Transparent , Kubala , Luminous , or RS Poiema


Hi everyone. I am looking to potentially recable my whole system and would love to hear your thoughts on the following cables for interconnects, speaker wire, and digital cables...

Transparent
Kubala-Sosna
Luminous
Ridge Street Audio Poiema!!

My current gear is the following...
Ayre V-3 amp
Krell Showcase Pre/Pro
Vandersteen 2Ce Signatures and VCC-1 Center Channel
Cardas Golden Cross I/C and Digital Lightning 15
Alpha Core MI 2 Speaker Cable

I have heard the Transparent Ultra and Premium digital cable and think they are quite good, but they are very expensive and I have seen glowing reviews on the other cables as well. I am prepared to pay if necessary, but would prefer not to if I can find something comparable at a cheaper price. I know that cables are person and/or system specific and am going to try to audition each, but wanted to hear other thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of each. Please advise...
kmiller5

Showing 9 responses by jafox

JD, I apologize for my rough-edged reply. I just got off replying to two emails on this subject and with much frustration, so when I saw your response I snapped back and this was un-called for.
John
I have read and re-read this thread many times the last month or so. I can relate to Brainwater's concern here of outrageous claims.

One mistake many of us make is that we judge a single component solely on how it works with the rest of one system. It is very clear when any product is lacking resolution or the soundstage instantly collapses but tonality differences are a different story. If there is suddenly a big shift in tonality, i.e., a peak or valley in the frequency response, perhaps this one component has uncovered a problem elsewhere in our system?

I'd like to know the meaning of Rch10's comment that networked cables are less focused than non-networked cables. Does this imply a grainy sound, or lack of pin-point imaging, or what? Is this indeed the cable's fault? I have not experienced this at all with the MIT 350 Proline Ref or Evo series nor the Transparent Ultra. But both of these have somewhat of a lean midrange and the Ultra a definite lack of definition and resolution on the top. Is this what you mean by focus? This sure sounds a lot like the Cardas Golden Cross and Harmonic Tech One as well, and these have no network box.

If there is one thing I have tried a hundred times besides line stages, it is ICs from the line stage to the amp. And I can count on both hands the cables out there that have NOT destroyed much of the 3-dimensionality of the performance .... and amazingly enough, MIT and Transparent are in this group .... as are NBS, K-S, and oh my, the Purist. I too ran with the Cardas Golden Cross for a long time but it masked so much of the detail on the top due to its severely exaggerated midrange warmth. The NBS Signature alone was a huge step in the right direction. Unfortunately most of these cables have frequency extension issues which calls into play other compromises but at least they get the fundamental aspect of the musical performance.

If KMiller5's Transparent cables were Ultras or lower in the line, I have no doubt the Transparent was preferred to the K-S in that system. The K-S would reveal all sorts of issues here that the Transparent cables mask due to Transparent’s rolled off top-end and mediocre resolution.

As I have covered in another A'gon thread earlier this week, Joe Kubala was at my home and one by one, he replaced my cables with the Emotion series. If there was ever a colored, overly warm system out there, it has been mine, and Art and JD can attest to this. But the K-S Emotion cables ruthlessly showed the weaknesses in all the cables they were replacing. To say these are some of the most revealing and resolving cables out there would be an understatement. For the first time I could hear room boundaries within the recording very clearly. Lyrics were more clear and the bass lines had rhythm associated to a musician rather than simply low frequency tones. People - this is the sign of an awesome cable!

It makes no sense to even consider such a product if you have not resolved other issues elsewhere. And as I learned, the power conditioner absolutely had to be done first to appreciate the resolution capabilities in the system that the K-S brought to the forefront like my cables had not.

Since Joe Kubala left all but the spkr cables and 2 power cords, I have had the opportunity to play with the K-S cables in my system for two nights now. One of these is a 10m Emotion IC from the Aesthetix Callisto Sig to the CAT JL-3 Sig amps. But I also took delivery of a 10m Purist Dominus Rev B for this link.

I have been running the Dominus for nearly 48 hours straight, CDP on repeat and the amps off during the night. I was told this would be required to get the Dominus settled down. I did cheat and listen to it the first night I hooked it up to make sure all was fine. And indeed it was muffled with not so good treble coverage as I was told would be the case when I first laid out this cable. But I knew something special was to come when I heard the explosive dynamics for just a minute or so.

With both cables laid out in the room and plugged into the Callisto, there is very minimal cable movement to plug one set or the other into the CAT amps. And I have discovered it is not necessary to power the amps off to swap cables. I just wish the Dominus's RCA connectors had ground connection first before hot like the K-S cable.

