Levinson 360s + Sony 9000ES ?


Recently I had achance to a-b 360s and the 9000ES under different conditions. The 360s using Transparent's Ultra xl
and the Sony using Reference xl V which I know is used for tubes output stages. This is the only cable I could get my hands on for this test. Is it me or I can't believe my Sony
9000es was better than the 360s under the conditions I descrbed. My questions Is would I be better off upgrading my interconnects coming out of my Sony 9000ES or keep
the 360s and upgrade at a future date the interconnects?
128x128himiguel

Showing 2 responses by simontju

Hi: you are the second person who makes similar claim (I presume you compared CD-to-CD). If you sure that its not mistake ( I had Sony 777es and 9000es and prefered 9000es - my personal choice) then sell your 360. Don't change your interconnects with which you have, clearly, synergy. I felt 9000es has very poor hi-freq signals compared to the rest of spectra. Addition of triphazer (www.triphazer.com) level 15.5 (not 15.0!) improved my system (with 9000es) performance dramatically, to say it modestly.
Hello Lev335: In AA.com (SACD forum) there is John Mark (from John Mark Recording Label) post on the subject. He claims that in highh quality equipment both balanced and single ended should sound about the same. Many people do not match output during comparison which in balanced mode is somewhat greater. Also, Ken Stevens of Convergent Audio Technology believe that se output is better. He laso add "for any given budjet". However, considering price of his amp ($20k) he is obviously kidding.