ThomasOK's System

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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by ThomasOK »

Defender wrote: 2022-07-06 09:36 good to hear its even better :)
did you meanwhile made your mind up with respect to the Linn Silver MK II´s?
No, I haven't yet. I did send a pair of the Mark IIs and an original set to Alex for his review on the Entity 1.1 in Stereophile that is linked in the Entity section, although he didn't mention the different versions. While he found some things he liked about the MkII versions he felt the originals were more musical and engaging. Unfortunately testing them isn't as simple a task as you might think. Why? Due to the lack of perfection that was just mentioned in another thread here. While most people, and most of the industry for certain, would rather ignore it the fact is that there are no two products that are absolutely identical. My two SMs do sound slightly different, as I'm sure do my two TMs and my two SINGularity units. (I say "I'm sure" as I haven't actually compared left and right SINGularity nor TM, nor do I want to as that way leads to an even deeper psychosis!) ;-)

Every cable will sound slightly different, or sometimes not so slightly, as Fredrik mentioned quite some time ago. I have at least 7 pair of original Linn Silvers. which I have listened to and paired and marked with numbers to keep track of which are paired. (One particular cable is audibly better than any of the others with another one a close second so they make up pair 1 despite their differences - there goes that psychosis again. Life would be much simpler if it was all still mono!) Pair 1 goes from SINGularities to SMs, pair 2 went from SMs to TMs, pair 3 went from Kremlin to SMs - I was obviously optimizing the LP12 signal path. With the Källa I have to currently use a longer pair of cables to reach the SM on the far side of the racks. But if that changes it will likely get pair 2 and pair 3 will go SMs to TMs.

I think you can imagine the nature of the dilemma. If I compare any random pair of MkII Silvers to my originals do I get a fair picture of the actual difference? Probably not. So I bought 3 pair of Silver MkIIs and I have burned them all in. But one of those pair is still with a reviewer along with the Entity 1.1 and pair #3 of the originals. Once I get those back I can take some time and listen to each MkII cable and pair them up in order of most musical quality. Then I can compare the best of the MkII to the best two or three pair of the originals to see if they are any better. I also think I still have a pair of the Mk1s but with the newer style RCAs (which we already know aren't as musical as the originals) that I should throw into the mix. It's so nice how simple these tasks are. Still nowhere near comparing 380 different firmware parameters!

What is the difference in the MkII? I couldn't figure out anything from the looks of the cable. There is also MkII of the Black interconnect wire and they look the same to me as well. So I asked a contact at Linn and was told that the original Black and Silver wires were made for Linn in China and the MkII versions are made locally about 20 miles down the road in Scotland. Silver was changed over in 2019 and Balanced Silver and Black were changed in 2020.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by Defender »

I understand your dilemma - although my benchmark is rather the second generation Silvers which are slotted as the first unslotted generation seems to have unreliable performance - at least the pair I had was worst than a second generation pair.
And because of that and also because the first generation is hard to source I try not to worry about how much better the first generation could be.

At least its a plus that the new ones MK II are made in the UK.

However I am quite happy with the Linn Blacks too - especially the ones you made for me for the JBL308‘s.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

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ThomasOK wrote: 2022-07-06 19:29 What is the difference in the MkII? I couldn't figure out anything from the looks of the cable. There is also MkII of the Black interconnect wire and they look the same to me as well. So I asked a contact at Linn and was told that the original Black and Silver wires were made for Linn in China and the MkII versions are made locally about 20 miles down the road in Scotland. Silver was changed over in 2019 and Balanced Silver and Black were changed in 2020.
Thanks Thomas,
what about the 50m drum for cables by length Silvers? Also made locally in Scotland?
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by ThomasOK »

matthias wrote: 2022-07-06 22:14
ThomasOK wrote: 2022-07-06 19:29 What is the difference in the MkII? I couldn't figure out anything from the looks of the cable. There is also MkII of the Black interconnect wire and they look the same to me as well. So I asked a contact at Linn and was told that the original Black and Silver wires were made for Linn in China and the MkII versions are made locally about 20 miles down the road in Scotland. Silver was changed over in 2019 and Balanced Silver and Black were changed in 2020.
Thanks Thomas,
what about the 50m drum for cables by length Silvers? Also made locally in Scotland?
If it says Analogue Interconnect II on the wire then it is made in Scotland whether Black or Silver and whether it is on a roll or as separate interconnects. If it just says Analogue Interconnect then it is the Mk I, made in China wire. We currently still have about a half roll of the original Silver interconnect wire left but our roll of Black interconnect is the Mk II version. Once we sell through the Silver I'm sure the next roll we get will be the Mk II as well.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by ThomasOK »

The system is now all up and running and I have made a few changes. One is discussed in the thread "Cheap power strips for best sound" where I detailed my comparisons of four power strips and the one I ended up preferring. While I was doing the strip comparisons I was using Giella ∏, SINGularities and Radikal in that order. I read recently of someone (maybe Hermann?) finding that in their system it sounded less musical if the Entity was plugged into the outlet next to the Radikal. Since I only had four items plugged in, and six available outlets on the generic strips, I decided to play with orientation. I found that when I moved the Radikal away from the SINGularities it was actually less musical so they don't seem to have the same sensitivity. I also found that it was more musical with the Giella ∏ first rather than after the SINGularities. The rewired CablePro Revelation is now in the system with the order of components (starting where the power comes into the strip): SM1, SM2, KRadikal, Källa, SINGularity1, SINGularity2, TM1 and TM2.

