will
|
I think these take a fare bit of time Lon, even with burned in cables, which makes some sense when you consider that thick slug of metal.
Here is my first real evaluation after quite a few weeks of heavy play and experiementing.
My power path right now, all parts are upgraded with receptacles, filter caps, wires, etc…. Between wall and a 5 amp Fusebox, is a “piggy” I made using multiple gauges of mil-spec silver plated copper/teflon, combined coming up to 12 gauge, with Rhodium Plated UPOCC Neotech ends. It is faster and more open/resolving than stock piggys to compensate for what I found to be excess bigger power sound consequences from changing to the SDFBs. My most transparent/musical cable, similar in design to the new piggys, connects the fusebox to a 500 watt Balanced Transformer with its silver slug. Finally, Rhodium cable ends, and a silver slug into the Balanced Transformer make the beginning of my power a little warm, but nicely resolving with fast clarity and dynamic hit.
Powered by the transformer is a heavy duty, very resolving aluminum power strip/filter with a Furutech plug filter and a Shunyata Defender. My DAC and Singxer USB Bridge are into a Brickwall, which is plugged into the strip. Both front end pieces have polished ground wire copper slugs and no Fusebox (not having had fuses blow in SS front ends, I “risked” no fuse for years, but the Brickwall does have protection); the 300B/845 amp and CSP3 are also powered by the strip. Their main power cords are both versions of Neotech’s ready made 11 gauge blend of UPOCC copper and silver plated copper cables, the amp with Rhodium UPOCC ends, and the CSP3 with Gold plated UPOCC ends. These are some of my more fast and neutral/transparent cables.
The 5 amp Fusebox between wall and Transformer acts to degrees as a system safety, while allowing me to put a silver slug into the 5 amp 300B/845 amp, past the transformer, but using the one fusebox. Not yet fully modified, I like using a clearer faster silver slug now in the amp, the greater speed and clarity of the Rhodium ends and the relatively expressive silver sluggos livening up the amp nicely. Once finished it may be nicer with a mellower Verifi copper sluggo, the coppers a little warm with a pretty clean openness that has a sweet copper sheen and nice complexity.
The CSP3 has its own 3 amp Fusebox fed with the same specially made piggy design, but with UPOCC gold plated copper Neotech ends. The fully modified CSP3, already open and fast, sounds really good with the gold plated piggy ends and Verifi copper sluggo. The warmish sweetness from those together gives and pretty fast and revealing sound with a really nice subtly euphonic touch that does not offset the spectral balances or slow it down notably.
The silver slugs from Golden State Liquid Blue linked, like my home-made copper slugs, are more like 6 mm. Comparing the thicker coppers to Verifi’s 5mm copper sluggo, it could be in part the copper quality differences, but the thicker home-made copper slug sounds bigger, fuller, darker. Based on past experiments with wire/cable size increases doing similar, I think it is probably more the larger gauge/size than metal differences. The oversized silver slugs are similarly big/full sounding, but they are clear and fast enough to be relatively balanced, not sounding too heavy/thick to me, where the big coppers did go over the top in those ways here…
So I now have 5 “sluggos,” two heavier coppers made of polished ground wire into the front end pieces, 2 heavier silvers, one in the Balanced Transformer and one in the Amp, and a Verifi copper in the CSP3. This took a while to get to, the story below.
Compared to a fuse, the way the Sluggos change the sound makes sense. Seems mostly about the comparatively giant conductor letting power through more quickly and fully, and this alters the energy and sound characters of everything beyond. The increased feed sounds like it is loading the power supply faster and more completely, as well as all the parts and tubes beyond…. which could be “good” or “bad” depending on system/room variables.
With my components already really carefully balanced while using good sounding fuses, the piggys/sluggos had some good solid qualities, but were too much, shifting careful balances toward darker/denser/more consolidated and forceful. And as is usual with more power feed, whether from bigger cables of the same design, bigger power supply caps of the same kind, bigger wires, sluggos, etc, in my experience, after a point, the extra push results in consolidation of finer information and balancing toward bass spectrally, moving the whole toward bigger, thicker, denser, and darker balances with less apparent finer detail and space.
Really, if the components sound great in all musical areas using fuses, why wouldn’t an amped up power feed change that… especially in simple/resolving/alive tube gear where everything can be so easily heard. Everything designed and tuned to sound good with fuses, whether we prefer the changes or not in a given setup, they will happen with this gear.
Yet I seem to be a wildcard by reports, the SDFBs working fine once I got the copper sluggos, but not an ultimate sound for my needs. For me the effects of better power delivery went too far, thickening, darkening, slowing, consolidating, especially noticeably, the lower frequencies, while making the mids a little too “warm,” and mids up tending a little hard for me.
I am convinced now that my unusual response to the SDFB pointed to how much it depends on where we start. The spectral balances here were really good… bass full but fast and impactful and strong enough in the balance to warm the mids a little, but without masking… making the mids sweet with complexity and speed…..and highs were open, complex and smooth... not overly consolidated, without hardness. Density and speeds in various parts of the spectrum sounded right, balancing together convincingly and strong enough to be exciting without being too forceful, while being able to be subtle while still being fast and dense.
