scolley

Great question, but in the interest of full disclosure I’m not sure how much I can add to what I’ve already said. It is worth nothing I sold my more expensive Nordost Heimdall II’s a couple of weeks later with no regrets. After that I got a new amp. But the decision to try a new amp was predicated on the fact that I was already totally committed to the Fidelium ICs. Every day I listened after the first few days remained a delight. Now with the new amp the change has reinforced what the Fidelium ICs do. In short, they bring amazing detail to the music. That detail is both improved transients; radically improving the you-hear-the-performance-room experience, plus making acoustic instruments sound more “real”, but also radically decreased time smearing; complex passages with multiple instruments becoming clearly audible vs. a sonic mush, as it were. What they do not appear to do is change the tonal nature of the sound. My new amp has done that. I keep checking the Fidelium website to see if they are publicly available, but apparently not yet. I’m actually looking forward to more people trying them, if for no other reason than that I know that for many people, these are going to be transformative, at an affordable cost. In retrospect I realized that my impressions were based on my particular system. Specifically my DAC being connected straight to my amp - vs. a preamp in the middle - means that I only need one pair of ICs to hear the full benefit. Even if I had to by two pair though, I’d still consider them a “must listen”, ‘cuz they are so amazing.

Everyone's mileage will vary, of course. But to my ears they were actually a larger improvement than the Fidelium speaker cables. As I recall, that was another switch from Nordost to Fideliums, in this case Blue Heaven speaker cables very well bested by the Fideliums. But IMO the interconnect upgrade was actually a bit better, and that was not expected.

It appears I misunderstood some of what Jeffrey Smith had told me about the Fidelium IC's, and thus I posted some incorrect information in my OP above. Jeffery has corrected my understanding, as follows. The conductors are NOT exposed, they are COMPLETELY insulated. And apparently the visible gold color is the Kapton in which the foil is laminated, just like with the Fidelium speaker cables, just not as wide. And the colored thread in the black mesh is an additional channel marking, red for right and white for left. So I guess it's an OK cable to have, even if you do have pets that chew on wires. :-) PS - I don't post a lot here, so I may be missing something, but I don't see any way to edit my original post for corrections. If I knew how to do that, as I would like to have the correct facts in the OP.

