go tripping back to high school listening sessions. The drums and guitars growl and whine like nothing I have previously heard. Even my ridiculously good highend speaker system of many years ago
was not as satisfying. Trying to convince Zach he should play with some Wywires to really hear what the Verite Closed can do.
Happy Listening,
jgwtriode