Gramophone Dreams #82: IKIGAI Kangai-level cables, dCS Lina headphone amplifier

Decades in the past, after I was peddling million-dollar sound techniques, an astute potential buyer requested me: "If I purchase your very costly system, what’s going to I get that I’m not getting with my much less costly system?" Smiling my finest fatherly smile, I whispered to his ear, "Goosebumps, tears, and laughter."

With a barely anxious look, he requested, "How a lot did you say these silver cables value?"

Thirty years later
Changing audio cables at all times modifications the sound of my system, generally lots however often just a bit. Typically, the sonic results of cable modifications are modest shifts in focus, tone, or transparency. But generally throughout blue moons I’ve seen a brand new set of cables flip a blah, boring, fuzzy system right into a macrodynamic, microdetailed one. Or flip a cool, mechanical-sounding system into one thing fierce and mammalian.

I might by no means blame an audiophile for pondering that specialty audio cables sound largely the identical and that purchasing costly wires could be silly. That view is justifiable as a result of it displays most audiophiles’ expertise. I felt that method myself till in the future within the Nineteen Eighties I went off-piste and skilled my first silver-wire cables from Kimber Kable.

Ray Kimber, who I met by some means via the Audio Amateur journal crowd, known as to recommend I attempt a loom of his new braided silver wire. His cables turned my well-behaved, even-keeled system right into a macrodynamic, microdetailed fantasia. No wolves or mammoths appeared, however the clouds vanished, and the solar got here out.

Before that silver solar got here out, my system was wired with varied gauges of generic Mouser "hookup wire," which I had found through the use of it for point-to-point wiring within the amplifiers I used to be constructing. Mouser’s stranded polyvinyl-coated copper didn’t seem to stifle or grossly pollute sign currents, so I started fashioning all my interconnects and speaker cables from it, in my most well-liked colours, with Switchcraft connectors.

Changing from Mouser copper to Kimber silver interconnects and speaker cables threw a brighter, purer mild on each recording. Atmospherics and the specters of performers grew to become a extra distinguished a part of the listening expertise. Equally noticeable was how silver added one thing akin to a shimmering halo across the stereo apparition. I discovered these enhancements interesting and value the additional value.

Just a few years later, I switched to hair-thin, hand-drawn Italian silver wire from Audio Note Japan (now Kondo). Those wires, which have been made totally in-house, took information retrieval to an excessive degree that pressured me to coin a brand new descriptor"LSD-spiderweb"which referred to the surfeit of element I skilled. Changing from almost-free copper to Kimber and Kondo silver was like switching from aspirin to windowpane acid supplied by Owsley Stanley III. I attempted these top-shelf silver cables with middle- and bottom-shelf elements and found that their impact was fairly negligible with the bottom-row stuff however generally dramatically efficient at upping the joy issue of midlevel elements. As a end result, I’ve no qualms about utilizing $4000 interconnects with a $2000 built-in amplifier.

I’ve been experimenting with wires for the reason that Nineteen Seventies, but I’ve by no means skilled a compelling, frisson-inducing system at any worth degree that had not been rigorously cable-curated.

IKIGAI Audio Kangai-level cables
Forty years later, through the summer time of ’23, a musician/audio supplier pal named Steve Davis (at present of Analog Matters, an importation and distribution agency situated in Ormond Beach, Florida) despatched me a loom of Kangai-level wires from Dutch producer IKIGAI and urged me to attempt them "fast, only for enjoyable" earlier than he took them to an audio present. The final time Steve requested me to attempt a product, it was the Falcon LS3/5a, which I reviewed in 2015 and acquired instantly. Because Steve has famously good style and waited eight years to ship me one other product, I made a decision to present his IKIGAI wires a attempt (footnote 1).

A pair of 0.75m Kangai-level interconnects prices $3610, and a 2m speaker cable pair is $9400. Which signifies that "only for enjoyable," I wired my ground system with roughly $20,000 value of 5N silver/24kt gold conductors. I used to be desperate to see what these skinny, versatile, well-constructed cables would do to the sound of my system, which had been rigorously curated with Cardas and AudioQuest wire.

The Japanese phrase "IKIGAI" interprets loosely to "cause for being," which means that their designer-manufacturerJeffrey Dam, within the Netherlandsis both exploiting Japanese philosophy and aesthetics for advertising functions (probably a good suggestion) or abusing hyperbole (as all producers have a proper to do). Either method, it is apparent that Jeffrey Dam feels assured in what he has created and builds together with his personal arms.

IKIGAI cables are provided at three ranges. The entry degree known as Sugure (Japanese for "wonderful"), which is all stranded 5N silver fitted with ETI Research connectors. (IKIGAI’s DIN Phono and BNC connectors are made by Furutech.) The midlevel IKIGAI, which I attempted, known as Kangai, which suggests "emotion." Kangai provides extra strands, some in pure gold, and a extra advanced strand-weave armature. IKIGAI’s highest-level cable is called Kinzan (gold); it provides extra strands, extra kinds of stranding, and TIG-welded connections.

Before I critically have interaction with any cable product, I must know that it’s skinny, compliant, and delicate on my elements’ rear panels. If it lays neatly and doesn’t appeal to mud bunnies, I fall in love. If it recovers above-average quantities of uncooked vitality from a file or disc, I ponder a long-term relationship.

