Preamp-power amp interconnectors advice


I have a Nakamichi CA-7A preamp that feeds into the power amp section of a Luxman R-117 receiver. In this setup, highs and upper midrange are a bit bright while lower midrange and bass are not as strong as I would like them to be.

The CA-7A and Luxman are now connected with an Atlas Equator MK II cables that are considered “neutral”. If I use silver cables instead, the sound is very harsh and bass/lower midrange almost disappear. This leads me to suggestion that a cable that is a bit on the “dark” side, or the one with bass/lower midrange sonic signature, might be the best for this setup.

Any recommendations on such a cable with the price around $100-150 used?

Thank you,
prophos
If that is the case and you don't really like the sound of the pre then I would sell it and get another rather than trying to alter its sound with cables. Cables can alter the sound somewhat but not change the basic chacterstics of the unit.
Yes, Stanwal is right. That's exactly what I would do.
But if you insist, and I hate to make this recomendation for a few reasons, Cardas cables may give you that.
Thank you everyone for suggestions,

I'd like to keep this preamp at least for a while for several reasons.

One is that there is more in its sound that I like than what I dislike. The soundstage is great and instrument separation is just incredible, IMHO due to dual mono design.

Another reason is that CA-7A is a "control" preamp, allowing to remotely operate another Nakamichi gear connected to it. I found this feature very convenient to control my Nak Dragon.

Finally, what I hear now is a sound of a "stock" CA-7A version which I believe could be improved with modification of circuits or just simple things such another (dedicated) power cord or an interconnector cable. It worked well in the past and so I hope it will also work well this time.

I will try some Cardas cables, starting with Crosslink, and also Audio Metallurgy GA-0, Audioquest Diamondback and perhaps some others.

Stay tuned!
Prophos: You seek advice for a solution to deal with your flawed electronics. And yet you dismiss the idea to change these products.

I can understand the convenience of "control", but compromise the performance of a system in the year 2011 for the sake of a cassette player? Really? As long as convenience is your priority, sound quality will always take a back seat.

Many of us started at the low end with the infamous japanese receiver, budget turntable and/or CD player and equally compromising speakers. But in time we discovered the benefits of the midfi products from Adcom, PS Audio, etc., which took the system performance up a notch. We lost many "features" with this change, but the sonic benefits outweighed these. And then we step into the top tiers of performance .... it can be very impressive. But the result is due to the focus on sound, not "features" or conveniences. We all have our favorite brands or product lines, but willingness to let go and appreciate the benefits of the next tier of components is what allows us to achieve the improvements.

The flaws that you want to resolve are just not going to happen with cable swapping. Trying to mask or correct for tonality flaws in the system with cable changes is a forever-losing battle. No $100-150 cable is going to resolve your problem. You're a lot better off with $20 Monster cable products from Best Buy and put your focus elsewhere.

Tonal coherency should be your focus with the electronics, sources and speakers. Once you improve on this, I think your "soundstage" attributes will take a step up unexpectedly. Praising soundstage performance but dealing with tonal coherency flaws seems a bit goofy anyway.

The soundstage is great and instrument separation is just incredible, IMHO due to dual mono design.
"Dual mono" implementation here is more about marketing than benefit. There are many amps and preamps out there that share a common power supply for the two channels, that mightily outperform your electronics.
I agree with the responses by the others. But given that you want to try to reduce the brightness by changing cables, my suggestion is that before investing in quality audiophile-oriented cables you first try the cheapest and lowest quality non-audiophile cable you can find, the kind that looks like this.

The reason I say that is that the capacitance of that kind of cable is likely to be far higher than the capacitance of an audiophile-oriented cable, which in conjunction with the relatively high output impedance of your preamp will soften the upper treble at least slightly. (The CA-7A's output impedance is shown here as being either 600 or 800 ohms; I can't quite tell which, looking at the blurry pdf scan).

See this tabulation of the capacitance per unit length of various cable types, indicating 94 pf/ft for that generic cable, which is several times as great as the capacitance of typical audiophile-oriented cables.

The magnitude of that effect will increase in proportion to the cable length that you use. Obviously, though, longer length might increase other cable effects that would be adverse.

In any event, giving that a try certainly won't cost much!

Regards,
-- Al