Coming off the MIT 350 EVO cable, each of these cables is a huge step forward but for very different reasons. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Emotion is the more accurate cable in terms of frequency response across the entire band. There is no frequency range that stands out. This is a statement product in my opinion in this regard. There is a most incredible naturalness to this product. Never is it fatiguing and never does it leave you wonder what is going on in the musical performance. Loads and loads of subtle queues that were before absent in the performance come in with extreme clarity and definition.

And then there is the Purist Dominus. Guido - I have found the cable of your dreams! This is an incredibly emotional cable...it almost brings tears to one's eyes. When you hear piano notes, it is absolutely beautiful. There is so much texture and overtones to the sound. For an expert who would know the differences from one piano to another or one pianist to another, this could easily be discerned with the Dominus. It conveys the body of the instrument like absolutely nothing that has crossed my path. The harmonic overtones are stunning. This alone makes this cable also a statement product. And as much as the K-S brought on a bass line beyond the MIT 350 EVO, the Dominus takes this to an even greater degree. There is so much more power and low-end authority without the boominess so often associated to such gains. JD will go nuts trying to nail everything down in my room that is now rattling like never before!

After several piano tracks, I tried some Carly Simon music, one of my wife's CDs, and the Dominus brought on such an awesome realism to her in the room. And did I forget to mention that this cable is Vi Vi Vi Vi.......vid? Wow, you want dynamics, it's all here.

And then a return to the K-S Emotion. Everything is back to a more laid back and oh so smooth but never boring presentation. All the music is still there but portrayed in a very different manner. There is a wee bit more sparkle to the highest percussion sounds that float in space just a little longer with the Emotion than the Dominus B. I can see why JD loves this cable so much as I do too. But in all honesty, my mind kept telling me to return to the Dominus. And once I did, the huge smile returned. JD, this is a must hear!

And Rgs92, if the Emotion left the Dominus B in the dust, your system was obviously not capable to hear the incredible qualities brought on by the Dominus.

My hat is off to the Kubala-Sosna Emotion cables. Without my front-end all loaded up with the Emotion cables, the differences between the Emotion and Dominus ICs would not have been so vivid and clear. JD is going to kill me here, but to slightly alter a quote I heard early this week, the K-S Emotion IC cable from the Callisto Sig to the CATs is more resolving but the Dominus B is more involving. They are both absolutely phenomenol products and it entirely comes down to personal taste once the rest of the system's nasties have been addressed. Until this is done, cables for the most part are simply going to mask or compliment issues elsewhere in the system.

In just a few days, I have heard two cables that transform my system like no cable change has done in over 5 years when I changed from Cardas Golden Cross and SilverAudio to NBS Statement.

Art, we need to get together again, at my place and yours while I still have many of these K-S Emotion cables. I would love to hear the Stereovox one more time.

John
JD, was my system not already highly colored and bloated at the time we dropped in that first K-S cable? And yet, what each subsequent K-S power cable and the IC, from DAC to Callisto, did as it replaced what I had was simply amazing. If we are going to focus so much on the flaws of the speaker cable, then we should continue on with this theme for probably everything in my system except the amps.

I was immediately made aware of the exaggerated lower midrange of the speaker cable. But does this prevent me from hearing the many differences in the two long ICs? This should apply to the flaws in the rest of the components elsewhere in my system. And if it does, then I have no business at all reporting my findings including the Power cords and that first IC.

John
Rich: I listened to Carly Simon again tonight and the coverage in her voice from the lows to the highs is not only so wonderful in a musical sense, but as you point it, it makes for a great evaluative tool.

As for using Cardas cables to compare the K-S to the Dominus, I have already been rung over the coals for doing this, but in my case, with the Coincident spkr cables. So I think we quickly learn that our conclusions and/or faults that we may identify to a new product under evaluation can ultimately be caused by something we already have in our system and not the new product at all.

John
or is a carly simon box set the new reference standard for critical listening?
Since I was the one who made reference to this as a musical source for component audition, I thought I'd inject a few comments:

Each day I play different music and it just happened to be this when I compared some cables. What exactly is wrong with Carly Simon music as a valid tool here? Do I need to use an "audiophile" recording or listen to someone's predefined music library to validate the sonic differences that I hear between components? She has an incredible voice, great range, and in many songs that also contain piano, this is in fact a great source to evaluate harmonic structure, piano articulation, decays and surprisingly enough, dynamic contrasts. And the LP is even more impressive.

