Re: Dave's IC's

[StereoNut]

you gotta read the post(s) again, Emil

No, you cant make me.   (SN)

That begs the question of whether all the interconnects should be of the same brand when auditioning? Are we hearing the interaction between the two different ICs?

Interesting point, but I thought that keeping the other I/C constant was a better idea.  Now in hind-sight, I should've tried both ways.  Too late now, Sleepyguy24 just left with all of Dave's I/C's and the speaker cables.

@Emil, I think SN did a good job reporting the way the cables sound. I also did not supply 2 sets of each cable, only one. Plus, the D2 and DD are quite different so I'm not sure using both at the same time would give you a better feel for them... although I do like the combination of using one set of D2 and one set of DD in my system at the same time quite a bit.

Thanks, Dave!

[StereoNut]

FYI

Just in case you didn't see it in my last post to Emil.  Sleepyguy24 picked up all of Dave's I/C's and the speaker cables last night.

It was great to meet you Dean.  It's always fun to "attach a face to a name" from the forums.  I hope you enjoyed the quick listen to my system last night.

Please think about joining the Audio Syndrome.  You will enjoy the camaraderie of like-minded crazies! 

SN

[sleepyguy24]

Hi SN. Great meeting you too even if it was later in the evening. I'm in for the Audio Syndrome. I'll send a separate PM regarding joining. I hope to make a couple of the meetings.

I'm testing enjoying the Dave's ICs in my headphone set-up that I have at work. I'll detail out the system set-up in my review. I'm rotating the D1s and D2s right now. The DDs I'm going to use at home.

Regarding the speaker cables I just couldn't resist hooking them up last night. Dave's speaker cables and jumpers with my budget ICs still in place I heard pleasant differences.

I'm testing them throughout the week and I'm hoping to be done by early next week.

Some questions now for my further testing and review.

I'm planning on using the DD ICs from my phono preamp to preamp. Is this ok or are they meant to be used further down the signal chain or with a digital source?

The jumpers look to have a rhodium end and the other a gold end. Is the Rhodium to be used on the lows while the gold end is to be used on the mids and highs if you have bi-wireable speakers?

Thanks and more to come.

[DaveC]

Hi sleepyguy,

Use the cables anywhere and see how you like them, no hard and fast rules for using them source>pre or pre>amp. You should try the DDs in your headphone setup too, they are quite different from the D2s and one or the other will probably work best depending on equipment and personal preference.

The jumpers are meant to be used with the gold plated ends on the low end posts and the rhodium plated ends on the high end posts.

I can also make an 11 gauge bi-wired pair of speaker cables using a separated double run of 14 gauge cable... basically 2 sets of 14g cables with one set of connectors tying the two cables together at the amp end.

Have fun! 


Thinking about SN's comments about speaker cables, I would say they simply don't add much in terms of "extras"... there's no extra body, warmth or harmonics compared to most speaker cables, but this kind of presentation is full of added distortion. Same as what rollo said about copper cables earlier in the thread.

When you get rid of the extras, you are left with more detail, focus, clarity and air in between instruments' images.

The combination of using UPOCC copper and over 1000 individually insulated 44 gauge conductors is what makes this possible, AFAIK there is nothing like it out there. UPOCC silver would be even better judging from my experiments with IC cables, but then you'd have a cable that costs more like $5000 instead of $500.

For my preferences, this kind of presentation is HUGE jump above most other speaker cables, but of course YMMV, etc....

[DaveC]

So... Neotech's brand new OCC silver/gold alloy wire is ridiculously good. It's an easily audible upgrade over the D2 and about the same difference in performance as the D2 is over the D1. It's also significantly better than the same cable made with Neotech's UPOCC silver wire!

I'm breaking in a DD cable made with Duelund 2.0 silver/silk/oil wire... when that's further along I will compare the Neotech silver/gold cable to the Duelund silver cable.

This will be added to the catalog as the D3.    Price is the same as the Duelund cable, $425 for 1 meter, $325 for .5 meters.

[Nick B]

Thanks, Dave. I appreciate your efforts and all the options we will have.
Nick   

[DaveC]

Hi sleepyguy, it's been a while... do you have any news? 

[sleepyguy24]

Hi everyone

My apologies to Dave for not getting this review out earlier. Too much stuff going on and my first draft got accidentally deleted.

Primarily I use and have a lot of budget gear and cabling so these comparisons may seem unfair but that is what I have experience with.

First I'd like to cover the physical aspects of the speakers cables, jumpers and and ICs.

Regarding the jumpers provided I liked the idea of Rhodium and copper/brass combo on opposite ends. A novice like myself was at first confused which end was to go where.
Build quality wise these jumpers were the most flexible I've ever used. My experience previously was with Zu Wax, Black Cat Morpheus, Belden BJC 10 White and TWL jumpers.
The Dave's speaker jumpers were very easy to manipulate they were actually quite flexible. I actually was able to twirl them around all sorts of ways from one post to the other. I hope the attached picture can show the silliness I was doing.

