TIDAL is NOT Worth it! Listening Test

[Blumlein 88]

It's worse than that...it's wasted time listening to gear instead of music.

Which sort of defeats the point of it all....

Maybe I'm a too much of a music lover to be a good audiophile because I think it's the job of the music to speak to me emotionally, not the gear.

The gear is there just to get out of the way.

Bingo, good high fidelity gear will let good recordings of good music speak to you.

 

[amirm]

Do you think we understand why people like tubes?

I used to think it was euphonic distortion, but I've since heard some topologies with very very low distortion specs and they still sounded different from solid state.

I have not studied it enough to give a definitive answer. One thing is for sure though: if the output impedance of tube amp is high, then it will interact with the speaker and change the response. With the right speaker, it can boost the mid-range which I think makes people who listen to older music to think that is more like how things sounded then.

 

[Ken Newton]

That's easy for you to claim in your hypothetical case.
In reality 99.999 % of the time the answer will be that
1. The amps were feeding a speaker with a VERY irregular load and the frequency response WAS being affected by such.
2. The perceived differences would evaporate in the blind test.
3. Use of some ridiculous speaker cables that introduced a VERY irregular load and the frequency response WAS being affected by such.

Sal, your numbers 1 and 3 above highlight the problem with published specs. that I've been talking about. They often poorly, if at all, inform a given listener of how a given component will sound in a given system. The final arbiter should be the listener's own ears, if for no other reason than practicality (otherwise, requiring an in-home laboratory of instruments). Is there some better in-home final arbiter for music reproduction perception?

 

[watchnerd]

Sal, your numbers 1 and 3 above highlight the problem with published specs. that I've been talking about. They often poorly, if at all, inform a given listener of how a given component will sound in a given system. The final arbiter should be the listener's own ears, if for no other reason than practicality (otherwise, requiring an in-home laboratory of instruments). Is there some better in-home final arbiter for music reproduction perception?

#1 and #3 are more accurately and more easily measured electrically than with ears; we're talking about frequency response changes with load, which is pretty basic and audible stuff.

Stereophile makes exactly those measurements (impedance curves with phase of speakers, amps under varying load) for that reason.

 

[watchnerd]

I have not studied it enough to give a definitive answer. One thing is for sure though: if the output impedance of tube amp is high, then it will interact with the speaker and change the response. With the right speaker, it can boost the mid-range which I think makes people who listen to older music to think that is more like how things sounded then.

That makes sense for power amps, but I was specifically thinking of more upstream components.

 

[Ken Newton]

An objectivist will work rationally toward fidelity. Your ideas sound like someone just trying to work it back around to the primacy of the human ears.

Primacy of the ears, yes. The ears as exclusively determinative, no. I think that measurements should be in service of the ear, not the ear in service of the measurements. In other words, instruments don't dictate what the ear, or more correctly, the ear-brain system, perceives. I feel this is an important distinction that often gets blurred in discussions.

Perception can and should be supported by measurement, once we know what to measure and under what context and conditions to measure it. Which I don't think we completely do as yet. I don't believe in audio magic. If the sound is different, then in some respect, the signal is also different, and that difference can be measured. Instruments can easily measure signal differences which the ear cannot discern, but that doesn't make those differences consequential. Conversely, what appears to be an inconsequential difference via measurement may have an disproportional consequence to the ear.

Fidelity is important because understanding fidelity, being able to transfer and reproduce music with fidelity gives one a solid base from which to work. We have sufficient fidelity beyond reproach for pretty much everything other than transducers. In judging fidelity the ears are not anywhere close to our best method. When judging preference that is something much more varied. To believe your own preference is always settling toward best fidelity is going to lead you astray. You'll end up chasing your tail at worst or simply being very inefficient at reproducing enjoyable music. We know our personal experiences and bias misleads us, we know sight and knowledge about things we compare influence us beyond just the fidelity.

All of which leaves they key question. How do you decide what to purchase when your ear-brain has a reaction counter to what the traditional specs. suggest it should have? Which then is doing the misleading, for the purpose of human listening of music, your ear-brain or the specs.? Do you ignore your ears or ignore the specs.? That sitution is not merely hypothetical, it occurs often in my experience.

Now what kind of system do I want, I want the one that speaks most enjoyably and emotionally to me. Being of an objective bent doesn't mean I would throw a highly involving rig out because it was down on fidelity. I do however believe pursuing a high fidelity base I can then alter for my purposes pays far larger dividends than mistaking my misperceptions for that fidelity and chasing ghosts. I can use what is known to get the sound I want even if that isn't maximum fidelity.

This is really all that I'm suggesting.

