Hey, I tried a very expensive Shinyata phono cable. Like $2600. Same with Vahalla2 phono. All the realistic sound left the building. I am using the Straightwire Virtuoso R phono cable. Probably 1/7 or less the price. Believe you me. Gene Ammons plays live in my listening room all the time. Amazing! I had the same experience on the Clarysis Minuette speakers. Took off the $24,000 Valhalla 2 speaker cables and put on the Straightwire Crescendo speaker cables. It went from a clear recording to a live performance. Same thing. Like 1/7 the price. This is why we need to try before we buy.
A "Downgrade" that proved to be a spectacular "Upgrade" -------
Has anyone here, out of necessity, installed a piece of gear into your system that should have been an obvious "Downgrade" but actually turned out to be an "Upgrade" ? I know this sounds topsy-turvy, but I recently removed two highend amplifiers from my system for regular maintenance and substituted a multi-channel amp that had previously been assigned the job of handling just the bass frequencies. I was positively stunned at how alive the system sounded ! Even my wife, who is typically uninterested in most things audio, instantly remarked on the improvement ! The tweeters and woofers were now on the multi-channel amp and the mids still assigned to a McIntosh 2105 amp. The multi-channel amp in question is a 7 channel Outlaw amp, the highend amps that were removed were Burmester 878s and the loudspeakers are Linkwitz "Orion"s. All-in-all it has been a terrific sounding system but I couldn't believe this incredible improvement in every respect when I made the changes. Ever happen to you ----- anybody ?