Do you know what real instruments sound like

Yes, in fact I was at the Minneapolis Orchestra just last week for a Berlioz, Durati, Brahms, Tchaikovsky concert. And two things I heard were immediately clear: 1) so many systems that I have heard have far more high-frequency information than at such a concert; 2) we have a long way to go to produce the textures and decays of massed strings.

How far apart are your speakers?
About 9 feet, center to center....SoundLab A1. They are about 5 feet into the room.

How close do you sit?
Sometimes about 4 feet in front (thanks Jadem6 for making me aware of the magic here), and other times 8-9 feet.

What kind of front end?
Clearaudio Ref TT with Koetsu RWS or Clearaudio Accurate cartridge into Aesthetix Io phono stage via Stealth Phono cable.

Balanced or single ended?
Balanced from Io to Callisto to Rives PARC. Then RCA to CAT JL-3 Sig amps.

Have you owned a vast assortment of gear and cables?
Yes until I finally learned that tuning a system through the use of non-linear cables, something that many people refer to as synergy, is not the way to assemble a music system.

The best stuff requires proper setup and system synergy to shine
Thanks, I'll try to keep this in mind. And again, what many people refer to as synergy, I think of as bandaiding and attempting to compensate for flaws elsewhere. However, this can be very effective to assemble quite an enjoyable system of midfi gear.

There is way too much focus on tonality here. But synergy, or balance as I like to think of it, can have much to do with finding products that excel in areas (like no other products) such as dynamic contrasts, portrayal of space, low-level resolution, etc. This to me is where a decision of a this-vs-that comes into a final purchase and not that a product has more bass or treble energy, etc.

sometimes a cable can be horribly bad and yet make a mal-adjusted system sound alot better
Funny you should mention this. As Joe Kubala pointed out to me when he was at my home, the MIT EVO 350 IC and the Coincident TRS speaker cable, both very clearly colored cables, actually worked quite well together; he was quite impressed at this. But one without the other, when used with his far more tonally-neutral cables, clearly showed the flaws of the cables I had used. And a comparison with Purist cables resulted in the same outcome.

My experience has found that nothing can beat a well tuned system that utilizes networked cables
My experience indicates something much different. Are either of us right or wrong? No. After hearing the K-S, Purist, Jade and Stealth cable products, I have no interest to deal with networked cables. Those boxes are a royal pain as well.

The problem is most people haven't the foggiest idea of what a live unamplified band sounds like sans processing
I do not know where you get your information about "most pepole", but the bottom line is .......... who cares if people have heard this or not. We all have our own musical preferences and we assemble an audio system that allows us to enjoy our music, amplified or not. And this is what it's all about.
Can you elaborate? You seem to be saying that linear cables are the key,
No, I am simply saying that compensating for a system's resultant tonality flaws is not best served by applying tonally colored (non-linear cables) to achieve a perceived synergy.

but couldn't the same linear/non-linear argument be applied to other components?
Absolutely. But with cables it is more evident, especially when many of the same type are in the system. An additive or subtractive signature becomes more and more evident as each one is inserted into the system. And this is easy to confirm by trying such an IC cable in the line-stage's tape loop.

And how do you know which cables truly are linear (beside Joe Kubala saying that his are)?
I am not going by what Joe told me, I am reporting what I heard in my own system as each of my cables was replaced one-by-one by a K-S cable. The listening session lasted nearly 5 hours. And after Joe left my home, still with his cables here, I was able to play for another week with these, and mine and several Purist cables that had arrived that week. Listening tests with the other cables later that week confirmed what I had observed when Joe was here - the cables I had been using did indeed have some serious colorations.

Which manufacturers don't make this claim?
Good point, and that is why I pay little or no attention to claims, and instead I audition such products in my own system.

Are all the linear ones as expensive as K-S and Stealth?
I never intended to imply the Stealth cables' sonic attributes here. I have not done the same kinds of tests with their ICs and Speaker cables yet. But from the few Stealth cables I have heard here, and have since purchased, they have become the benchmark for all other cables to compare. I do hope to hear these vs. the Jade cables soon. Initial impressions with these is that they are mighty good.