I also made another change which I am not going to reveal just yet. But you can hear clips of the difference in the Playground thread. This also lets you hear the system with everything all back together. Nice to have it all back up and playing music, especially as I have amassed a number of new vinyl pieces over the last couple of months.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by Tendaberry »

ESL57.jpeg
Here's an idea for you Tom ;-)
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Re: ThomasOK's System

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My system barely fits in my room already. I think a full on HQD system is well beyond my space constraints, my budget and my desires, especially if using the original Hartley 24" subwoofers.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by ThomasOK »

I haven't posted here in quite some time it appears. My system has certainly changed since the last time I posted with the major upgrade to Tundra Mono 3s. In terms of major components I haven't had other changes since the Radikal 2 and Ekstatik. I did get some Trud shelves a while back and do find them more musical than the Mimer K.

But the reason I am posting this is cables again. I read David Neel's post about getting his Linn Silvers straightened around and it reminded me of a rather fun, if time consuming project I had last weekend. Several years ago I graded all the Linn Silvers I had around, all originals, and came up with pairs 1 through 7. The pair 1 I originally put inside my LP12 hooked to the Urika so I didn't mark then but I did mark 2-7. Of course I switched to SINGularity and they came out o the LP12 but I still didn't mark them as I saw no need. But early last year I picked up another pair used. I took them to the Axpona show last year and didn't think anything about it until somebody else disconnected the SINGularities when we were packing up and the two unmarked pair were put together. So when I got home I had to check those four out and was pleased to find that the other unmarked pair was better than pair 2 but not as good as the best so I market them 1 and 1.5. Ones were on the SINGularities and 1.5 on Källa, 2 on Kremiln and 3 to the power amps.

That brings me up to last weekend. In the time since then I picked up one used pair at the store and then a customer walked in with a big box of all kinds of audiophile cables for us to get rid of. In that box were 4 pair of original Linn Silvers in very good condition so I bought them all. I didn't get around to testing until last weekend but I found that my purchase had paid off handsomely. Most of them were quite good although none beat my best pair. I didn't want to renumber the ones already marked so I once again gave them numbers in between. So I now have the following cable pairs: 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1,7, 1,85, 2, 2.5, and 3 through 7 with one left o be determined. One of the new pair is not quite as good as pair 3. Unfortunately pair 4 is one I lent to a reviewer so I don't know how the new pair compare to them. However, that pair are supposed to be on their way back to me as of today so I should have them soon.

The great thing is that I now have 1-SINGularity, 1.25-Källa, 1.5-Kremlin and 1.7-TM3s. So my whole system is wired up with cables that are better than my previous second best and I still have set 1.85 to connect my Giella ∏ when I want to listen to headphones. After getting these cables all in place I was quite pleased with the improvement in the music coming through the LP12 and especially the Källa.

By the way, if I haven't mentioned it before I also did a test a while back with the newer Linn Silver mkII with the newer RCAs. While there were better and worse ones there I didn't feel even the best of them was quite up to my pair 7 of the original style Silvers. So I'm sticking to original style Silvers and just achieved a nice, cheap system upgrade.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by matthias »

ThomasOK wrote: 2024-02-14 02:11 By the way, if I haven't mentioned it before I also did a test a while back with the newer Linn Silver mkII with the newer RCAs. While there were better and worse ones there I didn't feel even the best of them was quite up to my pair 7 of the original style Silvers. So I'm sticking to original style Silvers and just achieved a nice, cheap system upgrade.
Nice story, thanks for sharing Thomas!
BTW, did you manage to make your own Silvers from the 50m drum with Fredrik's solder and the right temperature which were inside your reported ranking of the factory soldered ones?
Last edited by matthias on 2024-02-14 10:51, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by Spannko »

Am I right in thinking you listen to the Silvers individually Thomas? If so, have you found differences between cables from an original pair, resulting in new matched pairs consisting of two red or two black cables?
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Re: ThomasOK's System

