William Feil
System Components
- Quad 988 speakers
- Vandersteen 2W subwoofers
- Nottingham Space Deck turntable
- Hadcock 242 Super Silver tonearm
- VPI Scout Master turntable
- VPI SDS
- Cartridge Man Music Maker 3 cartridge
- ZYX 1000 Airy 2 S low output SB cartridge
- Extremephono Limited tonearm cable
- Graham Slee Projects Era Gold Mark V phono stage
- Aesthetix Rhea phono stage w/ factory upgrades
- Canary Audio 801 SE linestage
- Pass 2.5 linestage
- Canary CA-339 power amplifiers
- Atma-Sphere M60 MKII.2 power amplifiers w/ factory upgrades
- Audio Aero Capitole MkII cdp
- Magnum Dynalab Etude tuner
- Sony TC-645 Reel to Reel
- Stealth Indra interconnects
- Stealth SCR interconnects
- 5 Dedicated AC power lines
- Acme Electric cryoed duplexes
- Stealth M-21 Super power cords
- Stealth Cloude Nine power cords
- Harmonix X-DC Studiomaster power cords
- XLO Ssignature 5.1speaker wire
- Cartridge Man digital stylus force and leveling gauges
- Final Labs Daruma III-2
- AFI Granite amplifier stands
- Mapleshade component platforms
- Walker Audio SST
- The listening room is 12'x15', fully carpeted, and contains
1 couch, 1 love seat, and 2 reclining chairs all fabric
covered. I utilize no floor standing or wall mounted acoustic
treatments.
My own opinion (DISCLAIMER: I AM A STEALTH
DISTRIBUTOR)
Installing Stealth Indra between the source components and
linestages significantly reduced background noise to the quietest
level I've yet to experience. There is a "liquidity" to
all music that doesn't appear with other interconnects when Indra
is placed in the signal path. The articulation and delineation of
information is greatly increased along with the speed of the
music. Replacing Indra with any other interconnect tends to
"slow down" the music as well as reduce the
dimensionality of the presentation. Music appears to flow from the
speakers as opposed to being projected from them. There are not
enough superlatives to describe Indra; they simply must be heard
and not just for 1,2, or even 7 days. It really takes a number of
weeks, many listening hours, and different source recordings to
fully appreciate their contribution (which ironically is nothing)
to the system. However, they will reveal any weak link(s) in the
system.
"Formal" listening test
In January 2004, five listeners (four friends and I)
spent 10 hours over a weekend performing blind auditions using
Indra, Compass Lake, Valhalla, Pursang, Dream Dancer, and Dominus.
The arrangements were such that each person would install 2 pairs
of interconnects unknown to the other members. We then listened to
the following:
1. Café Blue, Patricia Barber compact disc
2. Brandenburg Concertos, Boston Baroque Orchestra Telarc
compact disc
3. Waves The Bossa Nova Sessions, Eden Atwood 180 gram vinyl
4. Body Acoustic, David Chesky compact disc
5. Brother in Arms, Dire Straits 200 gram vinyl
6. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd 30th Anniversary 180 gram
vinyl
7. Waltz for Debbie, Bill Evans Trio compact disc
8. Gone Like a Train, Bill Frisell compact disc
Passages were selected by the 4 listeners who were unaware of
the interconnect pairings.
The listening continued through the weekend until each
interconnect had been paired against every other interconnect at
least twice. We then took an additional 4 hours comparing our
listening notes and compiling results. For each listening
comparison an interconnect could receive an arbitrary maximum of 5
points and a minimum of 1 point. The results were as follows:
Indra
Compass Lake
Dream Dancer
Dominus
Pursang
Valhalla
Indra placed first with 4 listeners and second with 1.
Compass Lake placed first with 1 listener and second with 3.
Dream Dancer placed second with 1.
William Feil
AudioFeil International
716-400-6177
audiofeil@cs.com
www.audiofeil.com
NOTE DISCLAIMER: I AM A STEALTH
DISTRIBUTOR
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