Silver Starlight Illuminates the Bedroom

[jimtranr]

Executive Summary: Cole Porter could have written this review. With three words.

Background: Until two weeks ago, our desktop-computer-equipped home-office system was the only rig capable of playing CD rips and downloaded high-resolution files. Some weeks earlier, I’d won a pair of eBay-auctioned, customer-returned Paradigm Studio 20 v.5s (which I promptly upgraded with a set of Wireworld Eclipse 7 jumpers—cue an appreciative they’re-well-worth-it nod to Ivan). They took up residence in the office, replacing a pair of Paradigm SE-1s that I shunted off to the bedroom. The only problem was that, in listening terms, the office is a cramped, furniture-stuffed sardine can, and the Studio 20s had no real room to breathe.

Although the bedroom presents its own acoustics challenges owing to furniture placement, foot traffic patterns, and an abundance of reflective-framed wall prints, it has more “breathable” space. So I moved the 20s there onto DIY’d sand-filled stands and returned the SE-1s to the office.





At that point, the bedroom system’s sole program source was an FM tuner dialed most often to a listener-supported 24/7 classical music station. To add more programming variety, I decided to add computer audio to the source mix, using my Windows 10 laptop as the launch platform. Which meant having to win another eBay auction, this time for another TEAC UD-501 DSD/DXD-capable DAC. The DAC arrived with a stock USB cable.

Listening to rips and hi-rez downloads via the stock cable hinted that I’d made the right move in relocating the Studio 20s. But an unyielding wooliness overlaying the sonic presentation caused Peggy Lee to jump inside my head and nag incessantly, “Is That All There Is?”

Based on my positive experience with a Wireworld Starlight USB cable in the home-office system, I ordered a Silver Starlight 7 from Ivan. I installed it as soon as it arrived early Monday afternoon and gave it time to settle with an assortment of rips and downloads for about five hours before I camped on the bed for a serious listen. But even before I got to “serious” I noticed a dramatic drop in the noise floor. Good things to come, I thought. I couldn’t imagine just how good.



Listening Test: I threw a wide variety of classical, jazz, vocal, choral, and film-score program ranging in format from 16/44 rips to DSD128 and DXD downloads at the rig. Even with the host of speaker-boundary interference and reflective impediments evident in the bedroom, the Silver Starlight ate the stock USB cable’s lunch—and then gulped down its dinner.

Michael Tilson Thomas’ DSD64 reading of Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony is a case in point. As with much of Mahler’s symphonic output, the Third offers a rich palette of tonal color, dynamic contrasts that range from mass-destruction explosiveness to delicate filigree, and a healthy dose of complex inner-voice writing that with the wrong miking or mediocre playback equipment can easily get lost in the mix. With even the stock cable in place, I got the sense that the SFSO production-and-engineering crew got the miking and mixing right. But substituting the Silver Starlight shed a woolly overlay that had muted dynamics and the “pow” factor, obliterated subtle instrumental and spatial detail, and rendered instrumental and vocal color an “almost” that didn’t quite count in horseshoes. With the Silver, the Third came you-are-there alive and the performing space expansive and reach-into tactile.

My outing with the Mahler Third illustrates my experience with a variety of program that I’ve auditioned since with the Silver Starlight in place. And I’d make the point that the cable’s ability to “free up” detail previously masked does not render the sonic presentation—be it Mahler or Nat Cole or the Johan Dielemanns Trio--“clinical.” Far from it. There’s far more organic feel and flow evident with the Silver connected.

As Cole Porter would put it, it’s “night and day.”

[jdandy]

jimtranr.......That is an enjoyable review. I am using a three meter Wirewolrd Silver Starlight USB cable between my office desktop computer and a Wyred 4 Sound DAC2 that feeds my Sennheiser HDVA 600 headphone amplifier. Like you, I could not be happier with its performance.

Thanks for the write up and photos.

[jimtranr]

Thanks, Dan. The Silver's revealed just how good some 16/44 rips are, to say nothing of a number of the hi-rez downloads.

[Masterlu]

Jim... I enjoyed your review! Happy Listening

[jimtranr]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

Jim... I enjoyed your review! Happy Listening

Thanks for making it possible.

[jimtranr]

The focus and transparency the Silver Starlight brings to my bedroom audio system are what make this cable such a standout buy to me.

Listening to Eiji Oue conduct the Minnesota Orchestra in Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances and Copland's Third Symphony (Reference Recordings 16/44 rips) with the Silver Starlight installed, I'm struck by how what comes out of the Studio 20s delineates the expansive venue acoustic while rooting the individual instruments of the large orchestral ensemble securely (and three-dimensionally) in their respective on-stage locations. It's a window into engineer Keith Johnson's mike placement and mixing skill set--without being clinical. As noted in my original post, whatever's being performed emerges from the speakers as an organic musical whole.

If any of you have heard either recording (or similar RR releases), you know that bass drum whacks figure lease-buster prominently. With the Silver Starlight, they're much better defined and more gut-throbbing impactful than with the generic USB cable in place. As for the mids and top end in these performances, they sing.

I'll be moving the Uptone Audio Regen USB regenerator from my office system to the bedroom rig to see if it effects any further performance improvement. But it's clear that the Silver Starlight has set the bar very high as is.

Happy as a clam.

[jimtranr]

Installing the Uptone Audio Regen effected no audibly perceptible improvement over what had already been achieved with the Silver Starlight 7, so I removed the Regen.

What made a notable difference, however, was the substitution of Wireworld Eclipse 7 interconnects for the Equinox 6s from DAC to line stage and line stage to amp. The result: Airier, more transparent presentation, a tad more--and better defined--low-end heft, "meatier" instrumental and vocal body, and an even better rendering of the soundstage's interior space (one you could really wander around in while listening to the DSD64 download of Antal Dorati's reading of Igor Stravinsky's Firebird on Mercury). Good as the Equinox 6s are, it's obvious that in order to leverage the Silver Starlight 7's potential, one should complement it with equivalent-level interconnects (and, of course, as noted below, speaker cables. )

To frost the cake, I installed four Stillpoints Ultra Mini footers under the Sonographe SA250. Top-end detail I could barely hear before (an effect owing to, I thought, my septuagenarian ears) emerged from the woodwork with greater clarity.

Here's the current setup. I removed the FM tuner to put the laptop in easier reach. (I'll reinstall it in the system when I build a new rack.) Pardon the spaghetti factory hugging the speaker stand--another project to clean up.

All I have to do now is save up some green for Eclipse 7 speaker cables.