View Single Post
  #11  
Old 12-06-2017, 08:10 PM
jimtranr's Avatar
jimtranr jimtranr is offline
Senior Member

 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Corvallis, OR
Posts: 1,589
Default Another Electra 7...same application in a different system

In a sense, my home-office system is the neglected audio stepchild of the family. That’s not the fault of the eBay-acquired Sonographe electronics or the dealer’s closing-up-shop demo Paradigm mini-speakers--overachievers in all cases, certainly at the prices I paid for them. The problem is the space they’re crammed into—a 12’x10’ room stuffed with a computer station, printer table, a single bed, a number of bookcases, and protruding closet, whose location and layout render anything approaching a reasonable listening venue a forget-about-it pipe dream. Listening is extreme nearfield, and “extreme” puts it mildly—when at the computer, I’m parked about a foot in front of the speaker plane, while the center-to-center distance between the left and right speakers is about five feet.

The system’s sole program source is, like the bedroom system’s, an external hard drive feeding a Windows 10 desktop computer running JRiver Music Center software. Music files consist of CD rips and hi-rez downloads ranging from 24/88 to double-DSD and DXD. This work station is where I download and rip all of them before I shoot them across the home network to the main and bedroom systems. Because of that, the office system is, despite its severe environmental limitations, the place where I initially listen and evaluate all rips and downloads to determine whether they “cut it” for further use.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, the system’s sound “engine” was the factory-installed sound card in the HP desktop. That restricted hi-rez playback to a maximum of 24/192, forcing me to configure JRiver to downconvert higher-resolution PCM and all DSD files for listening in the office system—not ideal for initial-evaluation listening. Off I went to eBay again and scooped up a comfortably-priced mint-condition TEAC UD-501 DAC (just like the ones in the main and bedroom systems). It came with a stock AC power cord.

Based on my happiness-is experience with an upgraded-connector Wireworld Electra 7 PC in the bedroom system (and it’s just gotten better with more burn-in), I thought “why not?” and ordered another one from he-who-treats-us-AA’ers-so-well. As much as anything else, I was curious about whether, given the sardine-can listening environment, the Electra 7 would make an appreciable difference in what I’m hearing from the office system. If it didn’t, I’d move the new Electra to an identical role in the much more acoustically hospitable main system.

The Electra arrived today, and I have just about two hours of playing time on it as I write this. So it’s not burned in, and I don’t know if it’s “settled” yet. But none of that matters. The Electra stays feeding AC to the home-office UD-501.

Even in this cramped listening space, the Electra 7’s superiority over a stock cord is as noticeably pronounced as it was in the bedroom system—in focus, bottom-end heft, dynamics, top-end liquidity, and tonal/timbral rightness…and in whatever program material I throw at it (not least “The Masque” from Lenny Bernstein’s recording of his “Age of Anxiety”). The Electra doesn’t repeal the laws of room acoustics—certainly not at one foot in front of the speaker plane--but even so, the discernibly blacker background teases out more spatial detail and instrumental and vocal layering.

That settles it. Starting today, I’m saving up for one more Electra with the upgraded connectors…for the main system’s DAC. I'll be in touch, Ivan.
__________________
Jim


Bedroom: Aurender N150, TEAC UD-505 (AKM version), EMIA Cu Elmaformer passive line stage, conrad-johnson MF2500, Paradigm Studio 20 v5. Shunyata Delta D6, Altaira CG hub. Shunyata Alpha XC, Delta NR v2, Alpha USB, Alpha and Venom CGC/SGC. Wireworld Eclipse 8 interconnect & speaker cables. Stillpoints footers, Butcher Block Acoustics maple platforms. Stillpoints and GIK acoustic panels.

Home Office:Windows 11 PC/JRiver 31, TEAC UD-501, Luminous Audio Technology Axiom II Walker Mod passive, conrad-johnson Sonographe SA-250, Paradigm SE-1. Shunyata Hydra (Original Version), Venom 10 NR. Wireworld Eclipse 7 interconnects. Blue Jeans speaker cable.

Living-Dining Room: Windows 11 Laptop/JRiver 29, Oppo BD-83, TEAC UD-501 DAC, SOTA Sapphire TT, Graham Slee Era Gold V, Ortofon 2M Black, McIntosh MR-77, c-j Sonographe SC-25, c-j MF2500, Paradigm SE-3. Wireworld 8 IC, Blue Jeans SC. Shunyata Hydra 8 v.2, Shunyata Delta NR, Venom NR. GIK 244 bass & scatter-plate panels.
Reply With Quote