A change is as good as a rest.
I guess so, enjoying your recordings in ways differently from when I use my Naim system is also an appeal. If I am honest I have come to realise that in the end I have probably been under powering my ATC SCM 19s with my Naim 250 for a long time… and I have been enjoying the new tighter low end performance from those with the Chord system… that has been a revelation.
My curiosity was piqued when I noticed far more low end info with planar headphones compared to my then loudspeaker system… I feel it’s more in alignment now.
I’ll get onto it this morning!
… No
Next year is the year of the house, no major HiFi upgrades here! That all comes to an end this month really. The odd cable here and there but no change in the main 3.
I’ve had a great fun this year changing stuff about and I have experienced what both offer and my preferences are very firmly with the Chord sound. Its sound is dynamic, great clarity with tight bass and massive soundstage & precise layering just ticks all the boxes for me. It gives a strong sense of realism that is very addictive.
I’d been with Naim since 2015 and I really enjoyed my time with their amps. But, since July this year, I’ve spent at least 1-2 hours each day just listening and exploring different music (not including the time while working). The sound just pulls me back to listen to new stuff, to experience that sound, the feeling of being there. This wasn’t something I used to do. I also don’t miss the dominating scene of large black boxes in my office. The SN2 takes up nearly the same size volume wise as all the Chord stuff. I can spread Chord gear about and it just blends in.
Great that you’ve created a system that’s working for you.
The Naim system wasn’t doing badly… 5 years without upgrading it. So, they must be doing something right
I’ve decided which XLR cable I’ll get for the Etude and it wasn’t as hard as I thought but did provide am entertaining 5 days of listening. The candidates starting from the least expensive to most expensive were…
Tellurium Q Black 2 Ultra
Tellurium Q Silver Ultra
Tellurium Q Black Diamond
Entreq Challenger With Silver minimus Ground box and Silver Eartha cables. Pre-Loved pricing.
Price wise, biggest jump was between 1st and 2nd cable and the same difference again between 2nd and fourth… given pre-loved pricing of the last one. So, sound quality not price was the deciding factor here but, this is just my thoughts based on my system and ears etc…
TQBU2 - Very musical, fluid warmer bass and mids. Smooth and full, great detail and soundstage. Very entertaining listen. Great energy to it. Took nearly 2 days before I removed it to try the Silver.
TQSU - A very real natural tone. Not quite as warm as the black but its bass was tight, room filling with real slam when it was called for. Mids extremely detailed but neither they or the highs felt fatiguing. Very dynamic… Soundstage and openness was very impressive.
TQBD - Similar to the TQSU but warmer. There was more detail there but not much more. It felt like I was reaching the point of diminishing returns. There was a difference, just not as much as TQBU2 to TQ-SU.
Entreq Challenger - not as detailed as the TQ’s but the noise floor was lower and there was more texture in the lows. There was plenty of detail there and soundstage was impressive but something just didn’t feel right for me. While the TQ cables all seemed to reveal the Chord amp/DAC energy and pace, this cable seemed to suck some of the life out of it. Just felt slower… not even sure that’s possible but that’s the impression I got. I’d left this running all afternoon as before listening to it. Cabling is also bulky and a bit tricky to manage in small spaces.
Anyway, the one cable I kept gravitating back to was the TQSU. The others were impressive… some more expensive but the TQSU was the one that got my foot tapping all the time. Amazing pace and energy with bags of detail and clarity…. a realness to its soundstage and presentation.
It was one of those cases where the most expensive wasn’t the best (to my ears/system) and reinforces the need to home demo these cables… both Black and Silver TQ, as it’s the only way to decide which tone you prefer.
Hope this is useful to some… should they want to arrange their own audio therapy session!
Nice informative eview.
I’m sticking with TQ SU but how do you find the Entreq Primer Pro?
I’m wondering whether the sheer size of the double cabling of the Entreq Challenger for left and right interconnect probably suits a bigger system with more power. It’s like having 2 x TQ Black Diamond cables for each side… which themselves were heavy duty!
I use Oyaide XLR cables between my TT2 and Nagra integrated. They are the only ones I have tried, I owned them from my 7 channel home theatre days. I doubt I will do any kind of cable shootout any time soon, sometimes you have to just STOP…for a while, and enjoy what you have.
Are you new here ?
No, I was on the Naim upgrade train for many years, jumped off with my wallet intact.
Very true… I didn’t have an XLR cable and didn’t want to buy a “make do” and then replace it later… seemed a little pointless so this shootout was to make sure I bought the right one as I won’t be changing it any time soon. Other priorities next year! The Etude was an early 50th BD present to myself
I hear you, if I wanted to, I could dive into speaker cable, XLR cable,Ethernet cable and switch rabbit holes right now. I just do not have the desire, my system sounds good as is.
I agree… I think I may be set for many years now. When I was listening last night I just couldn’t have been happier with what I was hearing. I know there is better but I don’t care, I love what I have!
I preferred the RCA Primer Pro to TQ Ultra Black RCA, but that is in my system.
I have just traded the TQB RCA UB with a therapist for a Minimus box + Konstantin RCA grounding cable that I already had (I.e. not in the signal chain) — which I am still trying out in different components. It made the biggest difference of all connected to my ZenMini3 (+LPSU) which is now going to a new home shortly despite my liking it and praising it here.
I was ‘made an offer I couldn’t refuse’ yesterday for a pre-loved SonicTransporter i7 on a ‘buy or return’ basis - and that isn’t being ‘returned’, so the server& main system streamer/bridge configuration has undergone a 100% refresh in 5 days - both now on the SonicOrbiter OS, still using roon Core on the (new) main server, with HQPlayer to try out for upscaling in a week or so.
The various roonReady endpoints, including my outgoing DigiOne Sig, really work well with the STi7 which is designed from the outset as a higher powered server than the Zen/Zenith and the Nucleus+ (i7 but different processor).
It might be worth you trying a couple of grounding cables into the Nucleus+ from the Minumus box you have on loan from the yard in Wallsend…
I need an XLR for the new amp. I’m using my TQ black RCA at present but having read up on it it seems clear am XLR is a better option so I’ll sellinw and pick one up. Either a TQ black or an ultra black though I suspect
I’ve heard so. If I bought I’d change the speaker cables to match too in time
@dayjay Just to say, I corrected a typo… it’s the Ultra Black 2 not the first versions. Apparently there’s a big difference between the two.
Ordered it tonight, will be interesting to hear what it does