NEW Cerious Technologies Upgrade - Graphene Matrix Cables

@ klh007  I had a full loom of Dave's PL cables with FI50 Furutech connectors (the version before NCF came out).  Tom on here has compared non-NCF with the NCF FI50's, and doesn't think there's a huge difference, certainly not worth replacing non-NCF FI50's with new NCF FI50's.  

With that said, I found the Graphene Extreme PC's to be an absolute improvement on every component over Dave's PL cables with the FI50's.  And that's with the cheaper stock connectors on the Graphene Extreme's.  If the Matrix are a big improvement over the Graphene Extremes, I'd say take Dave's comments on connectors with a grain of salt.  Bob has a really magic recipe here with these graphene products, and at VERY attractive price points relative to the competition.  I can't wait to upgrade some of my Graphene Extreme PC's to the Matrix to see what that's all about.  I might be able to justify disassembling my two remaining PL cables to use their FI50 connectors in a couple of the Matrix cables I want to order in the coming months - to be able to hear those differences from stock for myself as well.  At least I wouldn't have to wait for extended break-in.  

Bob says my 4 Matrix PC's and set of Matrix SC's should be shipping Monday.  Can't wait to compare them to my GE PC's and SC's!  

@lancelock  How would you describe the differences between the Teo and the Matrix IC's?  I have Teo GC interconnects currently, and have been considering stepping to the new Teo GC II's, or possibly Teo Ultra's.  But the Ultra's are in the same ballpark price as the Cerious Matrix.  Hard for me to justify jumping into that price league, so I might have to settle with the GC II upgrade path, but any of your thoughts might help.

My Matrix SC's and 4 PC's arrived yesterday.  Had an issue with one of the PC's, but the other three PC's and SC's are working fine and in the system making music.  First impressions cold out of the box were very promising!  Martin Sexton, Ray Lamontagne, and Stevie Ray Vaughn all sounded very realistic!  Highs weren't as open, detailed, or extended as I have heard on my system, but I assume they will open up over time.  But the midrange was very engaging, and the midbass/bass had a nice increase in weight/heft, and overall a very dynamic sound that was working great for this kind of rock music.  Looking forward to the break-in process.

I feel the need to comment on the connector issue here.  The one of my four PC's that had an issue was due to the Furutech FI-50 carbon connector (non-NCF material, but otherwise the same as the NCF design).  There was buzzing noise and a puff of smoke from the connector before the power conditioner's circuit breaker tripped.  After removing from the system, I opened up the connector, and it appears the spacing of the screw terminals for the wires are wider than with the stock Viborg ones.  This made it pretty hard for Bob to route the wires from his thick/stiff Matrix wire bundle into the screw terminals and secure well.  It makes any torque you put on the power connector more capable of pulling the wires out of their screw sockets and potential for short circuiting.  This appears to be what happened in my case.  

As a result, I'd be very careful about these Furutech connectors, making sure there's enough wire slack for really solidly securing them in screw terminals, and adequate wire insulation between Matrix wire bundle and screw terminal itself within the housing.  The very heavy-duty thick and stiff Matrix wire bundle creates quite a bit of torque on the connections as you bend it around to deal with system angles.  

Yeah, it was a bummer.  Bob has been very responsive and is replacing with a new cable with the stock connectors.  I still have one Matrix PC with the Furutech FI-50 connectors that I've been burning in and will be able to compare to a stock Matrix PC once they've burned in sufficiently.  I'll have 144 hrs on the PC's after today.  Will probably do a comparison this weekend - so they should have well over 200 hrs on them by then.  

Well, I've just been putting loads of time on the new cables.  I also have a new amp in the house as well as some new Jupiter output caps in my preamp.  So, I've been running in everything 24/7 at low levels, with occasional active listening some evenings.  I have a group session at my place on Saturday, so have been trying to put as much time on everything as possible before then.  Cables should have around 500 hours on them by Saturday, with the Jupiter caps around 400 I think, and the amp at a little over 200 hours.  

After our session, I hope to do some comparisons between the Graphene Extreme cables, which are still in house, and the Matrix.  Since each set of cables take time for their sound to settle after movement, it's not really possible to A/B properly.  Anyway, I share my impressions sometime next week I expect.  

I also hope to compare the Furutech FI-50 to the standard Matrix - since I still have one functional Matrix with the FI-50.  Again, hopefully by next week.

@thezaks they're the rhodium connectors, same as the graphene extremes were

I have owed an update for quite some time regarding my comparisons between the Graphene Extremes and the Matrix level.  Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way.  My little baby boy arrived recently, and life had been full of preparations beforehand, and now newborn good times since.  As such, I didn't get done the full loom A/B comparisons I had hoped.  But, I did spend some good time recently comparing the speaker cables side-by-side.  

I let the GE speaker cables sit in place for about a week - running right alongside the Matrix cables.  So, when I swapped back and forth, I was only moving the last foot or so of cabling, and only modestly for the most part at that.  This hopefully minimized the settling time variable for the most part.  It's also a major reason why I didn't compare the full loom.  I couldn't do the same with the power cables - given space constraints to CPT Equicore unit, any swapping involves wholesale moving and reorienting of all cables.  Meaning, I'd have to give several days settling time in between swaps to do the comparison well.  No time for all that in my life right now.

Ok, so basically, I found the speaker cables to have a very similar overall character, with the Matrix just being more refined.  The Matrix has quite a bit better 3D soundstage, and cleaner separation of instruments within the soundstage.  Overall tone/body is similar, though. So, I'd say if you like the sound of the GE, the Matrix just has a lower noise floor that helps the music breathe better and sound like real life. 

Given the results of what I found with the speaker cables, and that the power cables seem to have a very similar girth and construction, I assume the power cables have a similar character to them, and I didn't feel the need to do the full loom comparison.  I feel like comparing the speaker cables gave a pretty good idea of what the Matrix SC's and PC's bring to the table vs their Graphene Extreme counterparts.

Now, I also did get to compare the Furutech FI-50 (non-NCF) connectors to the stock Matrix connectors.  Bob outfitted one of my Matrix PC's with these Furutechs, and the other three with his stock connectors.  I can run my system without preamp if necessary, using Lampizator internal volume control from my DAC.  This frees up one of my Matrix PC's.  So, I can run the stock cable and the Furutech cable directly next to each other and swap with minimal physical disruption - to minimize the settling time issue.

I found the stock and FI-50 connectors to have similar levels of detail, with the stock being a bit warmer sound, and the FI-50 being a bit brighter.  This would come down to system synergy as to which is better, but I suspect most systems would benefit more from the stock connector than the FI-50.  I do recall hearing this brightness go away when I shifted from Furutech GTX-R outlets to the Furutech NCF outlets, so I do wonder what the NCF version of the FI50 connectors would sound like.  Maybe someday I'll get to try that one out and do another comparison.  It's possible the NCF connectors have that warmth plus added detail, just like the outlets did.  We'll see.  

Well, that's a weight off.  Now I'm looking forward to starting to add this Total Contact Enhancer stuff to all the connections - which I've been waiting to do until I had these and other comparisons out of the way.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program...