Freshpuma, I would suggest that you audtion either Acoustic Zen Silver reference II's or Matrix reference II's. They have the virtues that highenders like ,but for me they also have that natural/organic sense of real music that I find quite relaxing. Both are very reasonably priced but the Matrix wires give about 80% of the performance of the Silver wires at half the price. I did a reveiw of the new AZ Absolute cables recently here on the GON, so if you want more details concerning the above mentioned ICs you might want to take a look. As you know you have to try all wires in your own system to see they have both synergy with your system and match your personnal taste. So good luck, hope this helps with your audtioning process.
Connecting to the music.
Hi.
It seems that my path in HiFi country has changed. I used to have a pair of Merlin VSM which in my opinion sounded better than almost everything I heard by fellow audiophiles, in shops and at shows. The Merlins just had it all. Details, soundstage, you know, all the HiFi stuff. Just lacked a bit of bass. So I had a very good sounding system. But one day I heard some danish speakers called Evox EV-1 which are refined clones of an old Harbeth construction. In HiFi terms, they are not at all up there in higendcountry, but as I sat there listening I realized that they connected me to the music like noe other speaker I have heard. So I bought a pair, and I am really enjoying myself.
Just had to explain this to you to give you some background for my question. IC's. I have Cardas Golden Ref between pre-pow, and AU24 between CD-Pre. Really good cables both of them, but I find them to belong to my old system (Good sound). Now I am looking for some IC's that can play music, get me connected, and not necessarily be (HiFi) perfect. Hope you have some ideas that can help me along the way.
Theo
It seems that my path in HiFi country has changed. I used to have a pair of Merlin VSM which in my opinion sounded better than almost everything I heard by fellow audiophiles, in shops and at shows. The Merlins just had it all. Details, soundstage, you know, all the HiFi stuff. Just lacked a bit of bass. So I had a very good sounding system. But one day I heard some danish speakers called Evox EV-1 which are refined clones of an old Harbeth construction. In HiFi terms, they are not at all up there in higendcountry, but as I sat there listening I realized that they connected me to the music like noe other speaker I have heard. So I bought a pair, and I am really enjoying myself.
Just had to explain this to you to give you some background for my question. IC's. I have Cardas Golden Ref between pre-pow, and AU24 between CD-Pre. Really good cables both of them, but I find them to belong to my old system (Good sound). Now I am looking for some IC's that can play music, get me connected, and not necessarily be (HiFi) perfect. Hope you have some ideas that can help me along the way.
Theo