Xindak Cable Question

Amal , the steps are about equal between the fs2 , gold and valhalla in my opinion. The street price difference between gold and Valhalla is another story . I see you have the Xindak tube sacd player. Me too. Its a giant slayer on sacd and competed nicely with my marantz sa 1 which was 8k. The problem with the Xindak is that I hear it is using inferior internal parts and has a transport that Sony uses in their boomboxes. Its a reliability issue . I cannot verify this but was told that from an audio engineer- designer with no axe to grind. The sound however is what matters and I think it is stunning on sacd. Redbook is ok. I could have afforded the Valhalla on the system that i put the Xindak gold on and chose the gold bacause while the Valhalla is almost invisible , the Xindak has the ability to draw you into the music.The instruments just seem to linger a bit longer in the air and have a rich , golden tonality that I find facinating . Cymbals on the gold just stun you with their presence and have vastly different character from one another in a given song than the valhalla. I want different sounds for each of my 3 systems and am so happy with the gold and fs 2. I change my syatem all the time and may very well move on to another cable but for now i am just enjoying the music. Cheers.

Thanks Brainwater.

I do have the Xindak SCD-2 and enjoy it a lot. I am no electronic engineer, but when I took the top off to see which tubes they had as stock, I noticed the layout to be very nice and could identify at least few branded parts in there, so I do not think all the parts they use are inferior. OTOH, since the SACD transports are different from CD transports, I'm not sure if they can use the "boom box" transports in SCD-2.

That being said, I do agree with you on the reliability issues. Mine refused to play CD-Rs initially and I was getting ready to send it back when it started playing few of them, especially the ones that were recorded with lower speeds (2X and 4X). Since then I have been able to play lot of CD-R (including some, the player initially refused to play!). Sounds strange, but I wonder if that was an adoptability issue.

I have decided to go for FS-Gold, probably two sets for bi-wiring. Given the price, I think it is a no-brainer.

Cheers,

Brent: Judging from what you wrote above, it would appear that you find the "lack of decay", "lack of harmonic structure", "lack of body & warmth" and the "TOO fast" sound of Nordost to rub you the wrong way. Would this be a logical deduction or am i reading too much into this? Sean
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Brainwater, i see that you use xindak's power cables as well. How do they compare to other power cables you've tried?

Hey Sean , no , not really. I want different sounds from each of my systems. I frequently try changing different links in my three dedicated listening rooms in an attempt to simply learn how these changes sonically alter things. Tube system in one , solid state in another and a mulltichannel music system in another . Its a learning curve and since i have no outside interests { and have a lot to learn still } , it seems im doomed to such trivial pursuits. I know the concept about sound absolute and its quest but i am on various paths looking at various things. I am on a tube kick having recently purchased the Cary cad 211 anniversary monos and have found the swapping of the cables facinating and not necessarily following convential wisdom either . As to the specifics of the question..... It is entirely possible that the spm cable was a bit too lean for my tastes but the cable simply was not resolving information the Xindak easily left non obscured. The Nordost may have been a bit more accurate in its determination of musical note decay but the Xindak gold was so obviously superior in creating air around musical notes , lingering into the back of the soundstage , that I found its presentation more realistic and was subsuquently sucked into a suspension of disbelief that the Nordost simply did not give me . At least on my systems in my own experiments. On the other hand , i need and crave the lazer like accuracy of the Valhalla { which have many of the characteristics of the spm s } to realize the complex structure of high resolution mulltichannel musical playback in my Meridian - Aerial room . The speed and natural sound reproduction pave a way for the complex layering of music in that room . Lots of ways to feel about what makes you tick as a listener. All this is just my opinion and though may be totally incorrect , I feel i am able to learn faster and can therefore get better at this stuff that consumes many of us.... Glad you are back man.