As for finding that tonally neutral cable that is not so expensive, this might not be so difficult. The problem here is that it is difficult if not impossible to retain all the rest of the strengths that come with the higher-priced cables. Again, frequency-response is only a fraction of the attributes to be evaluated here. The capabilities of the Io/Callisto/JL-3 electronics makes it immediately evident when a cable destroys the dynamics and dimensionality of the music. And the Stealth cables have made me very aware of the magic still lurking in these electronics. A good front end and revealing speakers helps. 8-)
Drubin, I guess it comes down to how we define synergy and also how we avoid getting trapped into choosing components, particularly cables, for the sake of correcting other flaws in our system. How often do we see a forum here where someone is asking for a cable that has more bass or may bring more emotion to their otherwise uninvolving system. Such a priority seems a bit goofy....unless the cable they are currently using is severely flawed relative to the other elements in the system.

I've played with many line stages, phono stages and amps, all tubed gear here, to know that at least the NBS, K-S, Purist and now Stealth cables have a consistent "house" sound from component to component. The system reacts much the same way as to whether or not it is an IC or PC of the same brand/model.

Putting aside the tonality issues for which people seem to focus on to match cables and components, I have found that cables that excel to bring through the spatial and dynamic characteristics of the music are consistent with any component. I may notice varying degrees of tonal peaks and valleys between the cables, but decaying notes, placement of musicians on the stage, or the initial strike of a piano note is either clearly there or not with each cable. Perhaps my findings would be very different with ss gear but I highly doubt it.

The hybrid Counterpoint NPS400 amp that I use now and then as a backup amp reacts the same way to the above cables as do the Wolcott and CAT amps. And the CAT Ultimate II that I had on loan for a few months reacts the same way to cables as does the Aesthetix Io/Callisto. Drop in Dominus cables here and these preamps respond the same way: greater dynamic contrasts and low-end extension vs. the NBS Statement. You can still hear the significant differences between the CAT and the Aesthetix. The refined cables allow me to hear both of these components to new levels. But the cables do not influence which component I ultimately purchase as the set of pros/cons between the two preamps remains consistent no matter cable is used to compare the two.
Henryhk: I have not yet heard the Stealth speaker cables. I know a couple people who use the Dream speakr cable and swear by these things. I am reluctant to listen to them as I might not be able to send them back....and their cost is scarey. And still to this day, speaker cables affect the sound less than phono cables, ICs and PCs in my system. As I replace each PC with the Dream PC, perhaps the speaker cable will affect the sound even greater...I don't know. This coming week I will finally get a chance to hear the Indra vs. the Jade cables in my system. The result of this will set the stage for the 4 ICs to be used here. I will report back on this after giving both products a fair shake. It is exciting to be so close to finally having my system fully configured with high-performance cables. It's the last thing I have focused on here.
I read alot of comments about dropping in a cable here or a pc there and right away WOW, it blows such and such away. I would caution anyone, especially someone new to the hobby to be careful about such claims, immediate impact is easy to ascertain but is it right for you when the "newness" wears off.
I agree, caution is imperative before making such a conclusion. And yet there have been a few times where a cable immediately and so handily outperformed one I had been using for so 5 years. The NBS statement to Purist Dominus transition was such a time. Trying the NBS cables hours later or days later was the same. And going back to the NBS, which I held onto for many months after loading my system with Dominus, was futile. In some cases, such as this, it is inevitable at first listen. Btw, the result was the same with K-S Emotion cables over the NBS; overall I preferred the Dominus in my system. It was not synergy, but rather my preferences of one product's strengths/weaknesses to another. A local audiophile friend would have chosen the K-S and I understand exactly why. But we both concluded upon first listen to either the K-S or Purist, that the NBS was far far behind both of these.

There have been many times where just in a matter of minutes, I know that a product will NOT work. This can be a tube that has a fatiguing edginess (in the mids or trebles), a cable that squelches dynamic contrasts, a line stage that truncates the harmonic overtones, etc. For such flaws, dismissing a product quickly is easy. No amount of fiddling around is going to resolve such issues when I can go back to what I had before and be done. Even when the "new" product brings on some refinements of its own, if the result is fatigue or less involvement, out it goes.

The challenge is when we try something new and then we sit there struggling to hear a difference. The only way to come to a conclusion is to play for a few days with one and then go back to the other. I have not found that I need more than this amount of time to know if one allows me to escape into the music more than the other. If they are truly a draw, which so far has only been the case for me with a couple pairs of different tubes and some tonearms, I go with the less-expensive one and sell off the other. Now if you are looking to completely overhaul your system with cables, that's a different story. With all the combinations, even within one manufacturer's line, that's a lot of time. There is one other factor, product burn-in, that we have to take into account before we perform a shootout.

cable shootouts are fun but require alot of time, effort, crawling around and bending over!
Oh so true and I am happy to know I am close to being done with all this. Removing and replacing cables over and over is not a good thing anyway.