Disc Jockey
02-12-2008, 01:31 PM
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
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