ChordMusic cable.

It would have been useful to compare the Music with the Super Lumina cables but I guess that's difficult with Chord hosting the event. I'd like to think the prices of the Music are too steep for me to consider, but I felt a little that way with the Super Lumina. 

Oh b*gger b*gger b*gger!

Indeed, I will be investigating further 

Now if only Chord could make an Aro tonearm cable in the Music spec- that would be interesting!

ATB,

Mark

Update on the ChordMusic ... have had it on home dem for the past week , and I find it a significant upgrade on the Chord Super Sarum [which in itself is the best interconnect i've heard].

A lot easier to hear the improvements in my own system.  Really everything is better , bass is tighter and easier to follow , vocals are more natural and individual , cymbals shimmer and have a decay like never before.

But its most amazing property to me is in its ability to convey the emotion in the music that even Sarum misses out on.  I wouldn't always believe a manufactures words but in this case Nigel Finn expressed it perfectly for me, when he says on the Chord site ..'With music, you know it from the opening notes and never has everything I've played sounded so right. Never before has everything I've played sounded quite so real'

The dem pair has now gone back , and boy am I missing it.  Just have to wait for mine to be delivered now.

You could turn the whole cable thing around and ask the question - Is it possible that ('normal', 'real world') cables are responsible for so much deterioration in the potential sound quality of our systems?. It does make you think!

Mind you I have seen what 'mere' Sarum Tuned Aray IC and SL speaker cables can do to my own system so maybe the answer is 'Yes'.

Now we have the Chord Music to think about! If it is that revelatory (with I am sure further developments in cable technology to come), we might have to start reappraising how we build systems, in what order do we upgrade and review (significantly) what proportion of our spend we allocate to cables.

I was criticised on here some time ago when I bought SL speaker cables for my mid classic system - now many on here have them on this kind of system, or are at least seriously considering them.

Times, that are a-changing.

Interesting findings Folkman. I had the opportunity to hear an early Chord Music, before it became so named, and was very impressed but a recent visit to Chord to hear the final version simply blew me away. In fact, like you, it's been niggling me ever since so I've got an appointment to hear the rest of the Music range at Cymbiosis next week. Oh dear.....

tonym posted:

Oh b*gger b*gger b*gger!

Should I call Maggs and get her to hide your credit cards?

nigelb posted:

Now we have the Chord Music to think about! If it is that revelatory (with I am sure further developments in cable technology to come), we might have to start reappraising how we build systems, in what order do we upgrade and review (significantly) what proportion of our spend we allocate to cables.

I was criticised on here some time ago when I bought SL speaker cables for my mid classic system - now many on here have them on this kind of system, or are at least seriously considering them.

Times, that are a-changing.

Nigel, I was thinking along the same lines!

I'm across the pond, hear in the US, it's not that easy to demo SL IC's. That being said, I still prefer an DRed front and rear end, before applying the SL Technologies.

So in reference to upgrade path, regardless of level of System, I think one should prioritize System first, just as you have.

JMHO

The Armchair QB!

Dave J posted:

Interesting findings Folkman. I had the opportunity to hear an early Chord Music, before it became so named, and was very impressed but a recent visit to Chord to hear the final version simply blew me away. In fact, like you, it's been niggling me ever since so I've got an appointment to hear the rest of the Music range at Cymbiosis next week. Oh dear.....

I was talking to Chord on the phone last week and was told they had just received the first batch of Music speaker cable. I didn't even dare ask the price !

I had the dem pair from Cymbiosis , so have put a few more hours on them .

Which are you going to listen too , be interesting to hear your thoughts.

Must provide massive sales on s/h or Xdem Sarum i/c

Folkman posted:

Dave J posted:

Interesting findings Folkman. I had the opportunity to hear an early Chord Music, before it became so named, and was very impressed but a recent visit to Chord to hear the final version simply blew me away. In fact, like you, it's been niggling me ever since so I've got an appointment to hear the rest of the Music range at Cymbiosis next week. Oh dear.....

I was talking to Chord on the phone last week and was told they had just received the first batch of Music speaker cable. I didn't even dare ask the price !

I had the dem pair from Cymbiosis , so have put a few more hours on them .

Which are you going to listen too , be interesting to hear your thoughts.

Sorry for the delay in responding...

I've got a few things to listen to so it should be a busy day and an early start from down here in East Sussex.

Initially I'm taking my 300 to compare it to a 300DR and 500 to see how they all shape up against each other. I'll also be taking my Super ARAY Din/XLRs to compare with Music versions of the same as, having already done the Sarum v SL comparison, I'm very interested to know if much more can be gained from Music. I'm also taking my LP12 on the basis that, if I do prefer Music on the Urika, I can at least be able to save myself another journey and have them fitted there and then.

Then, if there's time and my ears aren't shot, I'm going to try to have a listen to some SL speakers cables up against Sarums - Cymbiosis don't yet have a set of Music speaker cables but Nigel Finn tells me they're a bit special so I'm aiming to have a listen to them soon, too.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Please keep us updated on your SL vs Sarum speaker cable demo. I run an all Super Sarum system and would be curious if SL speaker cables can work together with Super Sarum interconnects and XLR's - and which speaker cable wins out. 

Best

Gregg

It'll be interesting to hear the Music cable. It's substantially more expensive than Sarum. My understanding is that even the Chord people went grey when they saw the bill from the supplier for a roll which was much smaller than they usually order!

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

So even more expensive than SL speaker cable no doubt and therefore not cheap for 2 x 9m runs.

