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Warm, rich sounding interconnects?

My system is in flux at the moment with a Wadia Intuition 01 as preamp/amp/DAC bookshelf Tyler speakers and (horror of horrors) an iPhone with an Auris bluetooth connection for the current audio source. Since bluetooth at best sounds somewhat thin and tilted up on higher frequencies, it doesn’t play necessarily well with the Wadia which is great sounding overall but also can be on the revealing side.

I know I should get a better source - but even so I’ll always want the option of wireless in various situations. I’ve owned Purist Audio Museaus’s (rev-c’s) in the past, which would be perfect, but sadly sold them on A-gon some time ago. Those are hard to find and the newer Purist cables are brighter sounding.

So in a nutshell I’m looking for interconnects which will deepen and darken the sound for my current setup - and new/used for under $400. Any ideas?
monsignor
monsignor OP
18 posts
 
Problem is - all I really need is quality SPDIF out from the iPhone.  The Wadia DAC does a nice job of uprezzing from there.  So no need to spend a lot extra for another DACor other bells and whistles.  But the only devices I can find that supply a simple but quality coax or optical line out are wireless these days.  The old docking stations stopped being produced before Apple moved to lightening cables.  Any $500 or less ideas? 
danvignau's avatar
danvignau
935 posts
 
As a true cynic, warm, to me, means just enough 2nd harmonic distoetion, such as Conrad Johnson and Audio Research have been purported to intentionally add to their designs.

fsonicsmith's avatar
fsonicsmith
931 posts
 
As a true cynic, warm, to me, means just enough 2nd harmonic distoetion, such as Conrad Johnson and Audio Research have been purported to intentionally add to their designs.
OK. With respect, you need to read up on the inherent electrical characteristics of solid state and tube amps. But absent your doing as I suggest, how about instead, I throw out some casual off-the-cuff remark that Levinson, D'Augustino, and Ayre intentionally add odd order distortion to their amps? Not true, but equally valid and analogous to your remark. 
Now seriously, some tube amp manufacturers strive to minimize second harmonic with ultralinear pentode-based negative feedback designs and others strive for other design goals. You named the wrong manufacturers for the former, though there were admittedly a product or two from each that may have fallen short, particularly C-J preamps of old. 
cellcbern's avatar
cellcbern
61 posts
 
Chris Johnson at Parts Connexion can make finished cables for you (or you can do it yourself) out of the new Dueland tinned copper wire from Parts Connexion - DCA16GA or DCA20GA for interconnects; DCA12GA for speaker cables.  

See Jeff Day's article on "The Art of Tone" at Positive Feedback or his "Jeff's Place" blog.  I replaced $3k per meter Klee interconnects with the Dueland DCA16GA.
ihmeyers
81 posts
 
re an earlier post on Jeff Day replacing Klee cables with much cheaper Duelund interconnects.

Jeff is a great guy.  I have messages with him often  I am happy the Duelunds worked so well in his system.  To be blunt, they stunk in mine.  RCAs, XLRs, speaker cables, didn't matter.  Maybe they just didn't play well with my PS Audio BHK amp and Wilson Duettes.  That happens sometimes.  I've heard from others they were very bright in their systems as well.

I'm late to the wire party.  I haven't invested big money in interconnects or power cables until recently.  I'm also not foolish enough to think that there aren't some cables that are way overpriced.  However, I'm also not naive enough to think that inexpensive cables are regularly as good as those costing many times more.  While the correlation between price and performance isn't 1 it's not 0 either.
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