The old idea with experience you get to be a better judge etc. etc. while true enough is so second rate an approach it holds the industry back. Satisfying the ears is always the goal. Using those ears to make fine judgement of what is really fidelity is choosing to use a very poor instrument for the job when much better is available. Audiophiles seem to commit huge amounts of time, effort and resources into a big circle jerk that gets them nowhere.

We disgree somewhat here. Our ear-brain system can inform us when our instrumented measuring is missing something. That we need to search for the technical reason why, when our perception says there's more to be found in our measuring. Probably, the most famous example of that is how CD was once considered to present absolutely unimpeachable traditional technical specifications, dictating that the resulting sound MUST be excellent. If your ears heard different, then it was your ears that were necessarily in error. Yet, many poeple found that their ear-brain sysytem DID hear different. Controversy long ensued between objectivists and those who listened to their ears. It was the reaction of subjective observers which spurred further technical exploration leading to the realization that clock jitter, a non-traditional audio parameter, played a role. Continued exploration points to other previously unconsidered parameters as well, such as time smearing effect of utilizing sharply band-limited filtering. In the case of both parameters, measurement was able to find and then quantify issues first reported by the ear-brain. The ear-brain couldn't determine the technical causation, only indentify the perceived result, while instruments couldn't pre-determine the perceived result, only the technical causation. The two have complementary roles, and so, both are valuable. However, the ear-brain perception should be guiding the instrumented measurement, not the reverse.

 

[Sal1950]

Sal, your numbers 1 and 3 above highlight the problem with published specs. that I've been talking about. They often poorly, if at all, inform a given listener of how a given component will sound in a given system. The final arbiter should be the listener's own ears, if for no other reason than practicality (otherwise, requiring an in-home laboratory of instruments). Is there some better in-home final arbiter for music reproduction perception?

Personally, I consider any modern speaker (or cable) design who's LCR load causes frequency variations in well designed amplifiers to be a broken product. If the manufactures were honest and complete in the published specs the FR result could be accurately predicted. For all their other faults, Stereophiles John Atkinson's measurements usually bring these problems to light though John avoids conflict with the subjective reviews writer and leaves it up to the reader to diagnose the results.

 

[Sal1950]

The final arbiter should be the listener's own ears, if for no other reason than practicality (otherwise, requiring an in-home laboratory of instruments).

That path is fruitless in achieving High Fidelity, I think we've covered that more than once here.

 

[Thomas savage]

That path is fruitless in achieving High Fidelity, I think we've covered that more than once here.

Yes you end up chasing your tail, the definition of quality relies on the weakest most vunrable part of the system.. You.

Disaster, certainly not going to end up with high fidelity.. High preference , based on all sorts of faulty assumptions and ideas of what things sound like based on memory and misinformed prejudice .. Totally unreliable! Very expensive and doomed to fail.

 

[Ken Newton]

That path is fruitless in achieving High Fidelity, I think we've covered that more than once here.

Yes, and we disagree for the reasons I've been presenting. In case I've not already made it clear, I'm not suggesting some specifications free wild west of audio. Specs. do matter, just that they are not exclusively determinative as yet. Some day, hopefully, figures of merit will be formulated that are solely determinative, but until then, subjective observation plays a valid role.

 

[watchnerd]

Perception can and should be supported by measurement, once we know what to measure and under what context and conditions to measure it. Which I don't think we completely do as yet.

I think we're closer to knowing what to measure than you might think. Here is an interesting quote from a very thorough review of the Dynaudio Focus 600 XD from an experienced musician / recording engineer:

"It is no coincidence that the measured frequency response is near identical. It is no coincidence that the frequency response curves match the subjectively preferred listeners curve to not only the Toole reference above, but also with the referenced industry guidelines, spanning over 40 years of R&D. There is a direct correlation between these objective measured frequency responses at the listening position and subjectively preferred target frequency responses for neutral or accurate sound reproduction.

Note that Ronald’s and my speakers are about as different as one can get; full range line array versus 3-way horn loaded. Plus our rooms are different, as are the room treatments, we have next to none. In fact, everything is different about our two sound reproduction systems, including the digital room correction systems we are using. The only common piece is we both use JRiver Media Center and listen to some of the same music. Yet, we are both listening to almost exactly the same frequency response at the listening position for a neutral or accurate response that correlates with industry guidelines.

One point I am illustrating here is that it is possible to correlate, in-room frequency response to accurate or neutral sound as perceived by one’s ears at the listening position."

This illustrates the following point:

If one's goal is reproduction, then following industry guidelines is the clearest path we have (absent true standards) to attempt to approach what the artist intended the recording to sound like. In other words, high fidelity.

