… though maybe not exactly a shootout as perhaps more a tasters test.

We performed the test on the downstairs system - the distance between the EMMlabs DCC2 DAC/preamp and the Audio Note Kegon amps was close enough [barely] for the 1 meter cables to reach.

We heard the TEO Audio MHD-1 “Standard” Liquid Cable interconnects, the Stealth INDRA with the newer connectors, the Audio Note U.K. PALLAS, Nordost VALHALLA and Jorma Design PRIME. Before this whole thing started we had the Nordost ODIN cables on the system for a few weeks.

There were all RCA cables. The TEO, PALLAS and PRIME were warm - the VALHALLA and INDRA hadn’t been used for a month or so.

We just leave the cables in place, and it looks so cool to see them all lying there. Kind of like having multiple tonearms, you can just “turn off, un hook, hook up, and turn on” to switch to a different sound entirely.

A long report will be forthcoming, I think, and the TEO and PALLAS writeups will be in the magazine.

The TEO speaker cable

The short and sweet is that the TEO is indeed liquid sounding - very much reminding me of an MBL sound or a clear-sounding CARDAS. The sound is round, and more forward/room pressurizing than the other cables in its price range. This is a sound that ‘comes to you’ rather than you having to ‘go to it’ - i.e. it doesn’t require your brain to work as hard as other cables in this broad price category do - not the last word in transparency, soundstaging and inner detail [which are all closely related], but you can just sit back and enjoy the music. Personally, I like them.

There are a lot of people we know who insist on this kind of sound - many are good friends who happen to be Canadians. Interestingly TEO is also manufactured in Canada [not to suggest there is a Canadian ’sound’ but… well, is there one? And is this it?].

Another TEO interconnect (the PDL)

Oh, prices: $2500 for the TEO, about $4K for the VALHALLA and PALLAS, about $6K for the INDRA and about $10K for the PRIME all for 1 meter RCA interconnects.

The PALLAS, although considered a small signal cable for the backs of turntables and digital transports, performed perfectly in this large signal position between the preamp and amp. Sounded just like itself.

The PALLAS has one of the most evenly distributed soundstages and with an uncanny ability to keep separate and distinct the disparate threads of the music. The timbre and frequency response is very, very even up and down the range.

It does not have quite the blackness of background nor the uber resolution of the PRIME [not to mention the ODIN] but this is one of my favorite cables and I put it at a close 3rd place behind the other two. If you look at the relative price of this cable - you will know why we are so EMPHATIC about people taking a closer look.

Here is the announcement:

As you can see from the map, it is indeed closer…

This would probably save me about an hour a day, figuring it takes about 45 -50 minutes to walk from the Venetian to the Alexis Park, and only about 15 minutes to the Flamingo… But getting to the rooms in the Flamingo will take some amount of time, whereas at the Alexis you were just there.

Room setup will take longer, since at the Alexis Park you could more or less drive up to your room and unload. Dreyage and union issues at the Flamingo could be as bad as at the Venetian - which would cause people to decide the might as well exhibit at CES at the Venetian instead of THE SHOW this year. Then again, if the Flamingo actually WANTS US THERE, as opposed to the Venetian hating our guts and not letting us audiophile trash use the bathroom facilities, then maybe everyone will instead move over the the Flamingo.

Anyway, lots of unknowns at this point, I’m sure we’ll all learn more soon.

We are on Twitter at:

http://twitter.com/spintricity

This will allow us to keep people up to date about Spintricity more frequently than here on the blog - and it will be more broadly focused as well.

We are also on FaceBook at:

Spintricity’s Group on FaceBook

We also have a Page over there - but the FaceBook software is so buggy, it is still kind of mucked up. Eventually we should be able to have each Spintricity article appear over there simultaneously [more or less] with its publication in the magazine.

Spintricity’s Page on FaceBook

A major upgrade, especially for Internet Explorer users, should help things move along even faster than before.

The table of contents is now displayed in a sidebar - but it looks better without it, so once you get comfortable [which most of YOU already are] then I suggest closing it and using the popup version [now looking like an eyeball icon in the toolbar].

Please let us know if you have any feedback.

In a few weeks we’ll be doing another upgrade, and that upgrade will improve the text formatting engine so that it will be closer in appearance to the print magazines [and make it easier for me to create fancier articles, allowing me to concentrate more on the actual writing while looking better at the same time]

The new Brinkmann Bardo is the most affordable turntable from Brinkmann and goes for around $8K.

At this time it looks like the granite slab will come with the table.

… at Audio Federation / Spintricity.

Studio Electric brought [an old pair of] their T3 speakers and EA4 hybrid amplifier and we listened and talked and moved things around hither and thither.

We drove the speakers with the Audio Note Kegon and Studio Electric EA4 amps, We used both the Nordost Valhalla and Jorma Design No. 1 speaker cables, we used the Nordost ODIN and Valhalla power cords, in addition to Belden and Acrolink power cords. We also put the amp on the Acoustic Zen Adagio speakers.

Too much fun.

We are going to write this up - but not in a shootout fashion, and not in a review format, and not in a show report manner either, though probably closest to this than the other two. Probably most like the Audiophile’s Guide to the Galaxy.

We want to let people know what the goals of Studio Electric are, how they are going about achieving them, and in general describe the story behind the people and equipment so that you, or your customer, can get a good idea if this is the kind of speaker and amp you should be putting on your short list.

Oh. Yeah. There will be some photos too.

This should appear in a week or two in Spintricity.

Well, Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft’s latest version of its browser, which many people still use, has come and… well, if you are like us, you had no choice but to upgrade from 7. They kind of folded it in with a security update.

We had high hopes for version 8. Kind of put off putting a lot of work into things until this release came out. But instead, 8 is lagging further and further behind the competition in terms of raw speed.

So, tell… ya… what… we’re… going… to… do.

We’ve rewritten a large part of Spintricity (actually magazines.me) and Internet Explorer (i.e. IE), in the ‘lab’, now works on Spintricity about 10 times faster than it used to. About as fast as FireFox used to. Maybe faster.

Of course, FireFox is now about 3 times faster, and Google Chrome, well, I think we’ve achieved warp speed captain.

This should be up on the website next week sometime, we are hoping.

The Watchmen movie is going to be out on DVD in a couple of weeks. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I read the graphic novel right before the last RMAF, and the Rorschach character’s way of speaking, his short, clipped way of speaking sentences…. his ‘voice’… was used as the voice for the RMAF 2008 show report.

The movie appears to be popular, so hopefully more people will ‘get it’ if and when they read the show report again.

Maybe next time I’ll wait until AFTER the movie comes out?

Sure. That’ll happen.

So, what is with DVDs now costing $35 (discounted to $20)? Have the music industry moguls taken over the DVD industry now?

Anticipate popularity of downloading free movies from internet to grow exponentially. Rinse and repeat.

Includes some background on Marten and on the new Momentos.

Marten loudspeaker showroom tour