Evaluating when first testing with stock Piggys, the gold sluggos at that point were over the top in weighing toward density and bass, so much so the bottom felt a little disparate from the top on many recordings…Also, Verifi’s piggys sounded good to me, pretty fast and revealing, but they too tuned the sound a little heavier, weighing it toward density and bass in my setup.
Also, I have come to a place of avoiding strong compensations, trying for relatively reference sound with changes. This makes it easier for me to read the system, new adjustments, or new things more clearly. To me, strong compensations can sound good, but compounded over time, they make it hard to know what is what, and can throw off the ultimate balances without being obvious until it is. And the SDFB is a really good idea, presumably protecting things for a very long time with conceptually better power delivery. So I am shifting my approach in this case, thinking it was worth some effort to adjust things, including some carefully approached fundamental component changes, to try to retune to the sluggos….
When I got some Coppers sluggos from Mark, still using stock piggys, they made a pretty big difference...warm, but more open and neutral in this setting than the golds, and I started to see more where the Sluggos could take this sound. So I kept playing with milder tube changes, cable rolling, and finally some modifications I had been thinking about anyway to open things up. It got pretty nice. By relaxing the new power push and in turn opening up density/consolidation, it became less dark, faster, and more complex. The Verifi coppers were faster, more resolving and neutral, with more complex harmonic information. But still the combo of stock piggys and copper sluggos was quite nice, but too strong and colored for me.
Finally, still with stock piggys then, with other adjustments, I got to a place where I liked the copper SDFBs quite a bit. To verify, I decided to test with fuses. Thinking I was done, I was surprised to be relieved to have the system open up with more speed, space and harmonic complexity by switching back to the fuses. A more open soundstage, everything becoming more complex and less dense, but plenty dense and dynamic still in this system/room. I realized the SDFBs were still a little too consolidated and forceful….not on everything, but I depend on balances that will make most of the recordings I listen to sound pretty real with the help of some gain tuning.
Then I got some silver slugs, and right off they were big sounding, but faster, more resolving, and feeling more balanced toward neutral ... I think mainly because they are more resolving, they are faster and more defined in sound and space, and being nearly 5-N silver, relatively smooth and warmish. With them I kept working on it… getting some compelling qualities, but the very open fine detail and space was still being consolidated a little too much into density for my tastes, and the density leaking into space, I missed the dynamic, but more relaxed sound balances I have come to need. You know, when the time and density is “right” how more space shows up and everything slows down… more space between the sounds, less smear making it all sound more of whatever it is, whether in all the many areas of density and dynamics, or in the subtler decays and textures… complete, exciting and relaxed.
This was when I broke down and made my faster, more resolving and neutral lower gauge piggys, and they really went a long way toward neutrality and balance with the sluggos. With the materials and geometry I used, my 1st test was on the lighter side of 12 gauge according to the wire combination calculator I use, and they were a little too clear/fast. I added some 20 gauge wires to the mixes, and ended up liking it better, still clear and fast, but with a bit more density, body and weight, ending up more on the higher side of 12 gauge, nearly 11. These cables, with the sluggos, by comparison are pretty neutral here, not really sounding like they color the sound in any notable ways. Still, the different ends are audible as choices, but both are neutral enough to make playing with different sluggos nicely revealing of the sluggo’s sound.
Now all sluggos are interesting choices. The Gold’s immersion process, I am guessing from the sound, pronounces the gold qualities, more obviously gold than gold plated cable ends. Compared to the other Sluggos I have tried, they are big sounding and warmer/rounder/softer, a little slow especially on the leading edges, but that is replaced by a sense of a stronger hit right after the leading edge, so can feel exciting. Relative to the others, more notably slowish and warmish, detail is softened, but still relatively resolved. To me, in this warmish system as it is now, they give an overstated warmth, but do that nicely... They are the most euphonic sounding here, for me a little too round and slow, but also pleasantly “trippy,” and in the right company, especially in a brighter/cleaner room, I can see how they could be loved.
The Slivers and coppers are both pretty right sounding to me in their own ways, the coppers probably the most easily integrated here, with a milder push, a slightly warm neutrality, and with good detail, speed and complexity… slightly euphonic, they have a subtle sweet copper thing going on along with really good complexity. The silvers from Golden State are the fastest, most neutral and resolving, bigger sounding similarly to the Golds, and a bit less obviously textured than the coppers. But I think they offer more musical information, faster with greater resolution…for me, the closet to “right” with the stock piggys especially….
With my pigglies they all work pretty well, but different flavors. I have been working a long time on making things very revealing, but smooth, a balance that is pretty tricky for me. Still, I think the sluggos all improved smoothness some, but it is tricky to read, because added density can make things more consolidated, and to a point, can give the impression of smoothness as it consolidates finer detail and complexity, a no-no for me.
My sound now is about as good as I have heard, but I have been working on a lot of things over months, the SDFBs one of those. So I am happy. But I thought similarly the last time I thought the sluggos were really getting good, and switching back to nice fuses made me go back to work on integrating the sluggos more holistically… the fuses overall still better then for me. But today I am too tired to do an evaluation with fuses, and having done quite a few synergistic changes again to get here, I suspect I am in with the SDFBs this time… I am getting ready to try some new speakers, so maybe after they settle in, with a new sound, that fuse/sluggo evaluation might be pretty interesting.
|