The "sounds good to me" approach runs the risk of deviating from high fidelity, of intentionally choosing gear for euphonic reasons. This approach may be aesthetically pleasing, but it is intentionally placing the most accurate conveyance of the artist's intent in a subordinate position to personal tastes.

For me, that is not a trade off I choose to make. I don't want to over-rule the artistic intent of the creators.

 

[Ken Newton]

I think we're closer to knowing what to measure than you might think. Here is an interesting quote from a very thorough review of the Dynaudio Focus 600 XD from an experienced musician / recording engineer:

"It is no coincidence that the measured frequency response is near identical. It is no coincidence that the frequency response curves match the subjectively preferred listeners curve to not only the Toole reference above, but also with the referenced industry guidelines, spanning over 40 years of R&D. There is a direct correlation between these objective measured frequency responses at the listening position and subjectively preferred target frequency responses for neutral or accurate sound reproduction.

Note that Ronald’s and my speakers are about as different as one can get; full range line array versus 3-way horn loaded. Plus our rooms are different, as are the room treatments, we have next to none. In fact, everything is different about our two sound reproduction systems, including the digital room correction systems we are using. The only common piece is we both use JRiver Media Center and listen to some of the same music. Yet, we are both listening to almost exactly the same frequency response at the listening position for a neutral or accurate response that correlates with industry guidelines.

One point I am illustrating here is that it is possible to correlate, in-room frequency response to accurate or neutral sound as perceived by one’s ears at the listening position."

I'm not suggesting that perception cannot be correlated with measurements. In fact, I believe it can be. Only that measurement does not dictate the relationship, perception does.

This illustrates the following point:

If one's goal is reproduction, then following industry guidelines is the clearest path we have (absent true standards) to attempt to approach what the artist intended the recording to sound like. In other words, high fidelity.

The "sounds good to me" approach runs the risk of deviating from high fidelity, of intentionally choosing gear for euphonic reasons. This approach may be aesthetically pleasing, but it is intentionally placing the most accurate conveyance of the artist's intent in a subordinate position to personal tastes.

For me, that is not a trade off I choose to make. I don't want to over-rule the artistic intent of the creators.

There are a few assumptions here. One assumption is that the artist heard the same sound upon in-studio playback that was heard during the live session. That is not necessarily so. For one thing, musicians are notorius for forming/constructing a in their head sound different from the actual sound event. Another assumption is that what the musican hears over the studio monitor will match what they would hear via your home sysytem, which is unlikely. Of course, it's not possible for anyone not at the original session to know what the original even sounded like live. So, one approach is to attempt to match all equipment to within a set of performance standards. There is, however, an another approach. Which is to subjectively judge which equipment provides the most convincing illusion of a live performance made with real instruments. Since one cannot know what the original acoustic event sounded like, this approach seems no less valid than strict adherence to certain technical specifications which may result in a less live/real/natural sound, it seems to me.

This sort of gets back to one of my questions to Blumlein88. Which would you rather have, in-home playback that measures 'faithful' to a certain parameters, but emotionally disinterests you, or playback that is less faithful to those certain measures but consistently moves your emotions? The implied, and quite rational, presumption of the objectivist is that superior specs. necessarily equal superior sound. Except, experience has taught some of us us that is not necessarily true. I wish that it were.

 

[Sal1950]

This sort of gets back to one of my questions to Blumlein88. Which would you rather have, in-home playback that measures 'faithful' to a certain parameters but emotionally disinterests you, or playback that is less faithful tomthose certain measures, but consistently moves your emotions?

Can't answer for Blumlein88 but for me, yes I will purchase the accurate components first. Euphonic coloration/distortions are easily added at any point, I do some of this myself. But you can't add HiFi to corrupted gear, that must be the starting point.

The implied and quite rational presumption of the objectivist is that superior specs. necessarily equal superior sound.

All else being equal, they can and are the correct approach to SQ. That's still your error in thinking and approach.

Except, experience has taught some of us us that is not always true.

Experience taught me 40+ years ago to turn off the Loudness button and set my tone controls to flat even though my settings sounded Kool to me.
I'm sorry Ken, You can object till the cows come home, but using your ears as the final arbitrator of sound quality is just wrong. This is the path that has led all the major stereo media into the mess of misdirection it is today and made our hobby the laughing stock of reasonable thinkers.
Adios

 

[RayDunzl]

Here's a wonderful subjective review from the other place (four posts concatenated, same author)

---

With a sense of curiosity, I ordered the GTX NCF, 3 years after having lived with the GTX rhodium version.

What stuck me immediately is how similar it was to the first version of the Nordost generation with the Frey, Tyr and Valhalla: the upper bass/lower midrange suckout demonstrated before Nordost introduced their V2 versions. I'd heard the "silvery" sound, which is exciting, but drains the color out of the music.

