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LinnT-cable Vrs AO cable

Z

zener

fluff
I've just taken delivery of an Audio Origami , cardas plugged arm lead , I'm going to play music for a few days and then replace the Linn T-cable and listen to that during Sunday morning. Its straight forward to swap them back.
Full system is NAS Hyperpace/Ekos/ArkivB/GRAD1/TPX2/big avondale mono amps.
Initial listening is favourable , it sounds good but I wont make a direct comparison at this point ...I'll keep you all posted.
 
I have one on my AO'd tiktok. Its well made and sounds good although I have no point of reference as J7 did my tiktok and lead at the same time and I then swapped an OL modded RB250 out.
 
I have both to play with on ye oll Sondek & even a SME arm lead. I know which way I lean.... so far. It would be very interesting to hear your thoughts Zener. Although I do feel TT balance may come into play because I feel they strikingly different.
 
per-Sony-fied said:
I have both to play with on ye oll Sondek & even a SME arm lead. I know which way I lean.... so far. It would be very interesting to hear your thoughts Zener. Although I do feel TT balance may come into play because I feel they strikingly different.
Click to expand...
If the leads are different only in FR, then it goes without saying that which is preferred will depend on the other components and not which is actually "best", yes?
 
Frequency response.
A cable should be neutral , if as I suspect some exhibit a tailored response , then I'd rate them as poor by design.
 
You'd expect that but from my brief listen thier characteristics were quite different. Maybe I need to perform a another listening session.
 
I was generalising too. However due to the sensitive signals that emit from a cartridge I suspect cable types make more difference than normal. One reason for having internal cable re-wires.
 
Zener,
how did you ever manage to enjoy your records ,with "shameful wire" in your
tonearm and using a LP12. It must have been horrible !
 
Because unless then you don't even know what's there to be had in terms of information and quality.

In fact the original wire inside the ekos is nothing but shameful in my opinion, but unless J7's Fairy Silver was in I had no chance to get to this conclusion.

Linn's Mark I outter wire ain't any better in this respect by the way, for mark II I can't state.
The Silver version finally seems to be roughly in par with J7's offer, but for x times the price.
 
I guess they used "shameful wire" to hide the problems the LP12 has , keep the window slightly dirty. It was still a very good arm from the factory , now its even better , so no worries.
 
With my Ittok LV111 I first changed to J7´s external cable, then the Cardas rewire. I ask myself if the sum of the 2 is quite possibly greater than each one separately. I am amazed by how much more detail now comes through compared with the bad old days. Apparently the original Linn internal stuff was pretty cheapo/crappo - the same stuff in fact as used in Regas and people have been changing that for donkeys years and nary a hair was turned. Just shows how blind some of us have been.
I wonder if the whole Linn arms (and maybe others too) hierarchy story might well have been different had the wire been better. I´d love to read a comparison between a J7ed Ittok LV111 and an original wired Ekos for example.
 
Although I went about it in the opposite sense - internal rewire first and external cable after - I immediately had a sense of tremendous synergy between the two. The Ekos was noticeably better after the rewire through the standard Linn cable, but it all really opened up and sang after I installed the AO external cable.

In my opinion the two are best considered together, but with the advantage that you can do them separately if your budget dictates.

Chris said:
With my Ittok LV111 I first changed to J7´s external cable, then the Cardas rewire. I ask myself if the sum of the 2 is quite possibly greater than each one separately. I am amazed by how much more detail now comes through compared with the bad old days. Apparently the original Linn internal stuff was pretty cheapo/crappo - the same stuff in fact as used in Regas and people have been changing that for donkeys years and nary a hair was turned. Just shows how blind some of us have been.
I wonder if the whole Linn arms (and maybe others too) hierarchy story might well have been different had the wire been better. I´d love to read a comparison between a J7ed Ittok LV111 and an original wired Ekos for example.
Click to expand...
 
Got a spare 2 hours this morning , so I went for it and did the swap.
I found it really hard to pin poin the differences , they are different , the T-cable sounds a bit brighter and with slightly less bass definition , not much just less tonal stuff , then I was playing "A perfect circle" .."The package" ,the T-cable sounds a tad louder (volume control not moved throughout) , theres a crashing bass and drum part near the middle, with some defined stops , in those stops , I can clearly here the crash cymbals fade with the AO cable , with the T-cable ... I can hardly here them ... Its a dynamics thing , the wider dynamics of the AO cable are allowing the low level detail, low level harmonic stuff through . I'm now going to play something completely different , see if I can spot any other things.
 
This defined it for me.
Pepe Romero , playing Rodrigo ...En Los Trigales
The AO cable shows up Romeros technique superbly , the sustain , attack , control of the fret board and Harmonic jingling of the strings are more clear , the T-cable by comparison sounds bland , this isnt a brightness thing its definately a detail , dynamics thing.
AO cable is clearly the cable for me in the context of my system. At the price its a winner. Thanks John ..nice one.
 
If the T cable is constructed in a similar way to the larger "Silver" IC Linn use, then I'd suggest it could be the multitude of copper strands giving the softer, more diffuse effect. I have no science to back this up whatsoever, but the very few lower, but fewer but chunkier-stranded cables I've tried always seem to sound more "direct" than mega thin-stranded cables, solid core taking this to an un-satifactory extreme unless it's in a very short run.

The "Silver" IC tames the lean but clean tone of the Linn amps I know, but with other, more neutral products it may be too much of a good thing, sounding a bit too sugary. I wonder if this is what's happening with the T cable.

The AO made up cable is much cheaper though, isn't it?
 
garethrl & chris... nice finding.
That happens to be exactly what I felt when I did the comparison last spring.
Interesting I found the way both cables introduced themselves from the beginning...I installed them separately as I was curious how much and which effect each would take.
(Ekos icl. inner first & outer cable later that said)

The inner gave a spectrum of detailes on my known records I had never previously heard, but played a little insecure at the beginning as if it felt unsure in an unknown environment.
Like a little bit confused professor or specialist maybe...
Within 3 hours it felt more and more confident & the music felt more like one piece...greater than ever and also easier to understand in some context.

Later I added the AO outter wire, which was an immediate blast from the beginning off in a way I could hardly believe.

Then it started to get better and better during the first 7 hours which put me at a loss for words.

Haven't heard the T, but am lucky to hear that it would not have one in my listening preference from what I understand of zeners describtion. Thanks for that.
 
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