Long cable run from my phono preamp to linestage.

George ... please remind me how you know about DEQX. There's been so many threads and posts, I forget who said what.

Take a look at some of my posts. I think the DEQX Premate has done a great job squeezing everything out of my Paradigm S8s (v3) that they can offer. The DEQXpert had a devil of a time aligning my S8s. He had to use my self powered subwoofer to do a lot of low end bass lifting because the tweeter/midrange drivers are wired in reverse polarity as compared to the onboard woofers. Time alignment is not perfect, but much better. The cross over between the sub and the onboard woofers is about 120 Hz. It's all about compromises.

Also, my room wreaked havoc on the FR. The DEQX mitigated a lot of room problems.

Overall, imaging, coherence and sonic hue is much improved.

Sorry Bifwynne, although I know Kim and Al from Deqx, I don't use their product, as I'm what you call a minimalist.

That is, all components in my quite large system are modded and impedance matched in such a way for me to get the signal to the speakers in the best possible way with the least amount of electronics in the signal path.

EG: if I could, the source with digital domain volume and very strong output stage a few watts, would drive a pair of 120db speakers direct in my fantasy world.

Cheers George

George -- I respect that. IME, using the DEQX came down to weighing sonic benefits against sonic costs. I gotta believe that inserting the DEQX into the signal path has cost something in the sonic sense. But, there are clear sonic benefits that outweigh those costs.

Time coherence mumbo jumbo aside, the room EQ correction alone is a major positive. I thought my finished basement/ sound room provided a great sonic environment for my rig. Nice plush sofa, a guest bed, carpets, plants and so forth.

WRONG!!

The DEQXpert carefully measured each speaker's FR at my listening position. The separate and combined FR plots were a mess, especially in the all-important bass and midrange spectrum. That alone caused major image smearing.

Of course, time aligning the drivers helped a lot too. Much more coherent imaging and less congested presentation.

I think many of our fellow hobbyists would be really surprised at just how sonically toxic their sound rooms may be. After all, the better speakers brands are probably voiced in an anechoic chamber. But that's not how the real world is.

The DEQX did some major signal twisting and bending to smooth out my speakers. They are NOT ruler flat ... nor perfectly time coherent. But they are "tamed" for lack of a better way to describe them.

So what's worse? Twisting and bending the signal being fed into my speakers, or letting one's sound room to bend and twist what comes out of the front end of the speakers by the time the sound reaches the listening position. Distortion is distortion.

Of course, the alternative is that one could turn their sound room into a sonically dead anechoic chamber and buy time coherent speakers that look like one eyed insects or Dr. Who Daleks.

Just my humble opinion. LOL

Sorry for my extended absence....family concerns I'm afraid.
Thanks to all who responded.
I am using a Thor TA 3000 mk2 phono pre with output impedance of 300 ohms. It has 67 db MC gain, running 4 meters Cabledyne Silver Reference
Unbalanced ICs into my VAC Ren Sig II linestage, driving VAC phi 300.1.
I'm still considering placing my entire vertical rack to the right of my listening chair, allowing me to use the 4 meter run between linestage and amplifier as most do.
Happy holidays!

Hi Audiobrian,

I looked up the capacitance of your Cabledyne Silver Reference. The 4 mts of it will yield 160pf for each channel. This combined with the 300ohms output impedance of your phono pre will give you a -3db at 3.3ghz!! Which is no trouble at all, bats wouldn't even hear this hf roll off.

If you use the same interconnect between your VAC pre (which is half that of the of the phono pre at 143ohms) and your poweramp it is even better at -3db at 6.8ghz!!!

So the end result is you can use it either way, go with what sounds best and convenient to you, as either way you are not causing any roll off into the audio bands high frequency.

Cheers George