The NCF version - after 12 hours of burn-in time - shows a removal of a sense of "pastels" in the music, and a move towards primary colors. It is this, I observe, that makes voices more distinct, one from the other.

Playing the Atco release of "Gimme Shelter," Jagger and Merry Clayton's voices were much more as they sound on vinyl, with the words in particular being easier to hear - and at lower volumes.

At one point, during Clayton's solo, she sings "rape, murder/they're just a shot away/they're just a shot away" and with the NCF, I could read a magazine and still hear her words clearly. Before, with the GTX, it sounded like "raaaay, mur_urr/they're just a shot away/they're just a shot away."

The letters "P", "D", "S", and "T" in particular, are more noticeable.

Should be fun at 24 hours and then the rest of the time. I didn't want mine cooked: I like the process of hearing the changes. Music will move me coming over a car radio: high end audio brings it to a more lifelike level and engages me more, but I could - and do - live without the "best" components to listen through to the music.

The original GTX now reveals itself as a bit sterile, and explains why I did not like the Furutech fuses or the IECs I placed in my amps years ago (the IECs will be leaving soon, now that I know why the Hurricanes, a model of midbass magnificence, sounded so wimpy for the past few years).

Am I distressed by having heard more resolution, but less soulfulness? Not at all, because I knew something was not right with the music.

For those who are worried about their systems sounding worse, that's a waste of worrying. The NCFs provide more of the soul of music, not more of the gearhead attributes.

I reject completely the idea that it will make anyone's system worse.

As someone else said, there was not a tonal shift, as much as there was simply more saturation, so piccolos and flutes sound different (they, all too often, blur together) and with more vivacity.

The Mercury Box set CDs sound fresh. And, yes, the subtle noise (or grain) in the highs has all but vanished. And the cymbal crash - even this early - has the midbass components in correct proportion to the higher frequencies, so it sounds not like White noise when they crash the cymbals together, but a purer, sweeter version of the cymbal.

I will likely get one for my amps and move away from a solid state integrated and back towards a good tube preamp (and to think I got rid of the CJ Classic and the ET3 because they sounded so washed out (CJ must have thought I was quite the ignorant one), but it is clear that, as good as the GTX was, it had a distinct "whitish" character, which has been banished without losing any resolution.

This also affected my perception of my ZiTron Shunyata cords, since everything was filtered through that Furutech outlet. Now, THAT, I could have lived without. But, heck, a little mystery can be fun, especially if one is a detective type.

Mystery solved! And just in time for the Sigma power cord, which will arrive in two days. I'll just have to leave it out of the system for 2 weeks, to give the Furutech time to make an impression, even though it'll require another additional week to break in. At that point, it will be 500 hours, the majority of the break in.

And in the meantime, I'll just put the Sigma on a PS Audio Humbuster and tie it to the kitchen refrigerator (I wonder if the food will taste better). I'll listen to it brand new, and then after 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400 and then 500 hours to hear the blossoming of the music and how much more emotional a sad song can make me.

Just more to look forward to!!! And it's great when the benefit outweighs the cost: $272.00 to hear Merry Clayton wailing away in "Gimme Shelter"? Waaaay worth it!

---

And I need to clarify that, when I said "What stuck me immediately is how similar it was to the first version of the Nordost generation with the Frey, Tyr and Valhalla: the upper bass/lower midrange suckout demonstrated before Nordost introduced their V2 versions.

I'd heard the "silvery" sound, which is exciting, but drains the color out of the music," I meant that when I heard the NCF generation of the Furutech, I realized that the GTX-D (R) version was the one that sounded like the generation of Nordost that had the Valhalla in it, not the current Furutech, which sounds anything BUT bleached out.

As I stated, I had noticed that the sound had changed, but I went through several upgrades very quickly (not a good idea for critical evaluation), getting Nordost Frey shortly afterwards as well as a new speaker system.

I thought the "silveriness" was simply more transparency, not realizing at the time that it bleached the sound out a bit, which I would have normally noticed.

I'm not a fan of "lean" sound, as it imparts a loss of the natural beauty of the music. And somehow, it also seems to lose out on the "toe-tapping" rhythms of music, although that's more subtle. I'd pick it up because I did African-Jazz dance for a long time and rhythm is everything in that style of dance.

The newer NCF version restores that rhythmic quality. And to buttress that observation, a friend of mine happened over last night and the only thing he EVER wants to hear is Scheherazade by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Normally, he just listens to the 4th movement, which is all strum und drang, but last night he was bouncing around on the love seat - which he never does.