Richard

£3800/m I heard! Eye watering!

That price is why I am interested in how SL speaker performs. "Cheap" compared to the Chord! 

Sorry however, imho, things are getting out of control. One could buy a complete mid tier black box system for the price of the Music speaker cables. 

Surely it couldn't really be £3,800 per metre? The Sarum is £550, with is nearly twice the price of the already very expensive Super Lumina. If it really is £3,800 per metre, for the price of a 5m pair, you could get a very nice car, or a modest house in France. Or a Birkin bag. I suppose the Birkin then makes the Music cables look cheap. It's a funny old world. 

£3,800 is the price for 1 metre rca interconnect , double the price of Sarum Super Aray , so that would make the Music speaker cable about £1,100 / metre.  Pure guess work though.

 As much as I had great results with the Sarum , and now , Music interconnects , I did not find the Sarum speaker cables in the same league , being truly beaten by my Rega SC42 cable. 

Maybe to do with the speaker cables not having the Tuned Aray system .

yes sorry - i heard price on very interesting interview with nigel and alan on youtube "hifi pig"  about development of this and their other cables - worth a listen. Still dont agree with cables at this price though!

Dave J posted:

Folkman posted:

Dave J posted:

Interesting findings Folkman. I had the opportunity to hear an early Chord Music, before it became so named, and was very impressed but a recent visit to Chord to hear the final version simply blew me away. In fact, like you, it's been niggling me ever since so I've got an appointment to hear the rest of the Music range at Cymbiosis next week. Oh dear.....

I was talking to Chord on the phone last week and was told they had just received the first batch of Music speaker cable. I didn't even dare ask the price !

I had the dem pair from Cymbiosis , so have put a few more hours on them .

Which are you going to listen too , be interesting to hear your thoughts.

Sorry for the delay in responding...

I've got a few things to listen to so it should be a busy day and an early start from down here in East Sussex.

Initially I'm taking my 300 to compare it to a 300DR and 500 to see how they all shape up against each other. I'll also be taking my Super ARAY Din/XLRs to compare with Music versions of the same as, having already done the Sarum v SL comparison, I'm very interested to know if much more can be gained from Music. I'm also taking my LP12 on the basis that, if I do prefer Music on the Urika, I can at least be able to save myself another journey and have them fitted there and then.

Then, if there's time and my ears aren't shot, I'm going to try to have a listen to some SL speakers cables up against Sarums - Cymbiosis don't yet have a set of Music speaker cables but Nigel Finn tells me they're a bit special so I'm aiming to have a listen to them soon, too.

I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Well, I managed to do all of that and an interesting and highly revealing day it did indeed turn out to be. As ever, thanks to Peter, Phil and Wayne, who did their utmost to accommodate my requests.

First things first, the comparison of my 300 with a DR was very straightforward; good though the 300 sounded from the off, the DR brings a load more to the party and represents one of those "no brainer" upgrades. Everything about it was good, no downsides whatsoever, and I can't see anyone being less than delighted with it.  I certainly did not find that it somehow destroyed the relationship the "old" version has with the Kudos S20s as suggested on another thread, far from it in fact. However, comparison with a non-DR 500 produced something of an unexpected result in that I didn't prefer the 500. Yes, it was better than the 300 but DR'ing the 300 still maintains all the qualities that I liked so much about the amp in the first place and adds to them, in comparison the 500 was just different, not better. It did not provide a leap in performance I had expected. Others will no doubt disagree but I was not left with the feeling that it would have been a worthwhile use of budget. Particularly not once I'd taken the impact of ChordMusic into account..

Folkman, your assessment pretty much matched my own findings. I first tried the DIN XLRs, which, to be honest, on their own made much more sense than the 500 as an upgrade proposition. They are almost as big a leap over the already splendid Sarum Supers, as they themselves had been over the stock Naim items. Once we'd also added a Music interconnect to the source (KDSM/1), the sheer musicality of the system, access to the intent behind the performance and all the good stuff that turns great sounding hi-fi into a means of delivering real, emotional music took a huge leap forward. The findings were the same with the LP12, perhaps more so.

I am a little surprised by your findings regarding the Sarum speaker cable, perhaps it may have been as a result of your amp and source? Or maybe they weren't fully burnt in? Certainly, they were great in the system we used and I'd recommend anyone using Sarum of any variation to try them if they are considering a speaker cable change. As with the Din XLR comparison I'd already made, the SL speaker cables were, Imo, not really in the same league as the Sarums; better than Naca5 they may be but I was rather disappointed given what others have said about them. 

As I said, an interesting and bloody expensive day in the end. If you get a chance to hear ChordMusic, you're in for a treat.

Cheers

Dave

As an addendum to the above, I've been running in the cables for about a week and I'm pleased to report that they do not suffer the same ups and downs as the Super ARAYs - and everything else Sarum - that preceded them.

Sitting here listening to Alex Machacek.... sublime!

I heard them a while ago and have to say that I was amazed by how much better they were compared to Sarum Super Aray, which to these ears are quite an improvement over Super Lumina. What cables do you have (IC, XLR-DIN)?

//jonas

Hi Jonas,

I'm in full agreement with you.  Given the system that you have, you would absolutely love them, you really ought to try them out at home if at all possible.

I got ICs for both the LP12 and KDSM and Din/XLRs and will 'unfortunately' simply have to hear the speaker cables....

Cheers

Dave

Looks like I will have to try Chord and TQ as well as Naim SL!