Super Lumina chapter three.

I added a brand new XLR lead about a month after adding the speaker leads. The XLR does give a greater clarity and an out of the box sound from the speakers, but somehow it seemed a bit unnatural on some records. Some days the sound was a bit ropey, and some very good. Now I've had them over three months, the sound is quite extraordinarily good. So beware of making comparisons after a week, as the SL cables will hardly be run in at all. Three months on, the cables are still improving, and giving a sound from my modest setup that I didn't know was possible. The synergy between the cables is very evident. 

Thanks HH, I take your point that 10 days or so may well not allow the cables to reach their full potential, so I guess my very understanding dealer will have to leave them here for a while yet.

I do intend to give the Chord Sarums a trial, but I will be surprised if they outperform the SL cable, as past experience suggests that the synergy, to which you refer, between component parts of the setup, usually prevails.

I have to say though, that this final part of the SL equation does sound quite remarkable fresh out of the box.

Regards,

Dave.

Don't worry, it will go horribly wrong at some point!

Can't say I noticed much of a burn-in period with my XLRs, firstly the single one to my 250.2 and later with the double when I replaced the 250.2 with a 300.  I do those recognise the benefits described.  It seems that while each of the cables themselves (interconnect, speaker cable, XLR) there's also a synergy factor when the full SL loom is completed. I've been very pleased with mine.

I haven't made this comparison on the DIN/XLR cable but I have carried out a direct comparison at home between the SL and the Sarum Super Aray interconnects and there is a thread about this. To cut a long story short the Sarum went deeper (but without the necessary control needed down there) and showed a slight bloom which, although made the presentation rather beautiful, led to a little softening of leading edges. The SL was altogether more incisive and insightful but was a tad less forgiving of poor or harsh recordings/mastering.

Overall I much preferred the SL interconnect which I have no doubt was displaying synergy with my SL speaker cables. These comparative traits may of course not necessarily be the same with the DIN/XLR but it will be interesting to have your impressions on this.

Achieving greater clarity when the mix gets complex on busy recordings is an aspect of replay that is one of the most challenging for any system (IMHO) and one I have been striving to improve. So when you mentioned this in relation to the SL XLR cable, you got my interest straight away.

I will be watching this thread closely.

Just get your wallet out. Having SL all the way through just makes sense. 

Its all right for you HH, you only need two SL sections for a full loom. I'm still having to slum it with the Witch Hat DIN/XLR 'till my numbers come up on the lottery.

That's one of the reasons I chose what I have. Two mains wires, two speaker wires and a din to XLR - that's the lot. And very nice it sounds too. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Just get your wallet out. Having SL all the way through just makes sense. 

+1 though for some set-ups that's quite expensive.

And I thought I was good at spending other's money!

I have just added XLR and Speaker cables (3 pairs) to complete a full SL setup.  I added the XLR before the speaker cable, to get a clearer view of the XLR effect.  Although mine are not at all run in, they have had a really big impact on the bass.  Tremendous base lines are now prominent in the way the SL IC and SNAXO did for the vocals.  For me it was more pleasing than adding the SL speaker leads, as it really complemented the other cables.  I was initially very wary of the XLR, given the initial experiences of some and the significant cost.

I cannot comment on the Chords.

dave marshall posted:

Thanks HH, I take your point that 10 days or so may well not allow the cables to reach their full potential, so I guess my very understanding dealer will have to leave them here for a while yet.

I do intend to give the Chord Sarums a trial, but I will be surprised if they outperform the SL cable, as past experience suggests that the synergy, to which you refer, between component parts of the setup, usually prevails.

I have to say though, that this final part of the SL equation does sound quite remarkable fresh out of the box.

Regards,

Dave.

 

Then allow yourself to be surprised, and also allow an equivalent number of hours burn in. Actually you won't have to, the Sarums are vastly superior. I've done the comparison on several occasions now and the SLs are a pallid alternative. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Don't worry, it will go horribly wrong at some point!

Aargh!

Distinct wobble since yesterday, all sounds a bit strident this morning.....................or maybe that's just me having a Sunday morning moment. 

Dave.

Dave J posted:

dave marshall posted:

Thanks HH, I take your point that 10 days or so may well not allow the cables to reach their full potential, so I guess my very understanding dealer will have to leave them here for a while yet.

