Aesthetix Io Sig vs Manley Steelhead-opinions pls

Tim,
Very well stated. Thank you.

Is the IO the very best?

Jtimothia, WOW! Very nice. Some will refer to that kind of language as descriptive pornography. Too bad, it's their loss. How can one remove the romance of the music from it's description? Anyway back to the subject at hand: It is an old and common truism among musicians that the silences are even more important than the notes. Enough said!

"... some cables with their bloodless black backgrounds sucking on the event horizon ..."

Nicely put, Tim (even if we're a bit slow in noticing).

Similar to such cables is the lubricant-laden stuff some people use on their vinyl to produce blacker backgrounds, which smothers the very life you described so, er, tonographically.

Tim:

I've been saying this for a while. Black background is just another coloration. I don't hear any black background when I go to Carnegie Hall. I hear openness, a crystaline clarity, transparency and space-even if the "new" hall lacks the dynamics and warmth of the old hall.