Rare Subtle Beauty

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. 

"It was a pleasure to be involved with this project and the end result is just as Joe describes - a truly beautiful, musical experience. A rare system, indeed." Steve McCormack

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Journey to Nirvana

Perhaps the best place to start would be to look at what is commonly meant by the term Nirvana and how it relates to audio. In Buddhist texts Nirvana translates as "No Self". In a state of realization, the small mind, the discursive mind, that which we identify as "I" no longer exists. All phenomena that arise are not subject to interpretation or distortion through the lens of "self" but rather exist independently, manifesting their own true nature, illuminating the universe. For me, the holy grail of audio is a system that only makes its presence known by its absence, where we know without question or hesitation that each sound is manifesting its own true and unique nature with nothing added and nothing missing. In this condition realization follows upon realization. We have, I believe, created such a system.

In the beginning, the customer’s goals were somewhat modest. He correctly intuited that the equipment he had should have been delivering better sound. My first listen was of a system with a shrill top-end, foreshortened and truncated sound stage and misaligned bass. I knew we could easily improve on what he had. At the time I had no idea of how far we were going to take it.

This system is in a small living room that opens to a small kitchen space behind the listener. The speakers are on either side of the fireplace and have little room to be moved to the outside and nearly none at all front to back. The rear of the speakers is within inches of the back wall. The owner listens almost exclusively to classical music at fairly low volumes. 
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The physical layout dictated that a large scale sound stage was not to be, but we sought to achieve every other attribute of a truly great system including:
 

1. Maximum density and richness of detail
2. Absolute freedom from fatigue: presence of massively detailed information should not be synonymous with irritation, glare and whiteness of sound
3. Three dimensionality: each instrument and musician should appear as a living breathing sculpture within a realistic sound stage
4. Dynamic contrasts that are free from compression or hyperbole and communicate the actual event
5. Effortlessness
6. Freedom from noise
7. Ability to lose oneself in the music, absolute suspension of disbelief, all sense of listening to equipment removed​

In one of our earliest tests, I replaced the speaker cable to his subwoofer with a short length of Cosmos speaker cable we had on hand. The improvement was enough to convince the customer to go further down this path. He has said many times since, that whenever I would make a recommendation and predict the improvement we would hear, he found my recommendation and description to be spot on. 

Throughout this extended upgrade the next step would always present itself.

PranaWire Arhat Speaker Cable

One of the issues we faced was having to run the speaker cable under the floor as it would have been unseemly to route it in front of the fireplace. Instead it was sent  through the garage ceiling and suspended underneath to reach the left speaker.​ This necessitated the construction of a 21' pair of speaker cables. At first we built a pair of Nataraja speaker cables. These were eventually replaced by the Arhat level cable (left channel shown above). PranaWire speaker cables have a separate run for hot and return so a pair of our speaker cables consists of four individual cables.

Throughout this extended upgrade the next step would always present itself. Early on we had replaced his original speaker cables, power cables and interconnects and had added a PranaWire Linebacker SE In-line Passive Power Filter. When the customer brought up the idea of upgrading his recently acquired Nataraja speaker cable to the Arhat, it was clear to me that cabling was not the needed next step. Knowing that we were not hearing the full potential of the existing cable upgrades, I urged him to consider replacing his preamplifier with Steve McCormack's inimitable tour de force, the VRE-1C. This was exactly what was needed. When installed, the system was liberated from its previous constraints. We were now in truly musical territory.

Again and again the question was asked, “How much better can it get?”

​After each upgrade was installed and the improvement noted, the customer would ask the question, “If the system is this good, how much better can it get?” This led him to choose to upgrade his interconnects and speaker cables from Nataraja to Arhat level, add several Arhat power cables and to include two Linebacker XE’s feeding the amplifiers. The server was upgraded from the Aurender 10 to the Aurender 20. The dCS Master clock was added and Acrolink Mexcel 7N-DA6300III BNC clock cables were installed. A firmware upgrade to the dCS upsampler to convert all output to 2X DSD yielded a significant improvement. Later, when we produced the first Linebacker Sovereign we added one feeding the power conditioner to the digital equipment yielding a significant uptick in the resolution and sweetness of the finest details.

