By all means, go and get the Audioquest Diamond HDMI because it elevates his excellence further to an uncharted territory. There are much more overtunes that not only re-define resolution once more but open up another dimension of musicality. The already excellent soundstaging is now filled with even more color. The string session is so lifelike as though the mass strings are playing in front of you via the Sunray.
Allow the cable to burn in 48hrs to get rid of the silvery spikes, after that, if you are not swimming in musical heaven, please go and check your ear at the hospital as there may be some serious amount of ear-wax inside; or have PT check what's wrong with your system.
I was vekianized for a while and should have posted this photo earlier to share with everybody. Vekian CDT is a perfect match with the DAC. I really can't find a reason for a Vekian DAC owner not buying the CDT. Meanwhile I am using the stock HDMI to connect the CDT and DAC but I find the sound a bit tight. PT suggested me to try Crystal Cable and I will feel if the situation could be improved.
Raymond, have you had a chance to listen to the Crystal HDMI cable? How is it compare with your suggested Audioquest Diamond?
I must admit I am a tragic environment fighter. My apartment is small such that I don't have enough place to accommodate my gear, not to mention the devil diamond shape living room. Due to the space constraint, I have to put my Vekian CDT on the floor which make it prone to the most serious source of noise. A viable solution is of course buying a SRA for the CDT but I just don't have enough bullet to shoot it. Luckily I have the Wave Kenetics feet as the alternate solution. This little gadget really gets its magic. After applying it under the CDT, the noise level reduces significantly. I remember Marvel bro once commented that Wave Kenetic cleanse the mist between the music and the listener. For me, of course I can't agree more. Particularly, my CDT was placed such a location before, I believe I get the most benefit from the feet.
Once again, I had the opportunity to listen to the system in AE’s showroom last night with the following changes since my last visit:
(1) change of the HDMI cable running between the Vekian transport and DAC from Wireworld Platinum Starlight to Audioquest Diamond.
(2) Further room tuning by placing some absorbing material at the back of the sofa.
(3) Change of some other interconnects and power cables.
The intention of the visit was to listen to the Audioquest HDMI cable after a full 24hours burning in. As and when I entered the showroom with PT, my attention was immediately caught by the Japanese Jazz vocal CD. It was so focused with a barely audible noise platform. The voice and the piano at the back were very distinct spatially with lots of ambience of the surrounding which later PT told me that one of the two CD was a live recording while the other one was a studio recording. I have not much difficulty in differentiating the two under the extremely low noise platform and high resolution of the system. The noise treatment in the room is to the level of fanatic and crazy. Even the Spartan and Troy are sitting on the WaveKinetics spike plates and that tells me how serious this matter is being handled!
We swap played a few CDs including mega scale orchestra, piano sonata and vocals. The most impressive playback to me was the first track of the Kabi Laretei CD recommended by Mr.DV earlier. It was ironically quite boring but it enables me to hear each keystroke on the piano clearly. With Audioquest Diamond HDMI, I can understand why PT said the system can differentiate a real piano from an electronic one. The digital noise is very low when using Audioquest rendering a very solid and focused image of each keystroke, the ‘wood’ feel of the key panel and piano was vividly presented because I can hear not just the harmonic decay of the strings but also the impact of the percussion by wood. I am no expert of the make of a piano, but clearly and undoubtedly I know now a real piano is made of wood percussion while an electronic one is on synthesis sound.
After the first hour of listening, both PT and myself had come to an interim conclusion that the Wireworld Platinum Starlight has a bit more bass details while sacrificing slightly from mid to high while the Audioquest is just doing the opposite with a more outgoing mid to high. Subjective taste aside, Audioquest has a much lower digital noise thus producing a clearer musical image and soundstage while in comparison Wireworld appears warmer (due to the noise creating the false ambience and more bass details as stated above). Without too much thinking, PT went to the back of his Tidal Sunray and remove the two covers of the air ventilation holes, when he was doing this, he told me this is to release more bass from the speaker. This was frankly but negatively received by me stating that the images were blurred because of PT’s action although I admit that the bass details became more abundant after the covers had been removed.
To regain the focus, conventional wisdom tells me to increase the toe in a little bit but PT took a different approach by moving the speaker about 2cm closer to the wall at the back of the speakers. He said this would shorten the bounce back distance of the bass from the wall thus increase the speed of the bass propagation into our listening position. With the bass speed increase, without any toe in, we regain the perfect imaging and focus and at the same time, gain a bit more bass details which was found missing compared to Wireworld.
It is undoubtedly a great lesson for me to learn about speaker positioning and we both concluded that cable evaluation and in fact gears comparison would always end up in a wrong conclusion if we do not tackle their relative interaction with the room acoustics. With the speaker adjustments, we could safely conclude Audioquest has a better noise shielding than Wireworld thus producing a higher resolution and a more distinct focus.
PT told me many of his Vekian customers are now using Audioquest but being a hard core fans of Argento and recently Thais, I cannot resist to ask repeatedly whether a HDMI cable would come forth from either designer. PT said ‘not at this moment’ without shutting me out totally. I still have hope, so to speak!
One final remark: The Tidal Presencio, Analog Domain power amp and Tidal Sunray represent the utlimate combination for extreme resolution, neutrality and resourcefulness without which our evaluation above would not be so easy and hopefully without bias.
I have been urged to use the audioquest diamond for my video equipment for a while, but only after Raymond's post did I try it on the Vekian. The difference was so big that it was not even funny (my wife, without knowing i changed anything, asked me after 30sec of music what I have changed). It really blows away the HDMIs I originally used (silent wire, zanden). It makes me think that there might be much more improvement to come with HDMI technology -- if argento starts to make HDMI it will be very interesting. Thank you Raymond
Just want to say thank you to Raymond, who introduced AQ diamond HDMI cable and to Jeff who reminder to try the AQ.