I asked him how it seemed, and he said he had noticed the way the brass was going at top speed (he meant the triple-tonguing of the brass), which he hadn't really noticed before the NCF came into the system (not that he said that part: he just noticed it last night, but I had played it for myself just before he came over and noticed it (the triple-tonguing brass) instantly and thought, "hmmm, that wasn't anywhere near that distinct before.") And then, he heard it.

Now, he doesn't listen with intent: he just listens to music, but he loves Scheherazade so much that somewhere in his memory, he notices when the system sounds better or worse without ANY prompting from me (ONLY for Scheherazade. No other piece I ever play gets much reaction from him). I knew it was the NCF, but I didn't even tell him about the outlet change. He heard it all by himself. And now, listening to the JVC version of Holst's Planets, I can hear all the brass instruments are considerably more distinct, one from the other.

A really, really, good investment, and since it comes from the wall, one that will expose what your other components are doing (or not doing) down the line without disguising the problems that the GTX-D Rhodium version disguised. If you haven't heard the NCF, you might like the rhodium, but some others on here picked up on the 'analytical' quality of it much sooner than I did.

So, buy it. And weep. For joy, though, just for joy.

I'm afraid I had the gold for only a short time, and found it warmer (and "softer-sounding") but did not keep it.

At the time, I was wanting more resolution, and a more forward sound (meaning, bringing the soundstage closer to me, which frequently goes along with "excitement", but sometimes at the expense of ambience, just as sitting closer to the stage in a concert hall delivers a more 'direct' sound, but less overtone structure).

Having listened to the NCF for all of 30 hours, I can see that I sacrificed some of the 'completeness' of an instrument's full tonal quality. I can now hear more of the "tuba-ness" of a tuba with the NCF.

But I can't honestly speak to the Gold outlets' final quality. I do have quite a number of outlets, though, from Furutech's next in line outlet (can't remember its designation), the Synergistic Research (both the earlier one and their current one (at least I think it's current, unless they introduced a new one in the last 8 months)), PS Audio's Power Port and PPP outlets, FIM outlets, and the Maestro.

Had an Oyaide R-1, but eventually realized it made EVERYthing sound like 5th row center, even RCA recordings, which should sound more like Row 16 (or Row P) than Row 5.

---

I do recall HP having had his Silver Circle updated and that Silver Circle was using the GTX-D Gold outlets, which HP touted as improving the sound considerably. I can only go by my own (imperfect) memory of the Gold, having had it such a short time.

Given your superior system, I think you'd hear the difference quicker than I would. Have YOU heard the Furutech Golds??? And have you heard the Rhodium or NCFs? I see your system says Furutech outlets, but not which ones, and I haven't looked over all 27 pages to see what you have. What are your experiences with the Furutechs?

---

I would also suggest that if you are looking at AC outlets, and decide to try Synergistic's Black outlet, you keep an eye on the lower midrange and the upper midrange/lower treble.

Initially, the Synergistic will have a little bump in the lower treble, giving singers a "breathy" sound, but as the unit breaks in, the upper midrange turns just a bit flat, especially compared to the previous generation Teslaplex SE unit, which was/is decidedly bright in the lower treble, although I detect no weakness in the lower midrange in the SE outlet.

Having hooked up my components into the NCF and then on a different dedicated circuit to the Synergistic Black, using a Shunyata Venom power distributor as the "control," the NCF units have, as someone mentioned on another site, a more "organic" sound, which the Black does not quite duplicate. It (the Black) is a bit "lean" sounding, although, as already mentioned, initially it will not strike one that way.

The Black is a very good unit, although it's a bit disappointing that the treble brightness of the Teslaplex SE was taken in the other direction this time around with a concomitant decrease in the "Frank Sinatra" range (lower midrange is his usual vocal range).

This will affect Black male singers the most, especially if their voice has a grittiness to it, a la Sam McClain's voice. And Barry White will sound anemic. As will marching and bongo drums.

Although I have the Black as well as the NCF, I find myself enjoying the music more purely (without looking for "more bass" or "extended highs") with the NCF unit. Of course, any romantic sounding components will sound less romantic with the Black, so in this case, given it all starts at the wall, I'd audition both carefully.

---

Really?

So what do I get when I buy one and hook it up for $200 (or more)?

Something audibly the same as this for a buck fifty or not?

 

[Ken Newton]

All else being equal, they can and are the correct approach to SQ. That's still your error in thinking and approach.

Need I point out that rarely is all else equal? What happens when they aren't? There appears to be some error in your thinking and approach as well. I don't suppose you recognize it.

Experience taught me 40+ years ago to turn off the Loudness button and set my tone controls to flat even though my settings sounded Kool to me.

