Jena Labs Symphony vs. Valkyre IC's

I've compared and listened to the trio plus, fugue, symphony, valkyre and pathfinder in a few different systems over the last few years. I previously thought the symphonies offered the greatest "value" in there line up- maybe they do- but not long ago I realized that value is not the right way of explaining it. I've also said in the past that as you move up the line you get more, that's kind of ambiguous and in a way inaccurate. Having personally owned symphony and pathfinder interconnects I feel I have a great understanding of just how much better they get as you move up.

When I purchased the pathfinders I was not anticipating on liking them much, I didn't think they were going to be much better then my symphonies. As soon as I put them in the improvement was dramatic, the biggest change was the air and three dimensionality of instruments, vocals or any other presence on the recording. Everything had gained its own "space" on the soundstage unlike anything I have ever experienced in my room before. A flute sounded light and delicate but true to what a flute sounded in the space a flute belonged. Dynamics increased signicantly which probably added to the air, space and all of the other new found improvements. Soundstage gained not only width and depth but accuracy(this is how you can, in a half assed way, say that it is "more" of the house sound), the back ground became a little blacker with greater contrast, speed and attack also became much better. So now the question is how can you compare a cable that is $1100 to one that is $6000? It hardly seems fair, but if your bank account will permit it and you want the next level, the improvements are there and well worth the price of admission- to this listener any way.

As to symphony vs. valkyre, I've only compared them directly once and in a system I was not too familiar with at the time. It was hard to draw a conclusion, the changes were clearly not night and day, but subtle. From my experiences as an audiophile these subtle changes are why we are in the hobby. When your listening to a piece of music that you've enjoyed 100 times in the past, and this time your a dozen little steps closer to connecting with the music- the money spent means very little. These subtle changes are also the things that make a system enjoyable day in and day out, reducing listener fatigue, allowing you to enjoy more music more of the time. Instead of throwing a lot of meaningless adjectives around, I thought, for a change, I would try to rationalize it as I saw it.

It's comments like that that always tempts me to upgrade from the Symphony's. But when you really look at it, the Valkyre's are about 3 times the price and the Pathfinder's are 6X the price. Costs-no-object, I have no doubt that the Pathfinders or even the Dreamdancers are the way to go. But I think the Symphonys are at a level where it wouldn't be a weak link in a SOTA system. I have no reason to doubt that the Symphony is where the sweetspot is.

But it's not such a big issue. Upgrading from Symphony's is going to be easy. Since the cables are made pretty much the same way (except more wires), you can upgrade one IC at a time. But for the difference in price between the Symphonys and Pathfinders, I would bet using the money on 2 top of the line powercords would be a better upgrade. But I would imagine that someone with everything in place wouldn't be able to live knowing that there's something better out there.

Has anyone compared Symphony to Nordost Valkyrja cables or Virtual Dynamics Master cables ?

Well its a bit offtopic (but not much) but seeing how pathfinder discussions got in here I will. Tireguy, have you heard/compared the pathfinder from jena to the vahalla from Nordost?

Michael

I had a full set of valhalla's here for audition not long after I was using the symphony-valkyre interconnects and speaker cables. I preffered the symphony interconnects to the valhalla's so it only seems clear that the pathfinders would best the valhalla's(to this listener anyway). Don't get me wrong it was pretty close, but when it came to a cable I would want in my system everyday it was the jena's by a little bit. Another listener in a different room with different equipment may feel exactly opposite. I preffered the more defined soundstage, blacker background and more accurate bass. The bass was the largest imrpovement, the others were less obvious- I am in a no way saying I didn't like the valhalla's because if I didn't have Jena's I would use them- they are very good!

Just like Frankg stated its not good to mix, on there own they were good, but when you put them together I did not like the results.

I have tried a lot of cables over the years and still prefer the Jena's they seem to do everything right.

As to Howard's comment about powercord upgrades vs. interconnect upgrades, I can say I noticed a very significant improvement with the pathfinders that I have NEVER experienced with pathfinders. The things that the pathfinder's added I have never heard from any cable or tweak before. Powercords do make a difference but its not the same as signal cables(IMO), they will allow you to adjust the sound to your desires, more of a tweak then an integral part of the system. I guess this falls into audiophile grey area, where you draw the line would souly depend on your experiences. While I have noticed improvements with powercords(sometimes significant) its not to the same degree as interconnects/speaker cables. Again this will be VERY system dependent.