Doug Schroeder Method, Double ic

Celander the starquad is also excellent especially on turn table to phono preamp, on the same set up the starquad it has more dynamic , fast , vocal is with fresh tone. ... 

Celander the KC I heard it’s the equal of the old model phyton aq $500 , truly good ic...The 4ft starquad $175 it has his musical chAracter as well..can’t go wrong with the starquad...

Jayctoy, that’s great!

But I am referring to how folks should be comparing assemblies. If one does not want to make a cash outlay for a discrete SM assembly without splitters, then I understand that very well and for a variety of reasons, such as cost, availability of a DIY’er, or a cable manufacturer willing to offer custom services or products.

And I do endorse setting up test SM assemblies with identical IC topologies/brands using a set of splitters. It’s inexpensive enough to do.

Just be realistic with expectations. A SM assembly with inexpensive single-run IC’s will yield dramatic SQ improvements over the same inexpensive IC’s deployed in a single-run configuration.

Will the SM assembly version of an inexpensive IC be a SQ giant killer over a single-run of a more expensive, higher SQ, IC? Maybe so, maybe not.

But will the SM assembly version of the inexpensive IC be a SQ giant killer over a SM assembly of the more expensive, higher SQ, IC? Likely not.

Celander, I agree with you, .

The Teo Audio guys have the goods on a lot of these metrics in terms of SQ comparisons of their single-run IC’s versus their corresponding SM, Double-Double counterpart IC assemblies. A “SQ truth table” of their products would be worth seeing.