Which is exactly what I've been suggesting all along. Education and experience informs our judgment. 40+ years worth for me, as well. Along with an electrical engineering education and background. You had an initial subjective preference for the loudness contour until subjective experience taught you better. At least, I hope that it was subjective experience, and not the objective fact that the loudness control applied an non-flat measured response as the reason for why you stopped switching it in. Fletcher-Munson is real. Aproperly calibrated loudness contour is valid to apply. The problem is that most are not correctly calibrated.

I'm sorry Ken, You can object till the cows come home, but using your ears as the final arbitrator of sound quality is just wrong. This is the path that has led all the major stereo media into the mess of misdirection it is today and made our hobby the laughing stock of reasonable thinkers.
Adios

No need to be sorry, nor miffed, for that matter. We simply disagree. We each have supported our positions with counter rationale. It's called debating, and it's a good thing. No worries.

 

[Thomas savage]

Here's a wonderful subjective review from the other place (four posts concatenated, same author)

---

With a sense of curiosity, I ordered the GTX NCF, 3 years after having lived with the GTX rhodium version.

What stuck me immediately is how similar it was to the first version of the Nordost generation with the Frey, Tyr and Valhalla: the upper bass/lower midrange suckout demonstrated before Nordost introduced their V2 versions. I'd heard the "silvery" sound, which is exciting, but drains the color out of the music.

The NCF version - after 12 hours of burn-in time - shows a removal of a sense of "pastels" in the music, and a move towards primary colors. It is this, I observe, that makes voices more distinct, one from the other.

Playing the Atco release of "Gimme Shelter," Jagger and Merry Clayton's voices were much more as they sound on vinyl, with the words in particular being easier to hear - and at lower volumes.

At one point, during Clayton's solo, she sings "rape, murder/they're just a shot away/they're just a shot away" and with the NCF, I could read a magazine and still hear her words clearly. Before, with the GTX, it sounded like "raaaay, mur_urr/they're just a shot away/they're just a shot away."

The letters "P", "D", "S", and "T" in particular, are more noticeable.

Should be fun at 24 hours and then the rest of the time. I didn't want mine cooked: I like the process of hearing the changes. Music will move me coming over a car radio: high end audio brings it to a more lifelike level and engages me more, but I could - and do - live without the "best" components to listen through to the music.

The original GTX now reveals itself as a bit sterile, and explains why I did not like the Furutech fuses or the IECs I placed in my amps years ago (the IECs will be leaving soon, now that I know why the Hurricanes, a model of midbass magnificence, sounded so wimpy for the past few years).

Am I distressed by having heard more resolution, but less soulfulness? Not at all, because I knew something was not right with the music.

For those who are worried about their systems sounding worse, that's a waste of worrying. The NCFs provide more of the soul of music, not more of the gearhead attributes.

I reject completely the idea that it will make anyone's system worse.

As someone else said, there was not a tonal shift, as much as there was simply more saturation, so piccolos and flutes sound different (they, all too often, blur together) and with more vivacity.

The Mercury Box set CDs sound fresh. And, yes, the subtle noise (or grain) in the highs has all but vanished. And the cymbal crash - even this early - has the midbass components in correct proportion to the higher frequencies, so it sounds not like White noise when they crash the cymbals together, but a purer, sweeter version of the cymbal.

I will likely get one for my amps and move away from a solid state integrated and back towards a good tube preamp (and to think I got rid of the CJ Classic and the ET3 because they sounded so washed out (CJ must have thought I was quite the ignorant one), but it is clear that, as good as the GTX was, it had a distinct "whitish" character, which has been banished without losing any resolution.

This also affected my perception of my ZiTron Shunyata cords, since everything was filtered through that Furutech outlet. Now, THAT, I could have lived without. But, heck, a little mystery can be fun, especially if one is a detective type.

Mystery solved! And just in time for the Sigma power cord, which will arrive in two days. I'll just have to leave it out of the system for 2 weeks, to give the Furutech time to make an impression, even though it'll require another additional week to break in. At that point, it will be 500 hours, the majority of the break in.

And in the meantime, I'll just put the Sigma on a PS Audio Humbuster and tie it to the kitchen refrigerator (I wonder if the food will taste better). I'll listen to it brand new, and then after 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400 and then 500 hours to hear the blossoming of the music and how much more emotional a sad song can make me.

Just more to look forward to!!! And it's great when the benefit outweighs the cost: $272.00 to hear Merry Clayton wailing away in "Gimme Shelter"? Waaaay worth it!

---

And I need to clarify that, when I said "What stuck me immediately is how similar it was to the first version of the Nordost generation with the Frey, Tyr and Valhalla: the upper bass/lower midrange suckout demonstrated before Nordost introduced their V2 versions.

