Our customer chose to upgrade to the Alexia II's without an audition. Quite a leap of faith, but it was certainly among the best decisions he has made. The II's are in a class of their own and a significant step upwards from the 1s. The tweeter is the best I have heard from Wilson, and, overall, the response is considerably more linear than its predecessor, requiring much less adjustment in the calibration. Virtually flat to 20 cycles (down 3db at 20) in his room, the sub was almost an afterthought. We were able to integrate it subtly. A minuscule shelving up of everything from 2k up added some needed bite without affecting the overall balance. Wilson is to be congratulated on producing such a fine speaker. The system is at a new pinnacle of performance. There is much more meat on the bones. Clarity, definition and separation are all improved. Can we extract more? Yes, the PranaWire Sukhavati interconnects and speaker cables are under construction. And beyond that? Watch this space. The upper chart shows the response of the Alexia in room (without sub) prior to our calibration. The lower chart shows the response after. The smooth gentle slope downward is nearly ideal.
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We are happy to announce that we are beginning production of a new speaker cable, The Sukhavati, or Realm of Bliss. For this cable we are pulling out all of the stops. It is a quadruple Ribbon Design with three of Pure Silver and one of pure copper (aggregate total = 2 gauge), a total of three shields for 21 element construction with specially treated internal layers, and pure silver connectors. I had not heard the RCP-1 myself until I took it to my customer's house in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. (Please see my blog, "Rare Subtle Beauty", below which describes the evolution of this system in detail.) To put things in perspective, this is perhaps the most musical, most revealing system I have ever heard. It's ability to draw subtle distinctions and its command of micro-dynamics allows the listener to follow all of the performance's tiniest nuances. I thought we had already attained the apotheosis. I have no problem promoting anything from Acoustic Revive, even unheard, because my experiences with every one of Mr. Ken Ishiguro's creations have been extremely positive. Each one addresses a particular vulnerability in a hi fi system, and the more of them you add, the better the system performs You can easily find corroboration for that in many places on the web, but in particular if you follow Jeff Day's Acoustic Revive Chronicles in Positive-Feedback magazine. The linked article goes back to issue 39. There are many that follow over the years. The current issue is number 90! Still, I was only expecting a modest improvement by the insertion of the RCP-1. One, because the system was already at such a high level, it was hard to imagine what might be better, and, two, because every other plug-in-the-wall-and-forget-it device I had tried over the years never really added much, and in some cases, made things worse. My preconception could not have been more off the mark. One might rightly assume that since we were starting with a system that was already at an extraordinarily high level that the effect of the RCP-1 was magnified many times. Jeff Day's highly positive remarks on the RCP-1 are also based on listening to a very sophisticated and highly evolved system. Will the audiophile at the beginning of the curve derive as much benefit? I will have to wait to hear from more customers to know. I can say that in a system where we had gone to extraordinary lengths to enhance performance, to remove as much noise as possible, where we had heard clearly each individual improvement as we replaced this or that component or cable and where we heard the sum total of those improvements, we heard a leap as big as the insertion of the Arhat speaker cable or as big as the insertion of the upgraded power supply for the preamp. The certainty of the magnitude of this improvement was gained in the first few moments we listened. When you're in this kind of territory it's very hard to come up with the words to describe what you're hearing. Veils removed? Check. Greater inner detail revealed? Check. Improvement in micro-dynamics? Vast. But something else as well: The ability to follow contrapuntal movement within a symphony is vastly increased. Not only are micro-dynamics enhanced, they are now clearly in the service of the phrase. That is, now we can hear more clearly than ever the arc of the phrase, as well as all of the subtle fluctuations within it that give it its unique and individual character. Then we are more easily able to follow the sum total of phrases that are flowing simultaneously, both as an aggregate and as individual phrases with all of the subtle inner fluctuations readily apparent. Truly an astonishing upgrade! We spent nearly two and a half years upgrading a customer’s system with all PranaWire cabling, Linebacker In-line Passive Power filters and other improvements including multiple sets of fo.Q HEM-25 footers, Oyaide in wall wiring, Acrolink Mexcel digital and clock cables, SMc Audio electronics and proper calibration of the speakers and sub. This was an extraordinary opportunity to reach for the stars. The result is a system that brings us face to face with ineffable beauty and grace.