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Spannko wrote: 2024-02-14 10:44 Am I right in thinking you listen to the Silvers individually Thomas? If so, have you found differences between cables from an original pair, resulting in new matched pairs consisting of two red or two black cables?
Yes, I listened to each cable individually using a mono recording from the Källa to a recently upgraded Sagatun stereo 1.7 which I was burning in (it already had about 50 hours on it). This way it eliminates the chance of a channel difference in either unit, however slight, having an effect on things. I actually thought for a little while that I was going to end up with a pair with two red and another with two white but in the end it didn't happen, just a bit of luck. I first did a quick ranking listening to the cables one at a time and comparing most of them to the 1.5 that had been on the Källa. I hung them over a box in the initial order I felt they belonged in with a gap between the two I felt were better than the 1.5 (they ended up as the 1.25) and the others that weren't quite as good. When I got down the the pair that would have been 1.8 the red one was a decent amount better than the white, which really wasn't as good as the 2.0. I thought I might have to demote it and promote the red from the 2.0 to make a better match. But then I tried the two that I had initially rated as below 2.0 and found that the white one was better than I first thought and was a good match for the red 1.8 so they became a pair and 2.0 stayed how they were. On further listening the last pair was not quite as good as the 3.0 pair and I am guessing will end up as 3.5 but I won't know until I can compare them to the 4.0 pair. I have in the past sometimes ended up with two red and two white together and I can definitely state that a pair bought as a pair will not necessarily be equally good.

However, I had a much weirder result when I was comparing a bunch of cables for a customer who posts on here. Among the cables were a couple pair I had made up for him as well as some factory ones and one pair I made was a short pair - about 18" (roughly a half meter) if I recall correctly. Anyway, it turned that one of the short and one of the long cables were a match and the other short cable and a long one were a match just below them. He did all the listening tests with me, which I carried out in the same was as my recent ones, and we both heard the same thing. It turned out that it worked well for him as he had a setup with his sources and Sagatun Monos and Tundra Monos where a pair of one long and one short fit where things were in the racks. This also answers matthias' question as there were some I had soldered mixed in with some factory ones and some of mine were better than some factory but not as good as others. That said I remember not long after I first started using Lejonklou solder at 677°F that I read Fredrik recommending people buy Linn factory Silver cables (back when they still had the original RCAs) if that length would work as he had been unable to solder a pair that were quite as good, even though the Linn Blacks he made were better than stock. When I read that I had two immediate thoughts: 1) Fredrik obviously was a very honest person stating that on the web. and 2) That he was right on as I also had been unable to make a 1.2m cable that sounded quite as good as factory even with Lejonklou solder at 677°F. I have still made a number o cables for people when they needed something longer or with a balanced connector on one end (such as for the JBL LSR speakers) and people have been pleased with them but I have generally refrained from making 1.2m Silvers. Although I did make a pair recently for someone who managed to find an unused set of original Linn Silver RCAs (at an obscenely low pice for the RCAs I might add) and I believe he is quite happy with the results. If I could get my hands on a batch of those RCAs I'd certainly give it a go and see how they fare with what I now have.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by Spannko »

Thanks Thomas. I can imagine soldering Silver plugs being quite difficult. The Black plugs are pretty straightforward, however the Silvers are quite a bit more massive, requiring considerably more energy to bring the plug up to the right temperature, yet the cables are relatively lightweight which puts them at risk of melting through. It seems like an incredibly difficult balancing act to get a good result. It’s not something I’ve tried, and tbh I don’t think I’ll be trying it any time soon!
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by matthias »

Spannko wrote: 2024-02-15 00:37
I soldered my Silvers with these RCAs:
https://www.neutrik.co.uk/neutrik/produ ... connectors
I didn't directly compare to Linn factory made Silvers but I am quite happy with them and they are easy to solder.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by Geoff »

Slight threadjack here, but are any of your silvers sleeves getting "goopy" and sticky as they age?
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by Spannko »

Geoff wrote: 2024-02-16 05:18 Slight threadjack here, but are any of your silvers sleeves getting "goopy" and sticky as they age?
I just happened to be inspecting my two pairs of silvers yesterday. It was quite difficult to unscrew one of the barrels and when I looked closer, the cable was a slightly different colour and had a less smooth surface. The printing on one was different too. Also, I could see one had a crack along the solder joint. I opened the crack wider slightly then the joint came apart. I could see that the “good” part of the joint was only about 1mm x 5mm. It made me wonder if, because of the difficulty of soldering a relatively massive plug to a delicate wire leads to a higher number of underperforming cables. A friend of mine used to x-ray aircraft welds. He’s retired now, otherwise it would be interesting to look at a number of poorly performing cables to look for a possible cause.
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Re: ThomasOK's System

Post by matthias »

Spannko wrote: 2024-02-16 09:38
AFAIK, with all Linn factory soldered Silvers is only a small part of the woven copper shield soldered to the massive RCA.
I don't know if this has an impact on the musicality. I suppose to solder the complete shield would cause thermal difficulties.
My gut feeling is that soldering the complete shield would sound even better. I did so with my Neutrik RCA Silvers.
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