Reccomendations needed for balanced interconnect to MC402
 

Hello friends. I'm repeating this post since I like to hear the thoughts of McIntosh owners on synergy with my mc402. (I love the smell of rebellion in the morning!) I got rid of my old name David10024. I'm just David now.

I'm thinking of tweaking my set up by adding a balanced copper interconnect between my computer and MC402. Right now I have all silver interconnects. It is very detailed but maybe just a tad on the bright side. Any recommendations on a balanced interconnect cable that would slightly sweeten the mid-range and add a little smoothness to the highs?

You have XLR analog out of your computer?

Beside the point, I really like the WireWorld Silver Eclipse 5^2, silver coated copper. Wonderful speaker, zero ear fatigue, and that is on XCS350's (10 tweeters screaming at you...)

Welcome David.

Guys, I recruited (rescued?) David from AK after his post was moved from the McIntosh forum to the Thinking Out Loud forum :icon_thumbsdown:.

I promised him good responses from the former big-hitters at the AK Mc forum, so let's give him a warm welcome and help him find the right cables.

At the low-end of the price range, I've found Tributaries to be a good value and a good match for my sonic preferences. But I might be too far out in the "some like it warm" category for my input to be of value to you.

I definitely found silver interconnects hard to take - even with the relatively forgiving Sonus Faber Auditor I had when I tried a few different brands of silver interconnects.

Alberto

Nice to see the whole gang over here. Thanks for the rescue Alberto! I have to admit, this feels like a 60's thing!

Just some background, I tweaked my computer's operating system slightly following the recommendations of Cics the creator of the Cics Memory Player. For those who are not familiar it is a method of setting up a computer to have minimum activity other than what is necessary to play music files, which are played from the memory (cache?) not from hard drive reads. With just a few changes, I began to hear details like I never have before. The problem was that it was fatiguing over time. I'm trying to get the system re-balanced without giving up all the new new found resolution.

What are you using for a DAC ?

Now I see your balanced out.. Lynx muahaha nice. The PCI-E card is on my to-do list, either that or the M-Audio external FireWire, just to offload the interference in-box.

By the way, with enough ram and buffering enabled, your HDD will never access the song except to actually pull the entire file into memory. :)

The main thing is the sound card, which you have already done oh-so-nicely.

WireWorld. Silver. Eclipse. Do it. :D

edit: 2uberoller's Q - the Lynx has a VERY impressive DAC built-in. 24/192 capable. He's fine with going D-A in-computer.

The Lynx L22 is a pro audio PCI card that has an audiophile following. It has balanced outs that can be set at consumer voltage or higher pro voltage. In the latter case it easily drives an amp directly with no problem. This is usually the way I use it.

Check out Kubala-Sosna XLR's. I use these for my main system- absolutely fantastic no nonsense XLR's! Call Audio Classics and ask for Frank Gow.

David, in addition to cables you should seriously consider room treatment if you've not done it already. I am very sensitive to brightness and room treatment (especially control of first reflection points) had a huge impact: no listening fatigue, better/steadier soundstage, better tone, ...

Alberto

Hi David, nice to see you. I am using the DAC in the sound card, ie the analog out. It does have a digital out which I do not use, and of course, also records. I have a custom silver balanced break out cable coming from the card. The cable that came with it is copper. The balanced breakout cable goes into a switch box so I can switch to my preamp if I want to listen to vinyl. I was thinking about changing the silver balanced interconnect (HGA Silver Lace) that goes from the switch box to the amp.