What's wrong with my Cal Delta/Sigma?

I have an Alpha/Delta combo, and I just replaced the tubes with 1963 GE large plates. This has opened up my soundstage immensly. Also, the analog cables and the powercord are custom made by a guy on ebay. Do a search for Cableplex. The Nirvana cables are the best I've heard, they beat out a pair of $400 straightwires, for only $75 per 1 meter pair. His powercords are top notch, both the alpha and the delta have one. As far as the digital cable, I contacted CAL, and they told me their perferred method is the digital coax. I have two that I perfer, one is the ZuCable Firemine and the other is a custom cableplex. I can hardly tell the difference between the two, but I perfer the ZuCable. The Cableplex Digital is only $20 and it is better in my HT than a $200 Tara Labs.

as far as cables, the Interconnects made the biggest difference, and the powercord on the DAC.

Yohjixme. I had the same problem when I hooked a Theta Pearl transport I got last week. Muddy, veiled and a fat midrange. Just like you, it turned out to be a poor mechanical connection. It all disappeared when I swapped digital cables around a couple times. And yes, Dekay gave me the same advice, which did the trick. Now I'm a very happy boy.

JK, I am definitely getting some low noise tubes.

Ton, I am not familiar with tubes at all, but you think the large plates is responsible for your increased soundstage? I did some research, supposedly those tubes your using were custom made and somewhat rare. Also, being on a tight budget, I've been dwelling on taking a chance on cableplex powercords or the ps audio minilab cables since they seem to offer tremendous performance for the money, $199 for 10 awg, 3x shielded (boy, i am starting to sound like one of those absolutepower ads).

The Tubes are available at www.upscaleaudio.com, I think they were around $20 each. They have a whole lot more if you want tho spend $$$. As far as increased soundstage, I think all of the upgrades, tubes and cables, made a contribution to the sound quality. I had the tubes recommended to me by Matt, the guy who makes the Cableplex cables. I am not familiar with the PS Audio, but for the money I think you will not regret anything from Cableplex. I have an Audiophile uncle who just upgraded his entire HT, and His daughters HT, to the cableplex Nirvana cables. This includes a special subwoofer cable.

As you can tell, I can't say enough about the cables, this is my personal opinion and the biggest enhancement to my system.

Good luck with your decisions

I reinstalled my stereo today. I gave it my best effort to separate the audio and power cables, I've cleaned all the contacts with an alcohol solution (eye make up remover has amazing amounts of alcohol presents, and many differnt types of alcohol too). I moved the transport/dac away from my power/pre amp. And, now, my system is free of everything it was plagued by. Thanks for all your help!
BTW, Monster reference2 is not a bad digital coax. Beats the hell out of the Monster datalink100 I was using.