Master Built-What are Owners Hearing That They Didn't Hear With Other Cables

Al M. said:

So what are the actual prices for these Masterbuilt super cables?

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adyc said:

You can find the pricing here

http://www.axpona.com/newproducts.asp

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bonzo75 said:

So it was sounding wrong, you fiddled with it, and it started sounding right?

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Wasn't that 30 years ago?

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853guy said:

Have you read either of these books, Amir?

View attachment 29050 View attachment 29051

Assuming not, essentially they deal with asymmetrical relationships which are one of the defining features of complex systems. Finance is a complex system, marine ecosystems are, our bodies are. Some quick examples:

Investing in the stock market (an extremely complex system of interdependencies) comes with the reality that on any given day - in fact at any given minute - you’re exposed to unlimited upside and unlimited downside. Because it’s inherently asymmetrical, each dollar you invest can either make you a disproportionate amount, or lose you a disproportionate amount, and far greater than the value of your initial investment. If you’re astute, and many think they are but are not, you look for trades in which the asymmetry is heavily weighted in upside and limited in downside, like say, buying credit default swaps against subprime mortgage securities in 2008.

Our bodies, an extraordinarily complex bio-physiological organism, are also subject to asymmetrical relationships. The blood-brain barrier is a highly selective semi-permeable shield separating the blood from the brain’s extracellular fluid, permitting the entry of nutrients it considers essential while preventing harmful toxins and bacteria from doing so. One of the ways it does this is by preventing molecules heavier than 400 gm/mole to enter (though it also has more sophisticated systems for tagging which molecules can and can’t enter). Water, for instance, has a molecular weight of 18 gm/mole, and easily crosses the blood-brain barrier. Heroin has a molecular weight of 369 gm/mole, also making it capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier. However, though both water and heroin are capable of doing so, the effects on the bio-physiological state of an individual are inversely proportionate. Your body’s relationship to long-term consumption of (uncontaminated) water is only ever positive (or at the very least benign), and in the case that your body has too much of it, it has a rather simple way of getting rid of it. Long term exposure to heroin however is only ever extremely negative, and while the body does rid itself of heroin, the symptoms of it leaving the body are vastly more pronounced.

I’m sure you know all this.

My framing of Steve’s comments apropos the installation of Master Built Cables is one of looking at an audio system as a complex system in which small changes can have an asymmetrical payoff in either a positive and negative direction in differing degrees of magnitude. I’m aware that up until know your preference has been take a reductionist view of what an audio system is and its purpose, though I personally do not share such a view. (My view as previously stated on this forum is that given that the human brain contains music-specific neural pathways that respond exclusively to music but not to other sounds, an audio system playing an art form socio-culturally understood to be “music” can therefore be analysed not by the way an electrical signal is modulated through a series of components but only ever by the way the brain responds to that same signal. Did that component pass that electrical waveform without measurable deviation? Yes. Is that same waveform music or something else? Only our brains will ever know.)

So to you, Steve’s comments come off a over-the-top hyperbole which is intolerable to your worldview. My own experience leads me to believe that small changes can often have disproportionate effects. The problem with those effects is that they are often difficult to describe, especially so in a complex system that undergoes constant changes of state. I could take a sip of water and a toke of a spliff and not be able to reliably tell you any difference in effect, though the molecular composition of each is radically different. Longer term exposure would allow better discernment of the influence of one over the other, allowing scientific analysis to better measure the effects on my bio-physiological state. However, if we were to give the same substances to a baby, a toke of a spliff would have much greater impact because the baby’s bio-physiological state is much more susceptible to stimulus (positive and/or negative). The fact remains that some of our systems are more susceptible to discerning changes than others, either because they are more revealing of small changes, because they are interdependently more complex (a stylus, magnet, cartridge, arm, bearing, platter, motor, plinth is an extremely complex relationship), or both.

Steve’s comments come off to me as simply someone’s reaction to a complex system of interdependencies in which a small change resulted in a significant difference that was disproportionate to expectations. That’s the nature of asymmetry in complex systems. No less, no more.

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fas42 said:

An excellent start, Al. This is where I would start experimenting - so, how much are the easily accessible connections causing a problem at the moment, I would ask myself. An easy way to start would be a uniform system connection refresh test - first of all, make sure all the standard connections between the components are easily accessible, then run up the system to full stability levels - what you know from experience is the optimum time to listen, of the day and period after switch on. Then, refresh every connection, I repeat, every connection in the system in as quick a time as possible, and try to do this without turning anything off - the aim is to maintain the operating conditions in the gear, the only variable is remaking good connections; immediately listen on a testing track - is there a significant improvement? If so, then there are connector issues ... note, after some time the sound may now settle down to its normal quality - this is even more a sign that the connections are a bottleneck!!