I once puzzled if vekian suite is really my cup of tea and considered to change to other digital source. The AQ gives me an answer and I am very happy with my system now.
The open attitude of J and PT are also admirable and I can see the bright future of the company plus we need to get prepared for the never ending extreme high end quality stuff.
I once recall my company's regional CEO who encouraged our staff to continuously look outside for whats the market is doing. Its not necessarily home grown or own brand is the best, there are a lot of good stuff outside. Be open so as to cope with the changes.....
Bigpiece, good to hear that you eventually find the beauty of Vekian and AQ !! Please come next tie when you are in HK to listen to the Neodio combo....I bought a lot of cello CDs recently because the way the ND is revealing the cello music is really touching my soul...
Comments
By all means, go and get the Audioquest Diamond HDMI because it elevates his excellence further to an uncharted territory. There are much more overtunes that not only re-define resolution once more but open up another dimension of musicality. The already excellent soundstaging is now filled with even more color. The string session is so lifelike as though the mass strings are playing in front of you via the Sunray.
Allow the cable to burn in 48hrs to get rid of the silvery spikes, after that, if you are not swimming in musical heaven, please go and check your ear at the hospital as there may be some serious amount of ear-wax inside; or have PT check what's wrong with your system.
Raymond, have you had a chance to listen to the Crystal HDMI cable? How is it compare with your suggested Audioquest Diamond?
(1) change of the HDMI cable running between the Vekian transport and DAC from Wireworld Platinum Starlight to Audioquest Diamond.
(2) Further room tuning by placing some absorbing material at the back of the sofa.
(3) Change of some other interconnects and power cables.
The intention of the visit was to listen to the Audioquest HDMI cable after a full 24hours burning in. As and when I entered the showroom with PT, my attention was immediately caught by the Japanese Jazz vocal CD. It was so focused with a barely audible noise platform. The voice and the piano at the back were very distinct spatially with lots of ambience of the surrounding which later PT told me that one of the two CD was a live recording while the other one was a studio recording. I have not much difficulty in differentiating the two under the extremely low noise platform and high resolution of the system. The noise treatment in the room is to the level of fanatic and crazy. Even the Spartan and Troy are sitting on the WaveKinetics spike plates and that tells me how serious this matter is being handled!
We swap played a few CDs including mega scale orchestra, piano sonata and vocals. The most impressive playback to me was the first track of the Kabi Laretei CD recommended by Mr.DV earlier. It was ironically quite boring but it enables me to hear each keystroke on the piano clearly. With Audioquest Diamond HDMI, I can understand why PT said the system can differentiate a real piano from an electronic one. The digital noise is very low when using Audioquest rendering a very solid and focused image of each keystroke, the ‘wood’ feel of the key panel and piano was vividly presented because I can hear not just the harmonic decay of the strings but also the impact of the percussion by wood. I am no expert of the make of a piano, but clearly and undoubtedly I know now a real piano is made of wood percussion while an electronic one is on synthesis sound.
After the first hour of listening, both PT and myself had come to an interim conclusion that the Wireworld Platinum Starlight has a bit more bass details while sacrificing slightly from mid to high while the Audioquest is just doing the opposite with a more outgoing mid to high. Subjective taste aside, Audioquest has a much lower digital noise thus producing a clearer musical image and soundstage while in comparison Wireworld appears warmer (due to the noise creating the false ambience and more bass details as stated above). Without too much thinking, PT went to the back of his Tidal Sunray and remove the two covers of the air ventilation holes, when he was doing this, he told me this is to release more bass from the speaker. This was frankly but negatively received by me stating that the images were blurred because of PT’s action although I admit that the bass details became more abundant after the covers had been removed.
To regain the focus, conventional wisdom tells me to increase the toe in a little bit but PT took a different approach by moving the speaker about 2cm closer to the wall at the back of the speakers. He said this would shorten the bounce back distance of the bass from the wall thus increase the speed of the bass propagation into our listening position. With the bass speed increase, without any toe in, we regain the perfect imaging and focus and at the same time, gain a bit more bass details which was found missing compared to Wireworld.
It is undoubtedly a great lesson for me to learn about speaker positioning and we both concluded that cable evaluation and in fact gears comparison would always end up in a wrong conclusion if we do not tackle their relative interaction with the room acoustics. With the speaker adjustments, we could safely conclude Audioquest has a better noise shielding than Wireworld thus producing a higher resolution and a more distinct focus.
PT told me many of his Vekian customers are now using Audioquest but being a hard core fans of Argento and recently Thais, I cannot resist to ask repeatedly whether a HDMI cable would come forth from either designer. PT said ‘not at this moment’ without shutting me out totally. I still have hope, so to speak!
One final remark: The Tidal Presencio, Analog Domain power amp and Tidal Sunray represent the utlimate combination for extreme resolution, neutrality and resourcefulness without which our evaluation above would not be so easy and hopefully without bias.
Marvel
I once puzzled if vekian suite is really my cup of tea and considered to change to other digital source. The AQ gives me an answer and I am very happy with my system now.
The open attitude of J and PT are also admirable and I can see the bright future of the company plus we need to get prepared for the never ending extreme high end quality stuff.
I once recall my company's regional CEO who encouraged our staff to continuously look outside for whats the market is doing. Its not necessarily home grown or own brand is the best, there are a lot of good stuff outside. Be open so as to cope with the changes.....
Bigpiece