I sent the Shunyata Omega snd Alpha clock cables back to my dealer who allowed me to audition them. I’d be happy to provide you with his contact info. Let me know.
Brian …
@JPSPOCK I forgot to include your member name so you get an email on this.
Let me know if you’d the contact info on the dealer who let me audition the Shunyata clock cables. I also suggest a Shunyata Alpha v2 NR or higher grade power cable. The power cable did make a noticeable difference for the clock.
Brian …
Try Black Cat Mini Tron or Tron clock cables. A few on this forum are using them.
I had a fellow forum member (Bartok and Rossini owner) and a headphone amplifier designer over and we compared Apogee Wyde Eye vs. Black Cat Mini Tron.
Both scratched their heads in disbelief - it was easily discernible
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@glevethan Thanks for the suggestion to try Black Cat Mini Tron clock cables. I reached out to The Cable Company to see if they have a pair in their audition library.
Ok, I have the Oyaide cables between my Rossini and Clock, and I wanted to test the BlackCatCable. My assumption is that clock cables cannot make a huge difference. So I asked my dealer to get me some BCC, and he came over with two BCC 75 Silverstar! Universal MK II.
My method of evaluation is as follows: never actively LOOK for improvements. Just LISTEN to the music, and get a general impression. If something is strikingly better or worse, go into details.
Here are my observations:
Immediately: I had to admit that as a general impression I was finding everything more intriguing, as mr. Spock would have it. Some tracks I normally listen to just for tests started to make much more sense than before. Considering that I was coming from the “I don’t think I will hear anything different” stance, I already found it fishy.
After four hours my take was that 96 KHz tracks showed a greater overall improvement than 44KHz tracks. Upon inspection, I found out that one of the two cables, that for 44.1KHz, was connected backwards. After rectifying it, now the improvement was uniform across the two frequencies (44.1 and 48). This got me vaguely miffed, and I prefer to think that it is due to confirmation bias.
After ten hours, I had the most enjoyable listening experience of my life. I kept adding tracks to the playlist for 4 hours straight until it was 2 in the morning and I had to force myself to go to sleep. I didn’t listen to test tracks: I fed it everything, from Mozart to Dua Lipa and Doja Cat, and everything made a lot more sense (yes, even Doja Cat).
Just to confirm that it wasn’t a dream, I am listening to the same tracklist this morning (I am on vacation, it was planned) and it sounds great. Now I can pinpoint the most notable improvements: more dynamics, much more control, further reduced noise, much better decay, great vocals, and the reconstruction is now breathtaking: no need to look for placement: the singer is THERE and is looking at me, and so on for all the other instruments. And the ambience is great, everything is wider, taller and deeper.
No need to add that I am finding all this a bit spooky. All this just from clock cables???
Not even top-of-the-line? And they actually improve in time? Clock cable break-in? Really?
Believe me, I am not one of those who think that “bits are bits”, that it’s all about R L and C, or that electrons are the tiny blue dots with a “-” on them and protons are the fatty red balls with a “+”. I have been teaching how to solve Schroedinger equation and have explained the double slit experiment and Bell’s theorem to generations of students, so I totally understand that there is a lot of room for the unknown in there, nevertheless I repeat: all this from clock cables???
One question for those few who stayed with me until now: should I expect a further improvement going from the Silverstar! MKII to the Minitron?
Thank you,
Andrea
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If I am not wrong, Trône is 50ohm cable…
There are several options (link here), but the ones we’ve been talking about are:
“TRØN Mk. III SPDIF Cable: highly precise 75Ω coaxial cable surrounded by two full layers of QuieTex noise reducing materials. BNC:BNC standard”
and
“Mini-TRØN is a direct trickle-down product from TRØN, where I’m using some of our QuieTex materials and techniques to create an RF and EM insulative blanket of sorts in order to help defray the effects of RF/EM from without and within. It’s an electrically precise 75 Ohm coaxial cable with an outstanding bandwidth. Terminated with 75 Ohm BNC, includes Black Cat 75 Ohm RCA adapters.”
and
“Mk. II now includes a secondary (silver-plated copper shield, addition of RFI rejection material, and an overall braided jacket from multifilament nylon. Terminated with 75 Ohm BNCs”
Emphasis mine.
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Hey Ben. Are you saying that you think the black cats are better than your transparents? Not sure im reading that. Im pretty transparent across the board with a few shunyata in the power section. I started with geistnote on clocks but am game to try something else. Let me know your thoughts. Thx. B
Not a comparison I’ve made, Barry. I’ve heard the Transparent Reference in my system vs. the Van Damme, and the Mini-Trøn vs. the WydeEye in @glevethan setup.
Not long comparisons, but enough to have me keeping my peepers peeled for some secondhand Trøns. I will compare again when I get them.
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Hi,
I tried/bought 2 Stealth BNC cables but decided to keep my ‘criminal’ cheap Van Dammes too.
Rgds
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Looks like Black Cat is shut down due to the death of the founder. All product on website is shown as sold out. According to a message on the website, they are “restructuring” the company and hope to have it back in operation in the future, but no timeline is given. Anyone know anything more than this?
Thanks for sharing Karl.
Sadly, it is because Chris Sommovigo, the owner, passed away. He and I were good friends.
Thanks, Lee. So sorry for the loss of your friend. Do you know if there are any plans to reopen production in the future?