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Al M. said:

Thanks, Frank. I actually bought a good contact cleaner recently (WBF expert recommended), but I was too lazy to use it yet.

Just too lazy. I guess I am too little of a serious audiophile. But my system sounds so good these days anyway. At this point I rather listen to music than obsess about this.

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Mike Lavigne said:

Steve,

first off, I'm not dismissing your findings. I said repeatedly that I believe what you are saying. I'm suggesting that it's up to the reader to investigate closer your reference and then look at other data points and the big picture implications of your perceptions. and I would say that for any high praise for any gear. what is what compared to? what do we know about that item? and what other data points do we have?

if you were to compare an amp to your Lamm ML3, or a turntable to your TechDAS, or a cartridge to your ZYX.....most people paying attention would get that you are using a recognized reference to judge. but anointing the Master Built compared to what you are using can mean lots of things......one possibility is that Master Built ends up being the best of anything. but much more work needs to be done to figure that out. your information does not carry the weight it might have if you had TA Magnum Opus (or Opus Gen5), or Odin II (or std Odin) or some such reference.

since you brought up my praise of the Trinity we can compare.

to put it mildly; I disliked the Playback Designs PCM performance so completely I pretty much avoided it for years. in any case the Playbacks was not a reference for redbook or PCM for me. for a few years I had heard better PCM at shows. in my posting about the Trinity I said as much. my reference was dsd through the Playbacks, but more so my vinyl and tape. and that was what I compared the Trinity dac to. I still use my vinyl and tape to reference any digital in my system and even when asked about the Lampizator that is how I describe it. the Trinity did do things more similar to the vinyl and tape and bettered the dsd through the Playbacks Design in some ways. I mentioned that the Trinity pushed me to realize how we should always try to find the native format source for any recording as that was best.

at that time there was lots of other over-the-top feedback on the 1000+ post WBF thread on the Trinity dac as well as quite a bit buzz on it from other websites. I was one of many who praised, and continue to praise, the Trinity. when I did speak about it I mentioned I had not heard the top of line MSB Dac's which may have been competitive or better.

was the Trinity a credible product? was it worth the praise I gave it? what is the difference between my approach and yours?

I'm sure there were plenty of readers of my posts who did not accept what I said at face value for whatever reason. I try my best to offer context and allow others to form their opinions.

I do think that comparing a source product to comparing a cable product is fundamentally different. and feedback on esoteric cables starts out with a higher degree of skepticism for various reasons. it's like grounding products or plugs and outlets.

my intention was not to disparage your remarks about the Master Builds, but to dampen the reaction to your comments that seemed to ignore the context. sorry if I hit a nerve.

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Al M. said:

A bigger room can be very helpful and may be indispensable for more convincing large-scale presentation, but it opens its own can of worms. The ideal would be two systems in two rooms, one for large-scale presentation, the other for smaller scale, like chamber music.

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fas42 said:

Just a quick note here - getting convincing sound removes any need for this: the precise same setup can do the tiniest, tiniest musical happening, and also an enormous, gargantuan, as far away as you could imagine presentation. Why this happens is that one's brain adjusts to the auditory clues, cues in the recording when they are reproduced clearly enough, and so you "know" how "big" the sound is supposed to be ...

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fas42 said:

A tip, . No matter how good your system sounds now, it can always sound better . Seriously, without swapping out the main components, at all, the potential will always be there, in the components inherently, to reveal more of what's on the recording, and to give a superior listening experience.

The tactic to use, that I use, is to go through the 'difficult' recordings ... good, good, good, ... uh-oh - not so brilliant on this one. Why so? Because the qualities of that recording are strongly highlighting the remaining lacking in the system, it was not so obvious with the normal recordings.

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And once you're aware of that audible behaviour you then start to be able to hear it on the recordings where it was "invisible" before ... so, then go nuts sorting that one out ...

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JackD201 said:

If you say, your Evolution cables bettered your Transparents, what does that mean to anybody that hasn't used your Magnums? Naming the old may look like it has more weight but in reality the sample size of readers that have tried the old is likewise small as it is with any TOTL gear. Thus, it becomes a reputation thing nothing more. When I read of your EA cables all I remember feeling was being happy for you because you found what was right for you. Not once did I think that the big transparents were any less or could be less for anybody else, things being system dependent and all. I was in the same room as Florian and Herve with their top mono blocks. They were in different systems. The only thing I could say about them is not what they did do but what they didn't do. They didn't crap out no matter how hard they were pushed. Any other quality could be shared with everything else in the chain. It's the same here.