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SMc Audio VRE-1C Pre Amplifier (Power Supply Chassis Not Shown) and Magnum Opus 400w Mono Bloc Amplifiers With XTA DP424 Digital Processor and fo.Q HEM-25 B and HEM-25 S Footers

Another watershed decision to was order custom amplifiers from Steve McCormack. These amplifiers represent Steve’s very latest thinking and are truly magnificent. A page dedicated to praising the sheer beauty these amps produce would not be out of place here.
 
Again and again the question was asked, “How much better can it get?” The decision was made to order the top level power supply for the VRE-1C preamplifier. This took months to produce as Steve had to design the new chassis first. The customer opted to have its base machined from solid brass adding considerable stability to the platform. With the addition of the new power supply we had entered the realm of the ineffable. 
 
By now, every time I listened to the system I was transported, able to leave my everyday thoughts behind and enter a world of exquisite beauty. But still the question was asked and still there was more that could be done.
 
The Wilson Sasha II ‘s were upgraded to the Wilson Alexia’s - another major improvement.
 
No matter how exalted the speaker, without being properly calibrated to its environment, there will be anomalies in its interaction with the room. The number of speakers that have such a capacity built in is still very small, but growing.  The Lotus Group Granada and G2 speakers fall into this group.
 
We knew that to achieve the highest possible level of performance the speakers would need to be calibrated. The customer had been running his Wilson WATCH Dog subwoofer using the Wilson crossover. Before we took measurements it was not clear whether the subwoofer was contributing anything of value to the system given the small size of the room and customer’s listening levels. The Wilson crossover was replaced with a high quality pro sound processor, the XTA DP424. Measurements revealed that the subwoofer was in fact contributing to the overall performance and was left in place. They also surprised by showing that the left side of the room, the side without the sub, had a greater bass hump than the right. Once the corrections were applied the system was absolutely seamless from top to bottom.
 
There was one final upgrade remaining: to replace the Linebacker XE’s feeding the SMc amplifiers with two Linebacker Sovereigns. These include the use of a massive IEC inlet and IEC cable mounted plug from Bocchino that offer considerable improvements over any other connectors we know of. The increase in size, weight and cost is considerable, but the improvement is undeniable.
 
I had promised delivery of the Sovereigns on the day of the calibration, but a delay in completing the final cosmetics meant they could only be delivered later. Since he was anxious to have them that evening we agreed to meet halfway so I could hand them off, saving me a second trip into the city. The next day he called to ask when I could come over to listen. He didn’t say much except that there was a further improvement.  Work, holidays and the rain conspired to keep me away for two weeks. I was looking forward to hear how improvements beyond the calibration would sound.

Finally, settling into the sweet spot, the first strains of the Haydn Piano Trio resulted in the most powerful involuntary relaxation response ever, as if all was well in the world and I could breathe easy. This was going to be better than I thought possible.  

It is as though your nervous system has had a reset, returning you to the time when music itself was new and nothing but pure joy.
 
It responds to input like a feather to a puff of air. It is beyond effortless. Each musician is a vivid moving and breathing sculpture on a highly defined stage. Pizzicatos materialize from absolute blackness like fireworks bursting in space. Orchestral crescendos fill the venue with ever mutable clusters of emerging chords, the location and shape of each instrument precisely defined within the aggregate.  The moving arc of Ruth Ann Swenson's voice is like a visible mass of light, projecting and receding, blooming and decaying in unique shapes and directions, phrase by phrase in real time and space. Rolf Smedvig's exquisite embouchure is a visible element in the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, his tone ethereal, floating and exquisitely transparent. Many exalted systems I have heard do not begin to exhibit these qualities. The excellent Wilson Alexias and Subwoofer shine in the context of all of these upgrades. The room is small and the speakers are confined to a less than ideal position, still...
 
Each piece elicits wonderment. It is as though your nervous system has had a reset, returning you to the time when music itself was new and nothing but pure joy.​​

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PranaWire Linebacker Sovereign

 
​415-897-8884 •  [email protected]

Summary of Improvements

Upgrades 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