advertisement


Replacing DNM Reson spk cable with.. ??

Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Did you audition the cable before you purchased? Do you recognise any of the criticisms of the cable, from your own experience, or is your experience different? I tried some of the Reson speaker cable, about 20 years ago and hated it. No bass energy at to speak of. I spent slightly more on some NVA cable and the difference was stark. But I won't assume the cable has stayed the same in the intervening 20 years, so I'm curious as to whether it has changed or still has the same basic attributes.
Click to expand...

Here are some impressions

I don't know how it played in your system, but here I found the bass a little stunted. On the other hand, in the middle frequencies there is a very nice feeling of transparency. I put it on for JJ Cale's Naturally. It was the best audition I've had on this record. I wanted to marry the audio. But the honeymoon didn't go that far, records like Black Sabbath's Number IV seem to have had the bassist fired.

Unfortunately, it seems like a cable that presents you with one hand and takes you out with the other. Denis Morecroft explains that conventional cables and their relationship with the amplifier tend, according to him, to insert lumpy bass and shrill highs and that DNM would equate this relationship. But I don't think that's the case, firing the bass player doesn't seem to be equating much.

As I don't believe in cable "break-in", I believe that bass will never come out. I'll give the cable a second chance, now placed between the preamp and the Marantz 2285b. It will be my last effort with this cable, otherwise I say it is only for some systems, or as a curiosity. A pity, it is extremely musical, soft, elegant in what it does well.
 
Cícero Shmidt said:
Here are some impressions

I don't know how it played in your system, but here I found the bass a little stunted. On the other hand, in the middle frequencies there is a very nice feeling of transparency. I put it on for JJ Cale's Naturally. It was the best audition I've had on this record. I wanted to marry the audio. But the honeymoon didn't go that far, records like Black Sabbath's Number IV seem to have had the bassist fired.

Unfortunately, it seems like a cable that presents you with one hand and takes you out with the other. Denis Morecroft explains that conventional cables and their relationship with the amplifier tend, according to him, to insert lumpy bass and shrill highs and that DNM would equate this relationship. But I don't think that's the case, firing the bass player doesn't seem to be equating much.

As I don't believe in cable "break-in", I believe that bass will never come out. I'll give the cable a second chance, now placed between the preamp and the Marantz 2285b. It will be my last effort with this cable, otherwise I say it is only for some systems, or as a curiosity. A pity, it is extremely musical, soft, elegant in what it does well.
Click to expand...
Yes, that’s not very different to my experience, though I didn’t fall in love with its midrange qualities in the way you did because the loss of bass energy was very quickly a deal-breaker for me and I didn’t spend much time with it after that.
 
My recollection of DNM Reson is of a stiff, springy, ugly tape of a wire (perhaps since improved, no idea) that kind of sprawled around the place in an annoying fashion, and for that reason alone I sold it the day I bought it.

I'd second the suggestion of Van Damme UP-LCOFC Hifi Grade - it's cheap as chips, extremely high quality (linear-crystal OFC - i.e. low impurity copper - to scratch the audiophile itch), and its widely-spaced "shotgun" design combines low capacitance, low inductance and low resistance. It even works with Naim's sketchy old amps that are unstable into the wrong kind of loads... 2.5mm CSA is plenty, but you can up that to 4.00mm or even 6.00mm to keep the upgrade demons happy for a bit. Starts at something like £2.10 / m.
 
I've found that the bass response of the newer DNM (the proper Denis Morecroft stuff) is far better than the older DNM Reson. I have some short runs that I use with my Naim XS. It sounds great to my ears and doesn't seem to cause any problems. That said, I think I may prefer NACA5. They're definitely different. The best comparison I can draw between the two is looking at a painting in a gallery. With the DNM, you're a few meters back, taking in the whole picture plus the frame and surrounding wall. With NACA5, you're just a couple of feet back, with the painting filling your whole vision. Which is much the same as the front seat/several rows back analogy.
 
earlofsodbury said:
My recollection of DNM Reson is of a stiff, springy, ugly tape of a wire (perhaps since improved, no idea) that kind of sprawled around the place in an annoying fashion, and for that reason alone I sold it the day I bought it.