I do intend to give the Chord Sarums a trial, but I will be surprised if they outperform the SL cable, as past experience suggests that the synergy, to which you refer, between component parts of the setup, usually prevails.

I have to say though, that this final part of the SL equation does sound quite remarkable fresh out of the box.

Regards,

Dave.

 

Then allow yourself to be surprised, and also allow an equivalent number of hours burn in. Actually you won't have to, the Sarums are vastly superior. I've done the comparison on several occasions now and the SLs are a pallid alternative. 

Hi Dave J,

Were you testing with a full Sarum loom, i.e interconnects, XLR's and speaker cables?

Dave.

Hi Dave,

I've now tried them in an all otherwise Naim-cabled system, a mixture of Naim with Sarum speaker cables and in an all SSA system. Results were always in favour of the Sarums.

Nigel, I suspect that the versions that you tried were not quite run in as one of the areas that we all remarked upon was the clarity and cleanliness of the bass. For me though, it's not about the bass, mid or treble nor any individual aspect of the recording, it's about the emotion, cohesion and credibility of the musical performance.

Cheers

Dave

Dave J posted:

Hi Dave,

I've now tried them in an all otherwise Naim-cabled system, a mixture of Naim with Sarum speaker cables and in an all SSA system. Results were always in favour of the Sarums.

Nigel, I suspect that the versions that you tried were not quite run in as one of the areas that we all remarked upon was the clarity and cleanliness of the bass. For me though, it's not about the bass, mid or treble nor any individual aspect of the recording, it's about the emotion, cohesion and credibility of the musical performance.

Cheers

Dave

Dave, when I home demoed the SSA interconnect, I was told by the dealer that it was fully run in. It is strange that our observations of SL vs SSA are so at odds. Please remember that it was the interconnect I compared not the DIN/XLR.

I use a 252DR (NDS source) and I notice you use a 552DR. I wonder if the SSA might be preferable with the 552.

Anyway, my findings were clear and unmistakable as I am sure yours were too. Just goes to show that personal taste, system variables and the fact we all 'hear' differently can conspire to produce entirely opposing preferences.

Nigel - we have touched on this before and my experiences so far are entirely consistent with Dave J's. So yes personal preferences are key

Just last month i had the A/B demo in dealer listening room environment, and my preference soon gravitated towards Sarum Super Aray.

My mission was to replace the Linn silvers RCA-RCA [with mayware DIN adaptor] from Urika to 552; with a top quality RCA-DIN cable. The bake off between SL & SSA was fairly easy to hear, and conclusive, and i had no second thoughts on buying a Super Aray.

I like the look and feel of Super Lumina cables, very slinky build quality, nicely understated, and classy looking connectors. My impression is that they win the aesthetics award. The Chord cables are quite bulky and dressed in bright play school colours, however in operation the Chord bulkiness [which presumably is the rather effective shielding built into the cabling] is conveniently pliable enough to be helpful in regard to cable dressing.

The Sarum Super Aray cables are a shocking revelation, back at home with the newly fitted SSA cable i am shocked at the transparency this upgrade has made. A welcome benefit is a whole new level of undercurrent bass complete with astounding high resolution. It's just amazing how much detail and information the Linn Silvers hold back. My dealer had kindly let me take home some more Sarum cables to try out, DIN-DIN for the CDS3 to 552, a pair of XLR-DIN for the 500, and two snaic cables; one being 1m long and other being 1.2m.

The upgrade benefits also manifest with the CDS3 to 552, completely surpassing what the Hi-Line is capable of, again a whole new level of lower and undercurrent bass complete with wide frequency window transparency and high resolution. When the full Aray i/c loom was fitted, XLR-DIN left and right on the 500, sounds became more natural, easy on the ear, a sense of realism that is instantly enjoyable, musical,  recognisable with Nam PRaT. The choice of two different snaic lengths was very helpful insight on apart of the dealer, i found the longer awkward to dress in my system, maybe this is why it degraded bass resolution and some top-end edginess, but the shorter length dressed easily into free space, the music and refinement returned to show even more resolution, and listening satisfaction. 

The Super Aray's would appear to have the ability to show the listener just what the components can achieve, the Super Aray's don't tune or change the tone of the sound, they simply reproduce a neutral sonic quality that conveys what the components are capable of.