Silversmith Audio's Fidelium XLR Interconnects are not yet available to the public, but I was lucky enough to get an early pair, so am sharing my experience. I’m guessing that my being a very early adopter of the Silversmith Audio Fidelium speakers cables played some factor in Silversmith’s proprietor Jeffry Smith’s decision to allow me early access to his new Fidelium interconnects. Whatever the reason, I’m absolutely delighted he did. With assurances of a 30 return period I was able to purchase for trial a pair of 4.5 foot XLR ICs, priced at $1,125. I was not expecting a large sonic change. My existing ICs are Nordost Heimdall II’s, and Jeffrey indicated in an email that my Nordost's had already had some of the physical characteristics that made his ICs sound so good. So I wasn’t expecting much. That plus I assumed that no interconnect could make that much of a difference until I first made upgrades to my room, speakers and amps. My assumption was that with my current high quality ICs, there was no way they could be a weak link in the chain. The cables arrived in simple - yet quite adequate - packaging. I’m given to understand that fancier packaging is in the works, the absence of such now being a part of the reason why these cables are not yet on the market. I found the cables to be of nice, quality build. Not heavy at all and very flexible. The XLR connectors appear to be well constructed, with the three conductors themselves hidden inside a black mesh cable sleeve. Jeffrey tells me that the conductors themselves are 1/2” wide foil conductors that are somewhat better than the conductors in the Fidelium speaker cables, sitting on top of each other, separated by a thin cotton layer. The gold foil is somewhat visible through the mesh sleeve. The cables have a thin golden wire spiraling around the cable, just under the surface of the black mesh. Not sure where that comes into play, but it looks nice. Clearly the cable geometry is designed for a very low dielectric - mostly air - which is great. But you could easily raise heck sticking a paper clip through the gaps in the mesh sheath and contacting the semi-exposed bare wire. Low likelihood of such happening, I know. But possible. Not a cable to have if you have pets that chew on wires. In my digital-only system my Meitner MA3 DAC connects directly to my PS Audio M700 mono-block amps via XLR interconnects, and that’s where these Fidelium ICs were placed. The MA3 sits on a set of three Symposium Rollerblocks (titanium bearings), so it is a somewhat free floating component. The current Nordost Heimdall II XLR interconnects are both stiff, and heavy. The Rollerblocks make a quite audible sonic improvement over stock MA3 footers, but I’ve always been concerned about the weight with which the Heimdall’s pushed them down, and the restriction they placed on free-floating DAC movement. Happily the light, flexible nature of the Fidelium ICs improved things in both respects, quite a bit. So now it gets down to the sound. I’m not very good at describing what I hear, but I’ll try. In short, the difference was huge. Huge. Jeffrey Smith said that I should hear immediate improvements in the “time domain”. I’m not sonically technical enough to understand what that really means, but when playing well recorded acoustic tracks, the resolution of the space the instruments were played in was just amazing. Rooms played in sounded larger. Cymbals - in particular - had a clarity I’d never heard before. Drums more distinct, less muddy. And vocals took on more immediacy, more in-your-face clarity. It may be more accurate to say that everything was rendered with greater clarity. How much more? Hard to put a number on that, but in 45 years as an on-a-budget audiophile, I’ve never heard so much of an improvement between two components that should have been comparable; those components being the old and new ICs. For just a few minutes I put the old ICs back, just to make sure I was not imagining things. IT was immediately clear that I was not. I've got a good friend that is a true golden ear, so I had him come over for a listen, doing a little A/B between the cables. My system is in a mostly enclosed stand, so it was not possible for him to see which IC was in use, but he might guess. So I had my wife flip a coin to determine if I would start with the old cables in place, or the new. The coin toss dictated we start with the old cables. When my friend came by for a listen, we played 2-4 minutes of four tracks on the old Nordost Heimdall IIs. Then I switched - not visible to my friend - and began replay of the same four tracks. Thirty seconds into the first track he said he'd already reached a conclusion, though he did not want to say anything yet, but was ready for the next track. He didn't need to hear the whole track. About 15 seconds into it he said, "Next track". He did the same thing on the next track, ready for a new track in 15 seconds. Whatever he was hearing, he clearly was not needing to listen to much of a track to know that he had identified a difference. After playing the first 15 seconds of the last track, he declared that the "A" connection (Nordost Heimdalls) was so vastly inferior to the "B" connection (Fidelium ICs) that the difference in clarity - across all frequencies - was night and day. I mentioned that I agreed, and that I felt it was at least a 15 to 20 percent bump in the quality of that sound. He replied that I was being foolish, for he felt it could be 50% improvement, that the improvement was "Massive". This improvement is similar to what I heard when I swapped out my Nordost Blue Heaven II speaker cables for Fidelium speaker cables a few years ago. But as dramatic as change was, this even more more dramatic. Could I be hearing such a huge difference because I have - with the benefit of the Fidelium speaker cables - a highly resolving system now? Jeffry Smith has told me that my thinking is incorrect, because quite humble systems will also resolve audibly better. As with all system upgrades and changes, over time your ear gets used to the new sound. I got these new Fidelium IC's two months ago, and have listened to them many, many hours, and had assumed I had become used to the new sound. But this past week I got a major surprise. I am a life long Pink Floyd fan. My favorite of their albums being Dark Side of the Moon. But I've listened to that album too many times. Now I probably don't put it on any more often than annually. The other day I put it on - my best copy, a PCM RIP from a Japanese SACD, 30th Anniversary Edition - and was nothing less than shocked and thrilled at what I heard. I've heard this album hundreds and hundreds of times,but this time everything changed. Detail was off the charts. I heard voices singing that for all my life I thought was a single voice singing, but now was clearly a single voice overlaid (at a tiny timing variance) by itself. Is that overdubbing? Like a chorus of a single voice. Whatever it is, I’d never heard it before. Detail - needless to say - was quite audibly more evident than I’d ever heard hundreds (thousands?) of times before. And the changes were tonal also… a richness to vocals I’d not experienced before. Tighter bass, and much better localized (spatially) images. MUCH better resolution of the recording space, and far, far more easily understood vocals. The alarm clocks' clanging was even much less grating because they resolved so well. In conclusion, I cannot recommend giving a listen to these interconnects more highly, once they become publicly available. Short of a change in speakers, I have never experienced a larger improvement by changing a single "component". I've a very few come close, but I'm giving Fidelium XLR interconnects my lifelong top spot for system upgrades. IMO they are a game changer, and should give some big industry players a run for their money.

As a followup, I did the first couple swaps by just powering down the amps, with no problem. Given my particular amps; PS Audio M700's, there was both a button on front to start the power down/power up process, I was also sure to use the toggle switch on the back panels to totally shut down power to the amps. Worked like a charm.

Thanks for the feedback. And I won't disagree with the value of long term listening, but in this particular case I have reason to believe the sonic difference many be dramatic. Long term listening will still be of value, but quick swaps may just prove amusingly eye opening. Thanks again. :-)

Oh, I should add that the ICs are balanced XLRs, vs. RCAs. To my understanding that does not change anything, but I don’t know what I don’t know. ‘Tis the reason for my OP. Just switching off the amps seems reasonable to me. But this is an area where unexpected consequences can - and do - happen.

I’ve got some new interconnects that I’d like to do A/B testing on, somewhat quickly switching between old and new cables. Best practice would dictate powering off each of the two components connected by the ICs. But at least one of the two, in my case, suffers sonically if not VERY well warmed up. More specifically… The ICs are between my DAC and my mono amps. There is no preamp in between because all I play is digital, and my DAC has an amazing volume control. So it’s a straight connection from the DAC to the amps. The problem with switching ICs is that the DAC is very sensitive to power interruptions, with regard to SQ. The amps, on the other hand, do not appear to suffer so much from minor power off times. They are class D, so maybe that’s a factor. So I’m thinking I might be able to change interconnects by switching my amps briefly off, while leaving the DAC on. Is that safe? Thanks for the help.

