Back to Tokyo tonight. Went straight back home. The Olympic 2012 feeds the Tron syren tonight. The sound is classy pouring out from the sexy Chopin made by the German. I cranked up the volume purposely when Teresa Bergamza is singing. I listen at reverse phase because Yamada San says so. Don't you guys know he is a big fan of Teresa?
The voice projects extremely smoothly. The calmness is tranquil. And the tranquilness is calm. I can feel it so very thoughtfully. The decay of the piano follows with each uprise of the hammer. The proportion of wooden resonances and the string inside the piano varies clearly with different sessions - and this is what resolution really means.
Jeff, my speaker is better than yours. I have no integration problem but you do no matter how macho they are.
As a loyal supporter of Argento, I finally got mine today. Noting that OR has been used in K10, Tron, Neodio for the audition in the past few days....I now choose Vekian Opus transport...
This is a cable definitely not aiming for ultimate resolution, it has the warmth and tonal texture of a superbly refined copper power cable but recalling that Flow series are also made of copper, the only thing I can think of is some new technology in the conductor purity, cabling topology and shape in order to minimise the noise and maintain the high speed of transmission. Anyway, this has to be left to PT / Ulrik to explain a bit more about the technicality but I can confidently say this is a 'breakthru' for Argento after these several years. The community of AE is seemingly ahead of the curve and always expects a shorter cycle for new product to come into place but certainly elsewhere is the world, a more steady turn around may help sustaining the product image and profitability...I hope we will see and hear FMR SE, FMR EE soon !!
Back to OR, it is no doubt a 'pilot' launch of certain new technologies by Argento. On a brief audition as part of the initial burning in, I used Kit Chan and could not stop until the whole CD has been played. I am electrified by the timidity of the voice of Kit Chan. Propagation of all frequencies are more in sync so that I can listen more those 'pauses' between words, change of breath. On piano or guitar, the leading edge and ending harmonics are, again, more in sync across all the frequencies they touch. Using an analogy of video, I can see less 'image lag' using OR. I concur that it is not going after absolute spatial resolution, high power transmission and lightning bass slam.
It is an overall very balanced cable in terms of energy dispersion from top to bottom, speed is not lightning fast but good enough, transient surge is more natural but not slow, tonally a bit on the warm side but not overkill.
Marvel, I agree wtih you it is a "breakthru" from Argento. It is extremely well balance. The calmness is rarely available from other manufacturers. Damn it!
V.Roy, the Chopin is one hell of a speakers! I sold the Affascinate and bought a pair with subwoofer. Integration is perfect! I am playing Maisky this morning via the Opus suite with ABC. I presume you got the ABC, or else I can't feel what you felt two nights before.
Tonight I listened to OR extensively on the CD as pictured...it is a live recording on highlights of the Gala Stradivarius Concert. Whilst I am familiar with all the music in the CD especially the renowned 'The Four Seasons', what impresses me most tonight is the clapping of the hands of the audience. With OR, the clapping makes me feel I was part of the audience attending the concert...I have not tried all the power cables that I have in the same position to ABCD compare with OR like Jeff's gang did, but I cannot recall if I have listened to and even feel like part of such a vivid 'audio scenery' of a big audience clapping their hands in praise of the concert performance!
I find myself short of words to describe the character of this cable because it does not exhibit a character which impresses / attracts me most. It carries the heritage of the Flow series by letting the music flowing out freely without any pushing or pulling, it is very smooth across the whole frequency spectrum creating a very natural and slightly warmer tonality. On mass strings, it just melts me down as the propagation is just like seawaves ripping layer after layer into my ears and then into my mind and heart!
On the outlook, I do not see much changes on the connectors from the previous OR China model, the cable itself, though in black color, does not exhibit any obvious sign in change of the shielding, wrapping material. At this price, I am really puzzled what technology has been put into this cable making it so remarkably 'a pleasure to listen to without causing any fatique'...
I changed to use OR in my vinyl setup and listen to Argerich playing Schumann Scenes from Childhood (DGG). Surprisingly the keynotes were not that discrete, they were chained tightly like a path leading me to different musical landscapes. To me, every keynotes were linked by tonality and dispersed out in a complete harmonic conclusion.
Frankly I did not like much about the previous version of the OR which I think is a bit aggressive and exaggerated on the two ends. This current version is a complete revamp bearing no resemblance with the previous one and hardly can be regarded as belonging to the same family. It is simply a new breed! Well done Ulrik! You keep on delighting us with out of the box designs way back from Day 1 when we first heard about VDM !!
I studied Maurice Gendron at length. I pretty much understand his entire career and everything about the evolvement of techniques of this great Cellist.
