Posted on Thursday, 22nd July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I don’t like expensive cable. My most expensive one was Kimber, the lower one was Synergistic Research. But I was stunned when listened my friend’s Duelund interconnect 0.5 and 2.0. Now, Duelund launches their new interconnect, the 2.0 Rev 2. This Rev 2 means the improvement over the original 2.0. They said, this one has more silver and better (silk) insulation. Ok, I have put half of my feet on the water, there’s no way back, let’s go deeper (that means, go deep inside your pocket to get this one).

The main ingredients of this cable is Silver (oil impregnated) with Silk insulation.

If we are talking Duelund CAST Silver as the most expensive capacitor, their cable is not even close to the most expensive one (like Pear Cable, Kubala Sosna, or Nordost Valhalla). But still, spending over US$ 40 per foot/single cable has never been an easy job.

The appearance more likely like a silver tape with my old socks! Well, it’s a silk though!

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Tags: Cardas, Duelund, Interconnect
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Posted on Thursday, 22nd July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

Actually, this is an old recording. I listened the first few years ago in XRCD format. I lost the CD, and suddenly I saw a SACD one on an audio shop in Singapore. Surely I wouldn’t miss it. This record also available in JVC K2 HD format, at almost double the cost. I picked the SACD one then, since I didn’t really know the K2 HD style. This SACD has Proprius label, which also well know with the “Jazz at the Pawnshop”.

The SACD format used on this album is Hybrid Multichannel. It means that you can play in on your ordinary 20-years old CD Player or your new sophisticated US$ 5000 SACD multichannel player. All can do. The surround effect on this – I believe – was created on purpose for the SACD label. The original master shouldn’t have surround track. I don’t really care about it since my main focus is stereo only.

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Tags: Choirs, SACD
Posted in CD/DVD Review | Comments (3)

Posted on Wednesday, 21st July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I love the Duelund CAST Resistor sound on my speaker crossover. Despite its cost, it’s better than some of my previous favorites, like Sfernice or Mills (YMMV). But since they are designed for crossover application, so they don’t have such high value. I manage to get special order one, custom value at 299R.

Definitely, 299R is not a common value at crossover application. Not even close.

One measured at 303.6R while the other measured at 305.6R. At 0.6-1.6% accuracy, I think it should be fine.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

I plan to put this cute black resistor on Grid application, on my tube preamp. Which preamp, we will see later

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Tags: Duelund, Duelund Cast Capacitor, Duelund Cast Resistor
Posted in Collectible Stuff | Comments (2)

Posted on Sunday, 18th July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I this world, there are lot of tubes, with different filament supply. In most of my tube rectification application, I stand with two choice of rectifier, the one with 5 Volt filament (most Octal and UX type) and the others with 4 Volt filament (RGN or AZ families).

The best way to use two type of rectifier with different filament voltage is to use dedicated switch to select the exact filament voltage. You can also use Resistor to drop the filament voltage (up to 1V drop and 1A), but this way is not recommended due to a lot of heat must be dissipated (also not too good in terms of sound quality to).

I just finish the switch installation this afternoon. Now I can choose to use 4 Volt or 5 Volt filamen voltage. You can see the picture below.

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Tags: Aikido, preamp, RGN, tube rectifier
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Posted on Saturday, 17th July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

Due to my busy time, I haven’t written much on this blog. But in next few weeks, some hot entries will come -  as I have purchased some new toys. Wait and see…

Let’s fill the entry with some “light-weight” topic. I bought some CD during my business trip last week. Let’s enjoy some.

Standard CD, although considered as an obsolete formats for many years, but still become a most used audio format until now. We have seen DVD-Audio and SACD were the strongest candidates to terminte Red Book CD Audio. But still, CD Audio maintains its superiority as widely used audio format, until present time. Perhaps we can see the digital storage format like WAV or loseless stored in your giant HDD, someday will terminate the life of the CD Player. But before that time comes, we still enjoy the CD as the main audio source.

I knew JVC recording long time ago. It was XRCD (eXtended Resolution Compact Disc), continued with XRCD2 and XRCD24. About one or two years ago, they release K2 HD format, which claimed to provide better sound at standard Red Book CD Audio, without additional decoder. Could it be?

This is one recommended collection from FIM, contains various artist. All remastered with K2 HD technique.

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Tags: HDCD, JVC, K2 HD, SACD, XRCD
Posted in CD/DVD Review | Comments (1)