Greetings,
I recently retired and have been migrating my gear from two places of residence to my main house. Since I have a dedicated music room, moving forward, I will only use the main system. During this process, when mixing equipment, selecting which component to keep, I came across a strange situation, which I do not understand. Hopefully someone can help and shed some light on what's going on?
I am perplexed by the sound difference when connecting my pre and power amps with my interconnects. I own: Nordost Freys (original, not Frey2), Van den Hul The Orchids and Van den Hul The Integration Hybrid. The best sound gives The Integration Hybrid, which I believe is about a third of the price of the Nordost... The Orchid also doesn't sound as good as the cheaper Integration. Why it is peculiar, is the fact that between any of my sources and the preamplifier the Freys and Orchid are significant better than the Integration... The Integration sound better only between the preamplifier and power amplifier. Can anyone explain why?
The sense of "better" I can describe as: a lot more air around the instruments, even those at the very back of the stage, more precise soundstage (you can hear the distances between orchestral rows, for example second violins and wood instruments, brass also exhibit space and air around them).
My system:
Krell KSA 100 mk2 power amp
Krell KAV-280P preamp
Dynaudio Contour 3.4 connected with Frey speaker cable
Sources:
Nottingham Analogue AceSpace + Space Arm + Ortofon Kontrapukt B;
VPI Aries Scout, AT33; Phono Stage: Trichord Delphini mk2 with separate power supply
Marantz SAKI Black Pearl and also Arcam CD37 as a transport
Chord Electronics Hugo TT with linear power supply
Cables : Nordost Frey speaker cables, Nordost Freys, Van den Hul Orchid and Van den Hul The Integration Hybrid mostly unbalanced
All audio equipment is connected to a dedicated and separate power line and the preamp and power amp is on a separate circuit, only for them.
Have a great weekend everyone :)
Steven
