Karma Cables and Other Musings

Disc Jockey

This is a review of the BlueJeans cables nikolas812 kindly offered up in a karma a month ago or so. Equipment is a Denon 3805, Oppo 971H, Tosh Hd-A2, and SDA 2A's with RDO tweets and partially refurbished crossover (sonicaps and mills on the high pass). The only thing I had around worth comparing to the bluejeans was a pair of Monster interlink 200 cables. All listening done in pure direct, no sub, and a variety of redbook cds.

When I bought my Denon, all my source equipment was junk and I'm not saying this out of any kind of false modesty, it was truly and accurately junk. That being the case, I hooked everything up to the Denon via digital and let it handle all the D/A conversion. As I replaced gear, I always defaulted to keeping the digital connection and never bothered with analog, so this is also partially a comparison of digital vs. analog in my setup. These cables look to be well made, nothing fancy or exotic, just good quality wire and connectors.

First the Tosh. Digital wins vs analog hands down no matter what cables I use. Better imaging, dynamics and a HUGE difference in bass. After a little investigation it appears that Toshiba used some pretty cheap stereo DACs and it's not designed as a cd player so no big surprise. I am still glad the connections are there as the Denon doesn't pass digital signals to zone 2, which I use for my deck speakers. It's not worth comparing the two sets of cables on this due to the limitations of the player so on to the Oppo.

Start with the digital, I like the way it sounds, it's what I'm used to and I think the Denon does a pretty good job. Next in, the monster cables. No real change in the timbre of the music per se but not nearly as engaging. The dynamics seem compressed and the imaging suffers. The SDA's are still throwing a huge soundstage but not as deep. Bass is a little weaker also. Quite frankly, this is kind of what I expected with the analog, so I'm thinking there may be some bias present.

But then I tried with the bluejeans cables. Holy smokes! The first track I tried was Diana Krall and it's like she snapped into place. Where before she was dead center stage right in "this area", now she was dead center stage "on this spot" and her voice had much better presentation and presence. Other instruments were very focused spatially as well as with a lot more detail and attack. I also now understand better about soundstage depth, a night and day difference between either the digital or the monster cables. Bass was pretty much unchanged but may have been a little tighter with the bluejeans.

One more quick check, back to the monster cables. Yep, they sound much poorer by comparison. Put the blujeans back in and get ready for some fun listening. Well crap, now they don't sound nearly as good. Ahh, I see, forgot to switch back to the analog input....much better.

Thanks again for the karma nikolas, this has been a lot of fun.

DJ

nikolas812

Nice write up.

That is about the same thing that happened when I compared a pair Audioquest cables to the Blue Jeans cables. The AQ's 3D imaging blew the BJC's out of the water. AQ's were better everywhere though. Better tighter lows and maybe a little better mids but much more noticeable highs with great detail and excellent smoothness. The Blue Jeans are still GREAT cables for the price.

I started doing the same thing as you did after I settled with the AQ's. I started going through all my music and started enjoying the better sound. Most people say that wires are only tweaks at best.... And they are given a certain situation. But I think if you went from in the box cables to something nice. I think it would be MAJOR. I think this is something a lot of people don't relies and I think it is hurting them in the long run.

But.... We all know cables don't make a difference.:D

cfrizz

Nice review. Enjoy your system.

Face

Thanks for the write up.

nikolas812 wrote: »

That is about the same thing that happened when I compared a pair Audioquest cables to the Blue Jeans cables. The AQ's 3D imaging blew the BJC's out of the water. AQ's were better everywhere though. Better tighter lows and maybe a little better mids but much more noticeable highs with great detail and excellent smoothness. The Blue Jeans are still GREAT cables for the price.

I did a few A/B tests with BJC also. They are good for the money, but they lacked highs and lows for me. Their termination was very loose for me on some components. If possible, I'm going with Eichmann or locking RCA's for now on.

Disc Jockey

The connections for me were, in the immortal words of Goldilocks, just right. Firm connection but not difficult to remove. I think I'll enjoy these for a while before I even think about trying something different. Plus I still need to save up for the new amp and pre/pro.

Fireman32

Nice write up!

nikolas812

Disc Jockey wrote: »

The connections for me were, in the immortal words of Goldilocks, just right. Firm connection but not difficult to remove. I think I'll enjoy these for a while before I even think about trying something different. Plus I still need to save up for the new amp and pre/pro.

Its good to hear you are enjoying them. Makes the Karma thing that much better.

jwhitakr

Disc Jockey wrote: »

First the Tosh. Digital wins vs analog hands down no matter what cables I use. Better imaging, dynamics and a HUGE difference in bass. After a little investigation it appears that Toshiba used some pretty cheap stereo DACs and it's not designed as a cd player so no big surprise. I am still glad the connections are there as the Denon doesn't pass digital signals to zone 2, which I use for my deck speakers. It's not worth comparing the two sets of cables on this due to the limitations of the player so on to the Oppo.

One more quick check, back to the monster cables. Yep, they sound much poorer by comparison. Put the blujeans back in and get ready for some fun listening. Well crap, now they don't sound nearly as good. Ahh, I see, forgot to switch back to the analog input....much better.

Nice writeup, but I'm confused ... you were switching between digital TOSLINK connection and using BJC / Monster RCA IC's, right?

In the first paragraph you said that "First the Tosh. Digital wins vs analog hands down no matter what cables I use" and then at the end of the last paragraph you said "Ahh, I see, forgot to switch back to the analog input....much better."

So does the digital connection or the analog connection sound better?

Disc Jockey

On the Toshiba the digital sounded better than either of the analog ic's. On the Oppo, the BJC's sounded best, digital second, and Monsters last. The difference between the BJC's and the digital was much more significant than the difference between the digital and the Monster ic's.

nikolas812

I used my Toshiba HD-A2 for a while and I thought it sounded like garbage. It was very harsh and tinny sounding TO ME. When I got my new Oppo the difference of was night and day. I am useing a Oppo 980H for a dedicated CD player until a can afford a high end CD player.

Disc Jockey

You and I are in complete agreement on that. That's why I didn't even bother to do any in-depth listening on the HD-A2, I don't think there's any ic that will make it sound good. It just wouldn't have been a good test.
The Oppo will serve until I get something better/dedicated.

jwhitakr

Disc Jockey wrote: »

On the Toshiba the digital sounded better than either of the analog ic's. On the Oppo, the BJC's sounded best, digital second, and Monsters last. The difference between the BJC's and the digital was much more significant than the difference between the digital and the Monster ic's.

Ahh, ok ... that make sense! Thanks for clarifying and for the writeup.