There is nothing wrong with Super Lumina, it's a good cable, an improvement over Hi-line, and that's coming from me - someone who has always liked Hi-line in preference to the good in it's day old lavender. But when faced with a A/B shoot out with Super Aray i find the Super Lumina to be fairly conclusively out classed. IMO Super Lumina would be a more desirable product if it was marketed at half it's price. Or perhaps i'm being unfair, the Super Lumina is after-all the Statement cable, perhaps that is where it truly belongs?

Debs

Umm...If I understand you correctly you didn't do the same comparison as me i.e. SL vs SSA interconnect. Yes, the SL is way better than the Hiline, without doubt. I believe another reason I preferred the SL IC was that I was using SL speaker cables and there must be some synergy between them that put the SSA IC at an immediate disadvantage. If you take this argument to its logical conclusion then the only fair test would be A/B full loom SSA vs full loom SL. Now that would be very interesting.

nigelb posted:

Dave J posted:

Hi Dave,

I've now tried them in an all otherwise Naim-cabled system, a mixture of Naim with Sarum speaker cables and in an all SSA system. Results were always in favour of the Sarums.

Nigel, I suspect that the versions that you tried were not quite run in as one of the areas that we all remarked upon was the clarity and cleanliness of the bass. For me though, it's not about the bass, mid or treble nor any individual aspect of the recording, it's about the emotion, cohesion and credibility of the musical performance.

Cheers

Dave

Dave, when I home demoed the SSA interconnect, I was told by the dealer that it was fully run in. It is strange that our observations of SL vs SSA are so at odds. Please remember that it was the interconnect I compared not the DIN/XLR.

I use a 252DR (NDS source) and I notice you use a 552DR. I wonder if the SSA might be preferable with the 552.

Anyway, my findings were clear and unmistakable as I am sure yours were too. Just goes to show that personal taste, system variables and the fact we all 'hear' differently can conspire to produce entirely opposing preferences.

Hi Nigel,

You  may be right wrt 552; all of the systems in which I've compared Sarum Super ARAY with SL have been 552 based. I have though also heard the Sarums (and ChordMusic but let's not get into that just yet! ��) in a lot of different systems - Linn, Chord, Hegel, etc - and in all of them they have made a profound and positive difference. I do however totally agree with you regarding personal taste and that's what matters the most, I'm just really glad I didn't bow to popular opinion when it came to choosing which gear to buy.  Fortunately it's relatively easy to make the comparisons you, I, Debs and Chris have done independently.

Good post Debs!

nigelb posted:

Umm...If I understand you correctly you didn't do the same comparison as me i.e. SL vs SSA interconnect. Yes, the SL is way better than the Hiline, without doubt. I believe another reason I preferred the SL IC was that I was using SL speaker cables and there must be some synergy between them that put the SSA IC at an immediate disadvantage. If you take this argument to its logical conclusion then the only fair test would be A/B full loom SSA vs full loom SL. Now that would be very interesting.

Quote from what i said above:

"Just last month i had the A/B demo in dealer listening room environment, and my preference soon gravitated towards Sarum Super Aray.

My mission was to replace the Linn silvers RCA-RCA [with mayware DIN adaptor] from Urika to 552; with a top quality RCA-DIN cable. The bake off between SL & SSA was fairly easy to hear, and conclusive, and i had no second thoughts on buying a Super Aray."

I've been using the SSA on my Chord QBD76HDSD DAC to 552 for a while now, but thought, given the positive reports, that I should really try the SL. To cut a long story short, I really didn't like what the SL did in my system. It gave more detail but killed the life of the music.

More evidence, if any were needed, that you really need to try these things at length in your own system. I also use SA betwixt Urika and 552; as Debs has reported, it was unbelievably better than Linn Silvers.

I had the din to XLR SuperLumia and Chord Sarum Super Array cables on dem for about 4 weeks between 552 and 500.

To cut a long story short, the S/L returned to my dealer & the SSA's are in situe now.  The sound stage was just so much deeper and the sound was just so much more enjoyable with the Super Arrays. By comparison I found the S/L sounded too 'flat' and dare I say it.. lifeless.   Price didn't enter into the comparison at all, though of course the outcome relieved my credit card of about a grand

(PS - TonyM describes exactly what I found with S/L in the above post when he says "killed the life of the music")

conclusion: we each hear things differently. but hey, whats new?

enjoy...

ken

Indeed Ken - some people are not converts to the Radikal