The Audioquest WEL Signature RCA has been arrived

[GBP]

So there it is now. The AQ WEL signature in the RCA version. A used version, five years old, with the new connectiontype.
It replaces my beloved Fire which i bought this year. It is the connection between preamplifier and power amplifier.

The system was warmed up for an hour while I was sitting in the office.

First I heard three familiar pieces with the Fire and then I replugged it to the WEL. At first I thought "Hmm, that's it now?". Maybe I expected too much, because the WEL does coest 8200 Euro vs 3300 Euro. But it only differs from the Fire - as far as I know - by even bigger plugs and more air around the single cables. And nothing else.

So plugging back again to the Fire and yes, there is a difference!
With the WEL I heard more crackling in old recordings. With Singer-Songwriter more reverb on the voice. There's also a little bit more "downforce" and very little more easiness in the bass here and there.
That was just a 30 minute test. Which one should make by the way without wine...

Anyway it doesn't go on in this area now. I have arrived here at the end. That's it. This connection is really really done. It cannot be better.

Now it applies to replace the AQ Oak and quite urgently the preamplifier (a Rotel RSP-1572). But since my main source is HDMI (a small HTPC delivers Tidal and Netflix and movies and all the music, connected via AQ Carbon), it's hard to find a good replacement. I won't need more than two channels plus subwoofer and don't know where to upgrade to.

What would you do? If the only source is supposed to be a small computer.