Morrow IC's

I just did a head to head test with the Morrow 1.1 IC vs. the Audio Art IC3 and Blue Jeans Cable LC-1.

Morrow has the best detail of the three though it is only a slight edge over the Audio Art.  Morrow has a slightly warmer midrange than the Audio Art.  Instrument placement in terms of not mashing together where you can't distinguish between other instruments at times is a hair better than the Audio Art. 

The Audio Art has a bit more air around the instruments than the Morrow.  Soundstage on the Audio Art is also a bit better.  

The Blue Jeans cable has stronger bass and lower midrange.  If you consider those to be assets then this is a plus.  In my case, I prefer the other two cables.  Detail on the Blue Jeans cable is not as good as the other two.  Soundstage is about equal to the Audio Art.  It can't pick out as many of the notes or instruments that are "hidden" behind other instruments in the test tracks that I ran.  Still a decent cable but inferior to the other two. But that is to be expected considering the price of this pair of cables when compared to the other two.

I agree that detail is king in our hobby.  It's what creates the superior sound stage, imaging and realism in what we hear.  It's all about doing no harm to the signal, and everything affects the signal unfortunately. 

I'll put this here because I've made several posts already, and it is a Morrow thread(hope that's ok will62)  My system has started sounding freaking incredible, and I think Morrow cables are the reason.

About 2 weeks ago when I added a shelf to my audio rack, I made a concerted effort to quit swapping cables, something that I've been doing every few days or so to my system.  I have a few extra pairs of mostly RCA IC's, and was trying to find some combination that would be superior.  

I should list my gear here too.  Totem Rainmaker speakers (4 ohm), Parasound Halo P5, Adcom 555SE amp(a 2018 version), Schiit Bifrost Multibit DAC.  I mostly play songs from my iphone straight to the DAC.  

Cables are Morrow MA5 from pre to amp, MA3 from DAC to Pre and Wireworld Oasis 7 speaker cables, not biamped.  The Adcom has a PS Audio AC5 power cable, the P5 and Bifrost have stock(going to change that in the next month).

I also have a Nad cd player, but haven't had the success with it, but it has a lessor cable, the Black Mamba II from Audio Advisor(house brand of a sort).  And a Pangea power cable for it, nothing special.

Anyway, after over a week of the same old sound, two nights ago, my jaw started dropping.  The same music I've been listening to had more detail, realism, and eyebrow raising live-in-the-room sound that I have never experienced before.  Not from my previous system which had Paradigm Signature S6 speakers and totalled over $10,000 all in.  I have NEVER heard any audio system sound this good either, though I don't get out to  audio shows, and most friends have avrs and such.

It takes a bit of warm up for the system to get to the jaw dropping stage, but I'm telling you, it's crazy good.  The components are frankly nothing special.  The speakers have good pedigree but the drivers are off the shelf, lower budget stuff.  The DAC might be considered above average, maybe the pre too, I'm not sure.  The point is, they are not multiple thousand dollar pieces.

The only thing I can chaulk it up to is cabling.  Because it was when I stopped changing it around and did what the Morrow company recommends, leave it be, let it settle in.  I'm now going to get another MA5 for the Cd player, and maybe an Audioquest power cable for the DAC.  At this point mp3 files from the DAC are sounding far better than redbook cd music from the C565BEE Nad.  

Anyway, ignore the naysayers, better sound is really possible.

Hi @will62 thanks for your thoughts - I'm in the same budget world as you and having a hard time parsing the different sonic characters in the "entry level" ICs.  

Have you done a head to head of the Morrow vs the AQ Evergreen?

Have you tried cables from WireWorld?  I'm wondering how these "sound".

Thanks!

Comparing Morrow cables to others in some sort of "shoot out" seems like it could be a frustrating endeavor as disconnecting the Morrows is alleged to prompt "a day or two" of them recovering their mojo. This requires the cable reviewer to remember their subjective opinion of the cable "sound" (or, more accurately, the cable's "influence"), and after 50 plus years of this stuff I've learned to have some serious doubts about that sort of test. Well made cables should be ignorable, and if they're not (like the turntable cable that came with my Linn/Akito that picked up hum from everything from dimmers to whining strangers…replaced with a dead silent hum rejecting Jelco-Mogami solution…in hot pink no less), there is a serious bad design issue going on. I roll tubes, have a revealing system, and if the system responds to tube tone swaps I figure the cables are in sync…solid core, soft core, lava core, whatever…and the Morrows sound fine, or not at all…or something.