I'd heard the "silvery" sound, which is exciting, but drains the color out of the music," I meant that when I heard the NCF generation of the Furutech, I realized that the GTX-D (R) version was the one that sounded like the generation of Nordost that had the Valhalla in it, not the current Furutech, which sounds anything BUT bleached out.

As I stated, I had noticed that the sound had changed, but I went through several upgrades very quickly (not a good idea for critical evaluation), getting Nordost Frey shortly afterwards as well as a new speaker system.

I thought the "silveriness" was simply more transparency, not realizing at the time that it bleached the sound out a bit, which I would have normally noticed.

I'm not a fan of "lean" sound, as it imparts a loss of the natural beauty of the music. And somehow, it also seems to lose out on the "toe-tapping" rhythms of music, although that's more subtle. I'd pick it up because I did African-Jazz dance for a long time and rhythm is everything in that style of dance.

The newer NCF version restores that rhythmic quality. And to buttress that observation, a friend of mine happened over last night and the only thing he EVER wants to hear is Scheherazade by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Normally, he just listens to the 4th movement, which is all strum und drang, but last night he was bouncing around on the love seat - which he never does.

I asked him how it seemed, and he said he had noticed the way the brass was going at top speed (he meant the triple-tonguing of the brass), which he hadn't really noticed before the NCF came into the system (not that he said that part: he just noticed it last night, but I had played it for myself just before he came over and noticed it (the triple-tonguing brass) instantly and thought, "hmmm, that wasn't anywhere near that distinct before.") And then, he heard it.

Now, he doesn't listen with intent: he just listens to music, but he loves Scheherazade so much that somewhere in his memory, he notices when the system sounds better or worse without ANY prompting from me (ONLY for Scheherazade. No other piece I ever play gets much reaction from him). I knew it was the NCF, but I didn't even tell him about the outlet change. He heard it all by himself. And now, listening to the JVC version of Holst's Planets, I can hear all the brass instruments are considerably more distinct, one from the other.

A really, really, good investment, and since it comes from the wall, one that will expose what your other components are doing (or not doing) down the line without disguising the problems that the GTX-D Rhodium version disguised. If you haven't heard the NCF, you might like the rhodium, but some others on here picked up on the 'analytical' quality of it much sooner than I did.

So, buy it. And weep. For joy, though, just for joy.

I'm afraid I had the gold for only a short time, and found it warmer (and "softer-sounding") but did not keep it.

At the time, I was wanting more resolution, and a more forward sound (meaning, bringing the soundstage closer to me, which frequently goes along with "excitement", but sometimes at the expense of ambience, just as sitting closer to the stage in a concert hall delivers a more 'direct' sound, but less overtone structure).

Having listened to the NCF for all of 30 hours, I can see that I sacrificed some of the 'completeness' of an instrument's full tonal quality. I can now hear more of the "tuba-ness" of a tuba with the NCF.

But I can't honestly speak to the Gold outlets' final quality. I do have quite a number of outlets, though, from Furutech's next in line outlet (can't remember its designation), the Synergistic Research (both the earlier one and their current one (at least I think it's current, unless they introduced a new one in the last 8 months)), PS Audio's Power Port and PPP outlets, FIM outlets, and the Maestro.

Had an Oyaide R-1, but eventually realized it made EVERYthing sound like 5th row center, even RCA recordings, which should sound more like Row 16 (or Row P) than Row 5.

---

I do recall HP having had his Silver Circle updated and that Silver Circle was using the GTX-D Gold outlets, which HP touted as improving the sound considerably. I can only go by my own (imperfect) memory of the Gold, having had it such a short time.

Given your superior system, I think you'd hear the difference quicker than I would. Have YOU heard the Furutech Golds??? And have you heard the Rhodium or NCFs? I see your system says Furutech outlets, but not which ones, and I haven't looked over all 27 pages to see what you have. What are your experiences with the Furutechs?

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I would also suggest that if you are looking at AC outlets, and decide to try Synergistic's Black outlet, you keep an eye on the lower midrange and the upper midrange/lower treble.

Initially, the Synergistic will have a little bump in the lower treble, giving singers a "breathy" sound, but as the unit breaks in, the upper midrange turns just a bit flat, especially compared to the previous generation Teslaplex SE unit, which was/is decidedly bright in the lower treble, although I detect no weakness in the lower midrange in the SE outlet.

Having hooked up my components into the NCF and then on a different dedicated circuit to the Synergistic Black, using a Shunyata Venom power distributor as the "control," the NCF units have, as someone mentioned on another site, a more "organic" sound, which the Black does not quite duplicate. It (the Black) is a bit "lean" sounding, although, as already mentioned, initially it will not strike one that way.