That's why I'm careful or rather don't even talk about what's been replaced. I'm afraid that it might give the impression that the replaced cables are bad per se. Not only would that be unethical because I am in the industry, on a personal level it might be mislead whoever reads these posts that the cables can't be great in their systems. That would be a shame.

As far as Audience goes. John is a friend. He's been over to my place when he went on his SEA swing and we've had dinner. I had my first brush with the SX prototypes with John himself demoing. No I am not his representative here. I did just recently spec a VR-44/KR DX system with a full loom of SX cables including a AR-6 ordered through his rep. Yes the price is more in keeping with the system it was put in more importantly it is within the owner's budget. If someday the owner decides to change cables to whatever, that's his call and in no way does that indict the SXs. So again this isn't a pissing contest.

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Al M. said:

A large system in a large room can do this more closely, but even it will never duplicate the real thing either. Yes, perhaps in size an orchestra from one third into the hall, but not from up close. According to Steve Williams, the system of JackD's brother in the Philippines can, but if that were actually the case that would be an exception. It has really large speakers in a really large room.

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Mike Lavigne said:

I certainly agree that system synergy is important. and I've never offered the EA cables as a universal solution for all systems or superior to a cross section of the top level cables. I did offer that the EA TRSC has equal gauge to the $42k Tara Grandmaster speaker cables (which were claiming the biggest gauge among speaker cables) in a recent thread because it does.

the EA are made with the same tech as the wire in my speakers. my Transparent Opus MM <-> Evolution Acoustics speaker cable direct comparison was now 5 years ago, in 2011. at the time it was the EA DRSC (double run speaker cable) and I viewed it as equal but different compared to the Opus MM (not MM2) speaker cable....and a better system match....as you mention. and I was able to put a significant amount of money in my pocket in the bargain. a year later I upgraded the DRSC to the EA TRSC (triple run speaker cable) which was quite a ways better and still reasonable in price ($9k list for a 12' run pair). I'd easily claim that the TRSC bettered the Opus MM speaker cable based on my experience.

since then I've not compared it to any others and have been very happy. who knows how it directly compare to the Opus MM2, the Opus MM2 Gen5, or the current uber Magnum Opus. or the Odin II, or even the Tara Grandmaster either. honestly I never even think about it.

as my interconnects are all the 'zeel' topography to optimize the darTZeel proprietary interface I've not really worried about that either. the EA version of the 'zeel' is outstanding when I have compared it to other higher end cables in the past. when I added dacs this last year those new dacs did not have the 'zeel' interface so I did go 'whole hog' and went upscale to the Tara Labs Grandmaster Evolution w/HFX dual grounding station, 1.5m XLR for the Trinity and 2m RCA for the Golden Gate (which I'm listening to right now). each set had list prices around $30k. air dialectic and grounded shielding.....I hooked them up to the Tripoint Troy Signature chassis grounding and was very impressed. I would guess that they play in performance at the highest levels (in most system contexts) but never directly compared them to any of the other crazy expensive cables.

cables are cables.

12 years ago when I had the Von Schweikert VR9SE's at one point I bi-amped with a pair of darTZeel NHB-108's and 'two' pair of $34K ($68K worth at list) Transparent Opus MM speaker cables.

so I've played at the crazy levels and lived with more modest priced but synergistic cables. it's all good. you have to pay attention and go down the road with your head up and eyes open.

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Al M. said:

My system is good enough at retrieving spatial information to tell me how "big" the sound is supposed to be, also from a good number of large-scale recordings. But portraying the sound as supposed to be big, and as actually being big, are two different things. Yes, my system can have a surprisingly big sound (and several people have commented on that on my system thread), but that doesn't mean it approaches the size of the real thing. A large system in a large room can do this more closely, but even it will never duplicate the real thing either. Yes, perhaps in size an orchestra from one third into the hall, but not from up close. According to Steve Williams, the system of JackD's brother in the Philippines can, but if that were actually the case that would be an exception. It has really large speakers in a really large room.

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JackD201 said:

There's scale and there's relative scale. That is the great thing with near field listening. Think using an iPad vs a 42" screen. Image size at the handheld position is actually larger than a 42" screen from 8ft away. This comes with some challenges though. Since air is elastic, it filters over distance. You can get away with a bit more artifice in a big rig particularly in the presence region, in a near field set up not as much. So, things really have to be that much more well sorted on the electronics side. Your BPatrol power supplies a perfect example. Choice of DAC another. Returning to the analogy comparing say an iPad screen with a Samsung Tab Pro S' which has better resolution, the latter makes the movie closer to a cinema experience than the former.

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