415-897-8884 • joe@lotusgroupusa.com Summary of ImprovementsUpgrades Provided by The Lotus Group:
Electronics: Preamplifier SMc VRE-1C Preamplifier with Premium Power Supply Amplifiers: SMc Custom 400 Watt Mono Bloc Amplifiers PranaWire: Speaker cable: Sukhavati – Wilson Alexia II Speakers Avatar – Wilson Subwoofer Interconnects: Sukhavati - DAC to preamp Sukhavati - Preamp to Crossover Sukhavati - Crossover to Main Power Amps Cosmos - Crossover to Subwoofer Amp Power Cables: Sukhavati 3 Arhat 1 Digital Cables: Avatar Photon USB Power Conditioning: Linebacker SE 1 (Subwoofer Amplifier) Linebacker Sovereign 3 (1 feeding distributor feeding DCS digital stack, 1 feeding each power amp) Cables Other: Acrolink Mexcel 7N-DA6300 Digital Cable Acrolink Mexcel 7N-DA6100 BNC Clocking Cables (3) Power Conditioning Other: Acoustic Revive RTP-4absolute, RTP-6absolute Digital Processor: XTA DP424 Isolation fo.Q HEM25 footers - 9 sets fo.Q AB4045 Platforms - 2 fo.Q IP-22 Platform fo.Q SH-22K and TA-102 Damping Materials Furutech NCF Boosters - 8 Professional Calibration by Manny LaCarrubba Upgrades not provided by The Lotus Group: Aurender upgrade W10 to W20 Upgrade Wilson Sophia IIs to Wilson Alexia to Wilson Alexia II Add DCS master clock Firmware upgrade to DCS upsampler, converts all output to 2X DSD The Triple Driver in-ear phones from 1More have made something of a splash among audiophiles. Attendees at T.H.E. Show Newport were treated to an audition of fully broken in buds, and reports are that it was well worth it. Being stuck in my room for most of the show, I missed a lot, including the headphone space, but on my return, I heard about these marvels and decided to check them out for myself. At $99.99, the upside, especially based on what folks were telling me, seemed worth the risk. The packaging did not disappoint, and the inclusion of a magnetically closing faux leather box added to the feel of quality. The sound, however, was a different matter: Right out of the gate, though the bass was large and the potential for real transparency was present, there was a palpable whitish glare with bright crashy, splatty and thin sounding transients which meant that, for the time being, to me at least, they could not be not be regarded as "listenable". I decided to put as many hours on them as possible. I've been playing pink and white noise, sweep patterns and music though them. As of this writing there are at about 40 hours. My guess is that they won't come fully into their own until at least after 100 hours, maybe longer. Yesterday, being my usual impatient self, I decided to see what I could extract in the here and now. I dug into my tweak-o-holic's kit bag and came up with fo.Q TA-32, self-adhering 21st century damping material and Oyaide MWA-100S, electromagnetic wave control material. My first move was to apply a circle of TA-32 to the flat round back end of the ear buds. This added a significant level of clarity and weight to the presentation, though it was still far from musical and still had that hard to live with high-endy quality. The next move was to wrap the brass down tube with TA-32. Again another uptick. The next move was done in stages: I punched six dots using the largest punch on the leather punch tool shown above and applied them in one location at a time: 1st the bottom of the black portion of the body, then the top and finally on the brass face of the body just behind the ear cup. Each of these produced a profound improvement, with the one on the brass face being the most powerful. We were beginning to approach musical. The final two moves were to wrap TA-32 on the cable just below the "Y" and to wrap the 3.5mm stereo plug with first a layer of Oyaide MWA-100S electromagnetic wave control material and then a layer of TA-32. The outer layer of TA-32 was necessary because the MWA-100 S is very thick and would quickly come undone on its own. In fact, I put a little extra effort into bending it around the plug and holding it in place to insure that it would not unravel before applying the TA-32, and, of course, the TA-32 could not hurt. At this stage in the listening the buds are on the edge of being truly musical. I will continue the burn in process and report back in a future blog. For $100 I don't expect them to equal my Audeze LCD-3s, but they are easily now the most open sounding earbuds i own. (Disclaimer: I don't own any expensive earbuds, and I'm sure that the high priced spread is well beyond these, but for their price, and with a little tweaking, I think they are definitely worth the cash.) Let me know your thoughts and experiences. Thanks, Joe Update July 2, 2016I was about ready to pack these up and return them (they were stuck for several days at the edge where they still had a fatiguing upper midrange to treble glare), but something interesting happened between the last time I listened (yesterday) and today. Are they fully out of the woods? No, but the harshness and greater bulk of the fatiguing quality seems to have disappeared, leaving behind a mostly musical and fairly transparent signal. It still needs further break in, but it is getting interesting. Update July 8, 2016We have passed another milestone. There was a slight hiccup when it appeared that the bass in one ear was louder than the other. I'm now convinced that this was due to the sensitivity of the 3.5mm stereo plug, which must be seated perfectly. These buds have grown addictive with their transparency and openness being something of a marvel. Treble is still not world class with a slight tinge of tizziness, but now now subtle enough to be a non-issue. I decided to see if I could extract more performance with TA-32. In the photo below you can see where I have added more to the cords. I also added another dot to the buds themselves. The dot on the brass face of each bud came loose on their own, probably by constant rubbing against my ear. There are now three dots on the black band, which I think are quite secure. With these additions the 1More buds have become addictive. I have a new and heightened awareness of both music and background sounds on soundtracks and find myself grooving to deep synthesized bass - things I usually don't pay much too attention to. The magnification of ambient cues and the overall sense of transparency is immense. Further Additions
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August 2023
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