The Black is a very good unit, although it's a bit disappointing that the treble brightness of the Teslaplex SE was taken in the other direction this time around with a concomitant decrease in the "Frank Sinatra" range (lower midrange is his usual vocal range).

This will affect Black male singers the most, especially if their voice has a grittiness to it, a la Sam McClain's voice. And Barry White will sound anemic. As will marching and bongo drums.

Although I have the Black as well as the NCF, I find myself enjoying the music more purely (without looking for "more bass" or "extended highs") with the NCF unit. Of course, any romantic sounding components will sound less romantic with the Black, so in this case, given it all starts at the wall, I'd audition both carefully.

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Really?

So what do I get when I buy one and hook it up for $200 (or more)?

Something audibly the same as this for a buck fifty or not?

I use them to..

I thought they improved the sound but that might be from fixing the few lose connections I found when swapping out my old sockets from my mains conditioner/distribution block.. Or just from turning things off then on again ... Or I just imagined it...

Go back a few pages in that thread , you might find some spazmatron musings ( though Steve deleted over 1000 of my posts , so possibly the incriminating evidence of my former life has been erased lol )

 

[fas42]

Yes, and we disagree for the reasons I've been presenting. In case I've not already made it clear, I'm not suggesting some specifications free wild west of audio. Specs. do matter, just that they are not exclusively determinative as yet. Some day, hopefully, figures of merit will be formulated that are solely determinative, but until then, subjective observation plays a valid role.

More than anything else conventional specs don't tell the consumer how robust a component, or system is in the face of noise or interference factors - which is why a rig may sound magnificent one day, and almost unlistenable to on another. These aspects are almost completely ignored, and the poor user just has to hope that "tomorrow might be better!" - sometime down the track these factors will finally be recognised, and competent systems will come off the assembly lines as standard - in the interim, tweaking is a way of bypassing these shortcomings.

 

[watchnerd]

There are a few assumptions here. One assumption is that the artist heard the same sound upon in-studio playback that was heard during the live session. That is not necesarily. Musicians are notorius for forming/constructing a in their head different from the actual even sound. Another assumption is that what the musican hears on the studio monitor will match what they would hear via your home sysytem, which is unlikely.

When I say "artist", I'm not limiting it musicians. I'm including producers (who in some genres of music are often the same as "muscian") and recording engineers, who definitely did hear.

Second of all, while you're right that you can't necessarily know or use the exact same speakers, you can comply with industry guidance (as referenced in the article above).

It's not perfect, but it's a LOT closer than just buying "what sounds good to me."

There is, however, an additinal approach. Which is to subjectively judge which equipment provides the most convincing illusion of a live perfoemance made with real instruments.

That has several problems:

1. What is 'heard' in live music depends upon location in the venue and the venue. There is no singular definition of the sound of a piano or a guitar.
2. What the microphones 'hear' is not what your ears hear. They're transducers, they change the sound
3. What the microphones 'hear' almost never survives unmolested except in rare minimalist recordings. Your "live" acoustic recording has already been manipulated by mixing, EQ, compression, etc.
4. Multi-track "studio booth" recordings don't have a live performance reference point because the musicians are often not even in the same place at the same time
5. What's the reference standard for music genres that have no natural component? That are entirely electronic?

 

[fas42]

That has several problems:

1. What is 'heard' in live music depends upon location in the venue and the venue. There is no singular definition of the sound of a piano or a guitar.
2. What the microphones 'hear' is not what your ears hear. They're transducers, they change the sound
3. What the microphones 'hear' almost never survives unmolested except in rare minimalist recordings. Your "live" acoustic recording has already been manipulated by mixing, EQ, compression, etc.
4. Multi-track "studio booth" recordings don't have a live performance reference point because the musicians are often not even in the same place at the same time
5. What's the reference standard for music genres that have no natural component? That are entirely electronic?

What Ken is seeking is "equipment provides the most convincing illusion of a live perfoemance made with real instruments." - the changes you mention barely impact that aspect at all. People like Ken and me are chasing the "walk into a room with a curtain between you and the sound making things, and can't pick it!" experience - nearly all audio reproduction setups would fail this test, miserably.

 

[watchnerd]

What Ken is seeking is "equipment provides the most convincing illusion of a live perfoemance made with real instruments." - the changes you mention barely impact that aspect at all.

What changes are you referring to?

People like Ken and me are chasing the "walk into a room with a curtain between you and the sound making things, and can't pick it!" experience - nearly all audio reproduction setups would fail this test, miserably.

The best audio engineers in history have tried to make things closer to high fidelity using large amounts of research, tests, budgets, etc.

Do you realistically think you can do better than the combined knowledge that is already out there? Or by ignoring it?