And astute observation by @superdad. But I would offer - in my limited experience - that if the cables themselves are given some freedom of movement - good cables with RollerBalls under the DAC is still a killer combination. Would it be better with limber cables that still provided great shielding? How could it not? But it’s still a sonically wonderful compromise.

I can certainly say that putting Symposium RollerBall Jr's, with the Tungsten ball upgrade, resting on Symposium Fat Padz, made quite the positive audible difference under my DAC, and my stand already had vibration isolation. Possibly a whole lot less money than an expensive stand, depending on how many components need isolation from seismic noise. Though I would underscore that while the Fat Padz made a small difference, the upgrade from the stock balls to the Tungsten balls was a significant bump in SQ.

Eric/TomJ - please accept my sincere apologies. CLEARLY I misunderstood the tenure of the conversation. Sorry. :-(

OK, I’m going to weigh in on this, but not with objective measurements. All I have is subjective listening observations. Though my observations were confirmed in a series of single blind tests with a true golden eared buddy of mine. You mention Ed Meitner. Not long ago I bought one of his MA-3 DACs. Wonderful DAC, but that’s beside the point. My first impression of his jitter reducing technology was that it was SO good at it that my EtherREGEN and its external clock were no longer needed. But after my ears acclimated to the vastly improved sound - vs. my old Mytek Brooklyn Bridge - I realized that the ER still helped. But now, only a little. Clearly the MA-3 was shouldering a lot of jitter reduction. That became easy to hear, and I was not concerned with substantiation of that observation. But the external clock was another matter. Long story short, using my old Brooklyn Bridge DAC, use of the external clock with the ER was night and day. It helped a LOT. But with the Meitner MA-3 it only matters with the very best of material (high res AND well recorded/mastered), and even then, the difference is subtle. So I’m not even bothering with my external clock any more. Need to sell it. As previously mentioned, that conclusion of the value - or lack thereof - of the external clock was subtle enough that I set up single blind tests for my golden ear buddy, who came to the same conclusion. Don’t know if that helps. It is subjective. But I am 100% certain of its veracity.

IMO this is a conversation better suited for the temple of measurement worship: Audio Science Review. In this forum making decisions based on what you hear generally has merit, and comments like “if you can’t measure it, it’s not real” is just trolling at worst, but off topic at best. So, can we get back on topic please? Thanks.

Thanks a mil’ for the great explanation John! The Rollerblocks are under the MA3 DAC, and boy what a difference. Now I’m wondering if some should go under the OCXO clock connected to my eR?

SECOND - FOLLOW UP - TEST My first critical listening session with my golden ear buddy Mike had one test that did not turn out as expected. When it became clear that the UpTone Audio EtherREGEN did improved an MS3's sonics - to some extent - it would have been natural to assume that the EtherREGEN with an external OCXO clock attached (ER using the external clock over its own) would have only made that better. But it did not; it did the opposite. I had to acknowledge that though I had kept the clock plugged in continuously, I had moved it a few hours before the test. That could have effected clock performance. Personally, I doubted it, but I still felt compelled to test that again. So roughly six weeks ago I moved the clock back into a permanent and stable location, and let it settle in. Then yesterday I had Mike my golden ear buddy back for a long listening session. The results were unambiguous, heard not just by Mike, but even sitting way out of the sweet spot, were also clear to me. The results? On the best recordings, a quality external OCXO clock - that has had weeks to settle - when connected to an EtherREGEN improves the sonics of an MA3. According to Mike, "Cleaner, tighter music, Not messy or muffled. Better separation of instruments. It made me want to hear more of the music. Though it does not matter with every track. But when it does make a difference, it makes a huge difference." I would agree with that 100%. Though I do have to qualify that conclusion, as the test setup from yesterday was not identical to our test setup from my first post above. Everything was the same except that a week or so before this second listening session I inserted three Symposium Rollerblock Jr's under the MA3 (supporting the unit, lifting the stock feet off the shelf), and later swapped the Rollerblock Jr's stock balls with Symposium's Grade 10 Tungsten Carbide balls. When made the Rollerblocks were added, the sonic improvement was immediately audible. And then when I upgraded them with the Tungsten balls, that too was an immediately audible improvement. So, would the addition of the Rollerblocks influenced either of these two tests? IMO - maybe. The Rollerblock addition, and then the Tungsten ball addition, both increased the clarity and resolution - particularly imaging - of the MA3's output. Maybe if that additional clarity had been present in the first test, it might have altered the initial conclusion that the OCXO attached to the eR did not improve the output of the MA3. We can't know. So I'll modify my above conclusion above to the following. On the best recordings, a quality external OCXO clock - that has had weeks to settle - when connected to an EtherREGEN improves the sonics from an MA3 resting on three Symposium Rollerblock Jr's with Grade 10 Tungsten Carbide balls. PS - In the interest of full-disclosure, I have to acknowledge that for the first tests in my OP, I was running one version of Roon on my Roon core, and on the second test yesterday that Roon core software was a subsequent version. I honestly don't think it made a whit of difference to sonics, but that's for the reader to decide.