The speaker cables themselves were extremely easy to handle and manipulate into tight spaces. The rings around the wires were really helpful in flattening out the cables. It took some getting used to but after I got the hang of it I got speaker cables flattened out. I've handled Tice speaker wire and Anti-Cables speaker wire before and these felt the easiest to put into tight spaces.

I like the use of the Furutech locking bananas and spades. They are quality that I have not seen previously. The locking bananas are so easy to lock and unlock. My experience with locking bananas are with the ones from GLS Audio and Blue Jeans Cables. These locking bananas are SO easy to lock and unlock. At times I've had issues with the GLS Audio locking bananas and when I thought they were locked they weren't.

I also really liked the Furutech locking ICs on the D2s. I've used locking ICs from Outlaw Audio and IXOS and these were the easiest to lock and un-lock as well. Very secure.
I was initially concerned with the size of these barrels with my equipment. Even with older equipment like an Accuphase C200 with its old jacks there was always enough space between them. I had the DD1s and DD2s together and there were no problems concerning space. Also these cables weren't heavy at all and they didn't weigh down the IC inputs or outputs that I've seen before with the Outlaw Audio PCA cables or IXOS cables.

A true test that I wasn't able to do was to put Dave's ICs on the 7.1 inputs of my Oppo BDP-83SE or Outlaw Audio 990. IMO this gear has inputs that are just too close together.

The D1 and D2s were easy to handle but with the DDs I took extra caution to not try to put them in a tight spaces between my preamp and amp.

Ok enough about the physical aspects of the cables onto the SQ of the cables in my systems.

I had the D1 D2s and later the DD (Dueland)s in my headphone system first that consists of a Bellari HA540 headphone amp with a NOS GE 1960 Longplate 12AX7 being fed music by a HIFI DIY USB Sabre DAC. My headphones are 600 Ohm BeyerDyanmic 770 headphones.


In my headphone set-up the D1s were up first and they sounded really good compared to the Monster 400I ICs I had in place before. There was an improvement in dynamics and detail and bass was fine. Later came the D2s and man oh man everything got better. Even more dynamics, detail and body as well as an improvement in bass.

The DDs were up last and they were a slight improvement in the mids vs the D2s. At the time I was listening to a lot of various Rock, all sorts of electronic music and a little bit of Jazz. I think with the genres of music I was listening to in my headphone system I may have hit the wall with sonic performance. I didn't hear too much of a difference with the DDs in place vs the D2s. Of the whole bunch I really liked the D2s in my headphone system.

Onto my basement office sound system.

Before I had Dave's ICs connected to my system I just had the speakers wires and jumpers in place. Even with my stock budget cabling (Various ICs from Monster Cable and Canare) I got improvement in SQ. I got a very good improvement with the bass in my system. Nothing booming but nice tighter bass. On certain tracks I had to move the Sony away from the KEFs because the player was skipping. This never happened before. I was very happy.

I had the DDs going from my Hagerman Bugle2 Phono preamp straight to my preamp (Vincent SA-93) and I had the D1s going from my Sony SCD-CE595 to my preamp and then the D2s from my Vincent SA-93 to a Jolida JD-502P amp. The speaker wires and jumpers in this test were connected to a pair of KEF Q300s.


I set-up the ICs this way because I didn't want to have the DDs put in such a tight spot between my preamp and amp or CDP to preamp. It was easier to situate the DDs from the Bugle2 Phono to my preamp. Very minimal bending. I put the D2s from preamp to amp because it is my preference to have the best cable last in the signal chain. Normally I want the same kind of cable all around but in this case I couldn't do that.

Now with all the cabling in place I played some tunes. Right off the bat I still found the improved bass BUT I got more details in the upper mids and highs but yet no glare or brightness. I was amazed here as well. Other times when I've used Zu Wax speaker cables, early Black Cat Morpheus speaker cables,Blue Jeans Cables speaker wire and my other ICs I've gotten more detail in the music but paid the price with irritating treble and highs. I didn't get any of this with Dave's cabling in place.

Also I had a slight improvement in imaging and the music was more forward but it was just right. A lot of songs if I were to close my eyes I could picture the bands singing in front of me. That has only happened a few times with the other systems I've had.

I was having my cake and eating it too for a change.

I believe Dave said with his cables they aren't meant to add anything to the sound but in my case they showed me what I was missing with my system.

Speaker cabling aside my absolute favorite of the IC bunch is the Dave 2 cables. If I didn't hear the D2 ICs and only heard the D1 ICs I could be happy but after hearing the D2s there is no way I'm going back to the D1s. The DDs were fine but again in either of my systems there was only a slight improvement or difference between the D2s.