With the Argento Olympic on the Gabriel, the consistence of Gendron's affecting tone has never been so touching but never at the expense of rhythm and spontaneity. I can feel as though he basically crafts every lyrical sentence with intense color at ease at most of his recordings after 40. His interpretation of Bach Solo suites is a monumental recording. The Argento Olympic on the Gabriel brings out no only his own soul, but also the style of his teacher - Feuerman. Some of his earlier recordings at younger age suggest his style was more influenced by Pablo Casal. Gendron's skill was once coruscating lacking tone color delivery. But later on, he remodeled himself to be more like Feuerman.
I want to point out that rich of tone itself can be a transient phenomenon for some cellist. Consistency of tone color is extremely difficult but Gendron is a rare breed. Such consistency delivery of tone color requires an extremely balance power cord and there are quite a few out there but there is none to my knowledge that can deliver such supreme coherence so that I can finally understand why historian of cellist always compliments Gendron's ability of keep his beautiful tone consistent all through his recital/recording performances.
My mind was under your influence after reading your nice post about Gendron. I was enjoying Maisky playing Rach's cello sonsta over the weekend. When the Olympic develops further, the holographic imaging of the Cello is quite a "visual view". I feel as though I can see the physical bottom end of the Cello with that little acoustic gap between the Celo and the floor.
And I wonder what Marvel bro has anything more to say... His passion seems like fireworks at the beginning but usually without any intermezzo sessions. Maybe he is too excited without noticing further benefits as the cord ages...
Maurice Gendron's Arpeggione has always been my house LP for listening pleasure as well as a means to verifying and test new equipment. Of all the cellist, I like Shafran the most and then Gendron. Good LPs of Shafran are rare and expensive but I can find very good quality LP recording by Gendron at a reasonable price. Maisky is a seasoned performer of this era but certainly he is not on the top of my list because comparatively speaking, he is more inclined to the technical camp than the passionate camp and to me, cello music is like hearing a human voice and it must come with lots of passion and character...
Back to OR in Gabriel, it certainly matures in the past few days in the Gabriel with its poor motor running overnight....I used Gendron's Arpeggione recording by RCA Red Seal French label for the comparison...it develops into a fuller body especially on the bottom end letting me to hear more on the sound of the cavity and not to exaggerate, I can 'feel' the cello's pinning on the floor and how the sound was reverbrated back to the cavity from the floor...I seem to hear some more second order harmonics after these few days...
As I said at the beginning, the cable is not aiming to compete with the ultra end ones on spatial resolution, it does not go far up the sky and neither punch deep into the bass, however it does give me a very strong presence of the room ambience, the surrounding air and atmosphere...I used the Joan Baez Diamond & Rust in the Bullring live recording LP to testify this point and I just feel like (again) clapping my hands with the audience surrounding me. A very wide frequency range spanning out from the middle has been covered superbly without any spikes up and down...this is undoubtedly a prelude before Argento unleashes a new wave of cable technologies...For this OR, the time of waiting is really worth and at this price point, I think the performance of it really sweat many more expensive ones in the market.
Jeff, are you going to share more on using OR in your Tidal system? Mine was lent to a friend for a quick trial...supply of this power cord is said to be limited...
Comments
The voice projects extremely smoothly. The calmness is tranquil. And the tranquilness is calm. I can feel it so very thoughtfully. The decay of the piano follows with each uprise of the hammer. The proportion of wooden resonances and the string inside the piano varies clearly with different sessions - and this is what resolution really means.
Jeff, my speaker is better than yours. I have no integration problem but you do no matter how macho they are.
This is a cable definitely not aiming for ultimate resolution, it has the warmth and tonal texture of a superbly refined copper power cable but recalling that Flow series are also made of copper, the only thing I can think of is some new technology in the conductor purity, cabling topology and shape in order to minimise the noise and maintain the high speed of transmission. Anyway, this has to be left to PT / Ulrik to explain a bit more about the technicality but I can confidently say this is a 'breakthru' for Argento after these several years. The community of AE is seemingly ahead of the curve and always expects a shorter cycle for new product to come into place but certainly elsewhere is the world, a more steady turn around may help sustaining the product image and profitability...I hope we will see and hear FMR SE, FMR EE soon !!
Back to OR, it is no doubt a 'pilot' launch of certain new technologies by Argento. On a brief audition as part of the initial burning in, I used Kit Chan and could not stop until the whole CD has been played. I am electrified by the timidity of the voice of Kit Chan. Propagation of all frequencies are more in sync so that I can listen more those 'pauses' between words, change of breath. On piano or guitar, the leading edge and ending harmonics are, again, more in sync across all the frequencies they touch. Using an analogy of video, I can see less 'image lag' using OR. I concur that it is not going after absolute spatial resolution, high power transmission and lightning bass slam.