I'd second the suggestion of Van Damme UP-LCOFC Hifi Grade - it's cheap as chips, extremely high quality (linear-crystal OFC - i.e. low impurity copper - to scratch the audiophile itch), and its widely-spaced "shotgun" design combines low capacitance, low inductance and low resistance. It even works with Naim's sketchy old amps that are unstable into the wrong kind of loads... 2.5mm CSA is plenty, but you can up that to 4.00mm or even 6.00mm to keep the upgrade demons happy for a bit. Starts at something like £2.10 / m.
Click to expand...

I really appreciate the recommendation. But in this case I was looking for an interconnect. Do you have something to suggest?
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Yes, that’s not very different to my experience, though I didn’t fall in love with its midrange qualities in the way you did because the loss of bass energy was very quickly a deal-breaker for me and I didn’t spend much time with it after that.
Click to expand...

I would say two mitigations for the case. One: Not all cds have their bass cut, maybe it's some specific frequency spectrum.

Two: this is not always in volume issues, maybe it's more "energy" as you specify. the bass gets more "ethereal", losing the punch a bit.

But I have to agree that it's quite a deal breaker...
 
Last edited:
JustJohn said:
I've found that the bass response of the newer DNM (the proper Denis Morecroft stuff) is far better than the older DNM Reson. I have some short runs that I use with my Naim XS. It sounds great to my ears and doesn't seem to cause any problems. That said, I think I may prefer NACA5. They're definitely different. The best comparison I can draw between the two is looking at a painting in a gallery. With the DNM, you're a few meters back, taking in the whole picture plus the frame and surrounding wall. With NACA5, you're just a couple of feet back, with the painting filling your whole vision. Which is much the same as the front seat/several rows back analogy.
Click to expand...

I took another test
Case 1: the signal comes out of the blu-ray device and goes to the pre-amplifier via DNM cable.

Case 2 the signal is transmitted to a TV via an HDMI cable and then sent to the pre-amplifier via a conventional p2/rca cable.

This test allows me to alternate which of the signals I want to hear, instantly, without having to remove cables and just compare with my memory.

In the second case I think the bass is more present, both at the same volume. And the tv used to be a little bit thinner. Have been this way like 10 years, except for now.
 
Cícero Shmidt said:
in this case I was looking for an interconnect. Do you have something to suggest?
Click to expand...

Yeesh! Quite an important detail I overlooked there! I'd forgotten that anyone ever thought unscreened signal-level cabling was a good idea...

My go-to for years has been Supra EFF, just can't fault it, and fairly sanely priced at ~£100 / 1m.

Same camp as the speaker cable, same bargain price - Van Damme Silver Series 'Lo Cap' is also excellent, but it's an unusually thick cable (~10mm) and phono plugs that fit used to be few and far-between - Furutech do some iirc.
 
I have 4m lengths of the original 1984 design of DNM 'Reson' Solid Core speaker cable using 0.5 mm diameter wire with bullet connectors, bought over 10 years ago. It measures approximately 0.1 ohms per metre on each conductor. They were better than the previous cables by a very tiny margin but then I've never bought into cable mythology. I've had about 4 different interconnects, Cyrus, Sugden and Gato Audio amps, several different speaker cables, 2 different Tannoys, Monopulse, Monitor Audio speakers and cable changes made a negligible difference to SQ. DNM has newer versions of its cables, 'Precision 2' and 'Resolution '. By far the most important piece in the chain is choice of loudspeaker, then source, then amp. All IMHO of course, YMMV :)
 
Thank you, people.

I think I'm going to start a new thread about some very balanced, inexpensive IC cables..

People usualy recomend van damme or mogami, etc. Van Damme current edition on amazon has silver plated copper, wich I'll try to avoid.

For Mogami, in the description they came with this shit: "We are certain that you will be extremely happy with this product right out of the box, but for optimal performance we recommend 175 hours of Burn-in Time."

I don't have helth for this...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top