When I get the money together my goal will be to have Dave2 ICs in all parts of the signal chain along with his speaker cables.

I want to say Thanks to you all hear at Audionervosa & especially Dave for letting me participate in this test/audition. I don't normally spend funds on cabling as high end as this and probably wouldn't have been able to enjoy them if it wasn't for this test. These cables to me are welcome breath of fresh air to the cable shops I see on Audiogon or eBay. For the money I really feel I'm getting quality stuff and my money's worth.

If you have any questions on my test or results just let me know and I'll get back to you ASAP.

[DaveC]

Thanks for the great write-up sleepyguy. 

I'm glad they worked for you and I think you did a good job describing the changes they made in your system. The cables deliver a lot of detail and are on the "forward" side, but without adding harshness or glare. 

On the jumpers, the spades are all made of UPOCC copper, one end is gold plated, the other is rhodium plated. Rhodium sounds more bright/forward while gold is more smooth and laid back, going half and half splits the difference... there isn't a huge difference on speaker cable connectors, but there is on RCA plugs. Rhodium makes my D2/DD IC cables too bright but it works well on the D1 and I might offer that as an option for the D1 IC cable.

[Nick B]

Hi Dean,
I really enjoyed your write up. Cables should be here Monday. Rich's Buffalo arrived and I played some tunes tonight, so I'll be listening with a very good dac with Dave's cables.
Nick

PS to Dave...can't wait til Monday...will be a treat for me!

[rollo]

 I'm liking the combo of DD and D2 in my system. Color me smitten. My reference speaker cable TWL has a wonderfull synergy with Dave's ICs. Amazing actually. Tonality, timbre and harmonic structure are spot on. Dave's speaker cables need more time before I can offer a valid opinion. So far in my set up the TWL are more open, larger sound stage with deeper bass, both very good actually. Time will tell.
     That was the combo we used for our AudioSyndrome meeting. System was off the charts as our members were impressed. Unfortunately I do not have jumpers as the Snells are a bi-wired affair. Using Siltech G4 at the moment. Have some Kimber Select silver babies on hand to check out as well.
    As you all know I rep TWL and do not want a pissing match. I will call a good product a good product regardless of political correctness every time. Better to be honest than toe the line.
    I like both speaker cables with the overall edge in my set up to TWL as of this writing. Dynamics to write home about. May the Snell be with you.
    The DD IMO is a special IC. it takes mucho time to settle. 400 plus hours. so boys give that sucker the time and reap sonic bliss. Does it fit all ?? Nothing does. The midrange and treble is just so natural and real sounding. Very addictive boys.
     The D2 may be the one size fits all cable. Appears very neutral in every location so far.
     fun fun fun until Daddy takes the T-Bird away, oh my !!!

charles
     
     

[Nick B]

The cables arrived today. Everything looks fine...no damage at all to the packaging. Beautiful workmanship. Even though I am swamped with Obamacare stuff (I sell health insurance) I tried to hook up the DD's, but they are 6 inches too short. I'll have to move and reconfigure. Also, it appears the fit on the DD's is a bit loose on Rich's Buffalo that he graciously sent me to audition. I think the Buff has Switchcraft?  RCA's and the fit is a bit loose. Anyway, I'll try to get some of it going tonight. Rich's Buff sounds great. Best dac I've ever had.  More to follow.........

[DaveC]

Hi Nick,

Yes, the fit on the RCAs is loose but they are locking... rotate the barrel of the connector towards the tip to lock them, it doesn't require much force, just a very small amount of torque will lock them in place. If they don't loosen easily, hold the rear part of the RCA while unscrewing the barrel.

Hi rollo,

Thanks for the update, glad you like the D2 and DD IC cables. The speaker cables are unique... they really don't add ANY additional body or warmth compared to most copper speaker cables. They are VERY clean, detailed and forward but don't add harshness or glare like the ICs. UPOCC copper is very different and the litz type construction of the speaker cables is also unique... I think some folks will love them, others will think they aren't warm, bassy, etc... For my personal preferences, I have not heard a speaker cable that even comes close. 

Also, I really like the D2/DD combo in my system too

[Nick B]

A bit off topic, but...  I was looking for an app for an spl meter on my iPhone. Thought it might be useful in auditioning the cables. There are a bunch available. Anyone used an spl app and is one better than the other
Thanks

[Nick B]

Dave, Just a very preliminary note to you. I started with the DD and it is a wonderful cable.  I also have the good fortune of auditioning Rich's Buffalo dac at the same time. This allows me to really appreciate the resolution capabilities of the DD. I will work my way down to the D2 and D1. Then add the speaker cable. I likely have to go out of town this Friday for a few days, so I'll do as much as possible.
Nick