It is an overall very balanced cable in terms of energy dispersion from top to bottom, speed is not lightning fast but good enough, transient surge is more natural but not slow, tonally a bit on the warm side but not overkill.
....(to be cont'd)
Marvel
V.Roy, the Chopin is one hell of a speakers! I sold the Affascinate and bought a pair with subwoofer. Integration is perfect! I am playing Maisky this morning via the Opus suite with ABC. I presume you got the ABC, or else I can't feel what you felt two nights before.
I find myself short of words to describe the character of this cable because it does not exhibit a character which impresses / attracts me most. It carries the heritage of the Flow series by letting the music flowing out freely without any pushing or pulling, it is very smooth across the whole frequency spectrum creating a very natural and slightly warmer tonality. On mass strings, it just melts me down as the propagation is just like seawaves ripping layer after layer into my ears and then into my mind and heart!
On the outlook, I do not see much changes on the connectors from the previous OR China model, the cable itself, though in black color, does not exhibit any obvious sign in change of the shielding, wrapping material. At this price, I am really puzzled what technology has been put into this cable making it so remarkably 'a pleasure to listen to without causing any fatique'...
Marvel
I changed to use OR in my vinyl setup and listen to Argerich playing Schumann Scenes from Childhood (DGG). Surprisingly the keynotes were not that discrete, they were chained tightly like a path leading me to different musical landscapes. To me, every keynotes were linked by tonality and dispersed out in a complete harmonic conclusion.
Frankly I did not like much about the previous version of the OR which I think is a bit aggressive and exaggerated on the two ends. This current version is a complete revamp bearing no resemblance with the previous one and hardly can be regarded as belonging to the same family. It is simply a new breed! Well done Ulrik! You keep on delighting us with out of the box designs way back from Day 1 when we first heard about VDM !!
Marvel
It is made for Da Vinci AAS Gsbriel.
With the Argento Olympic on the Gabriel, the consistence of Gendron's affecting tone has never been so touching but never at the expense of rhythm and spontaneity. I can feel as though he basically crafts every lyrical sentence with intense color at ease at most of his recordings after 40. His interpretation of Bach Solo suites is a monumental recording. The Argento Olympic on the Gabriel brings out no only his own soul, but also the style of his teacher - Feuerman. Some of his earlier recordings at younger age suggest his style was more influenced by Pablo Casal. Gendron's skill was once coruscating lacking tone color delivery. But later on, he remodeled himself to be more like Feuerman.
I want to point out that rich of tone itself can be a transient phenomenon for some cellist. Consistency of tone color is extremely difficult but Gendron is a rare breed. Such consistency delivery of tone color requires an extremely balance power cord and there are quite a few out there but there is none to my knowledge that can deliver such supreme coherence so that I can finally understand why historian of cellist always compliments Gendron's ability of keep his beautiful tone consistent all through his recital/recording performances.
除了它, 有絕對創造的La Source在Gabriel上做到我對Gendron要求. 我想補充一點: 音樂不只是只有厚和溥的分別. 音色的形容也不只能限於豐厚瑰麗等形容詞. 當Gendron的音色準確時, Menuhin的"君子"之音色, 又能重播得到嗎? 音色和音場也要講求穩定性.
My mind was under your influence after reading your nice post about Gendron. I was enjoying Maisky playing Rach's cello sonsta over the weekend. When the Olympic develops further, the holographic imaging of the Cello is quite a "visual view". I feel as though I can see the physical bottom end of the Cello with that little acoustic gap between the Celo and the floor.
Back to OR in Gabriel, it certainly matures in the past few days in the Gabriel with its poor motor running overnight....I used Gendron's Arpeggione recording by RCA Red Seal French label for the comparison...it develops into a fuller body especially on the bottom end letting me to hear more on the sound of the cavity and not to exaggerate, I can 'feel' the cello's pinning on the floor and how the sound was reverbrated back to the cavity from the floor...I seem to hear some more second order harmonics after these few days...
As I said at the beginning, the cable is not aiming to compete with the ultra end ones on spatial resolution, it does not go far up the sky and neither punch deep into the bass, however it does give me a very strong presence of the room ambience, the surrounding air and atmosphere...I used the Joan Baez Diamond & Rust in the Bullring live recording LP to testify this point and I just feel like (again) clapping my hands with the audience surrounding me. A very wide frequency range spanning out from the middle has been covered superbly without any spikes up and down...this is undoubtedly a prelude before Argento unleashes a new wave of cable technologies...For this OR, the time of waiting is really worth and at this price point, I think the performance of it really sweat many more expensive ones in the market.
Marvel