IKIGAI’s Kangai-level wires handed all these assessments, however most notably and uniquely, they put a enjoyable, frolicking dynamic cost on each sound coming from my audio system. They made lesser cables appear drowsy and constrained. The Kangai-level IKIGAIs delivered to my system a fresh-air readability and a "Lights, digicam, motion!" vibe that equaled or exceeded AudioQuest’s Thunderbird, which makes a speciality of these issues.

But the IKIGAI’s method was gentler. Its mood was extra relaxed than that of the AudioQuest and extra ethereal than a full loom of Cardas Clear Beyond, which, in placing distinction, retains its naked toes planted in black soil below a yellow solar. In my system, Cardas Clear Beyond makes its finest magic within the mid- and decrease frequencies. IKIGAI’s Kangai-level cables made their finest magic within the mid- and excessive frequencies, the place their distinctive delicacy made opera, choral, and orchestral recordings further pleasurable.

The essential factor that separated the Kangai-level IKIGAI cables from others I do know, nonetheless, was how a lot charged, scintillating vitality they wrung out of recordings. If your system leans towards cloudy or drowsy (which my techniques hardly ever do), IKIGAI wires would possibly elevate vivo and transparency.

The dCS Lina headphone amplifier
Established in 1987, dCS is a British firm (footnote 2) that in the present day tasks a products-for-the-educated-class aura just like those Linn and Naim have projected for the reason that Nineteen Seventies. Linn and Naim grew to become well-known for making analog merchandise then later mastered digital. For nigh on 36 years, dCS has been broadly revered for the sonics and engineering high quality of its digital merchandise. While it is a part of a set of merchandise that features digital componentsa DAC and a clockthis dCS Lina headphone amplifier is dCS’s first all-analog amplification product.

The luxuriously matte-black Lina retails for $9750 and is designed to be a part of a trio of matching elements. The others are the Lina 2.0 Network DAC ($13,650) and its related Master Clock ($7750). When used collectively, these elements make up a three-tier, monolithic stack of serious-looking black packing containers that weigh virtually 50lb and that, bought collectively, value $31,150. dCS appears to have created this iconic-looking black monolith to additional set up their model within the world group of headphone aficionados. Walking round CanJam NYC 2023, it was straightforward to identify these distinctive, triple-decker monoliths from throughout the room. In use, it felt like an end-game headphone system. For this column, I listened solely to the headphone amp and to not the DAC/Master Clock mixture.

According to the revealed specs (footnote 3), the Lina amplifier is a strong state, class-AB design able to delivering 2W into 30 ohms or 0.48W into 300 ohms with balanced ‘telephones, or 1.6W into 30 ohms and 0.2W into 300 ohms with unbalanced. dCS does not specify the Lina’s achieve, which will be switched between Low and High from the entrance panel. Low is for delicate, easy-to-drive headphones and IEMs.

High, then again, is for difficult-to-drive headphones, together with such planar magnetics because the 47 ohm, 89dB-sensitive Abyss or HiFiMan’s 80 ohm, 83dB-sensitive Susvara. According to the part labeled "Drive" on the dCS web site (footnote 4), "The Lina amplifier’s design is optimized for 60 ohms, as that’s the place the headphones on the troublesome to drive finish of the spectrum sit."

dCS says that the Lina amplifier will drive "the total 14VRMS"RMS is for root-mean-square, which you’ll be able to consider as the typical voltage output; the height output voltage will likely be increased than this by an element of about 1.4into impedances as little as 45 ohms, to make sure that headphones that require voltage are adequately pushed. "The Lina Headphone Amplifier employs a topology that’s generally known as Super Class A or Class AA. This permits the amplifier to drive a powerful most of 4.5W per channel steady into 45 ohms, whereas sustaining the superb linearity usually related to a Class A amplifier," John Giolas, VP gross sales and advertising at dCS, instructed me in an e-mail.

"Like the remainder of the dCS vary, the Lina Headphone Amplifier makes use of a hybrid energy provide. It includes a toroidal mains transformer. This is then adopted by switch-mode energy provide components, which work nicely at supplying the constant DC voltage the circuitry contained in the amplifier requires. The solely flying lead connection contained in the unit is from the transformer to the facility provide circuitryevery thing else is contained on the only flex inflexible circuit board."

The Lina headphone amp contains three analog inputs: one stereo pair of unbalanced RCA, with an enter impedance of 48k ohms; one stereo pair of buffered (high-impedance) balanced XLR; and one stereo pair of "unbuffered" balanced XLR to be used with low-impedance supply elements together with the Lina DAC. The unbuffered enter makes use of shunt suggestions to cut back common-mode distortion.

On the entrance panel are three headphone outputs: two 3-pin XLRone every for proper and left channels, plus one 4-pin XLRand one 0.25" (6.35mm) headphone jack.

Tools for enjoyable: My plan for this Lina report was to maintain my listening system secure and reproducible by others. That meant utilizing Denafrips’s Terminator Plus DAC feeding AudioQuest’s Thunderbird interconnects, alternating with the HoloAudio’s Spring 3 DAC related with Cardas’s Clear Beyonds.

Footnote 1: JD Ikigai, Lorentzstraat 75, Roosendaal, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 (0) 620626025. Email: [email protected]. Web: ikigai-audio.com. US distributor: Analog Matters/Big Ear Consulting LLC, 1453 Rt US 1 North, Unit 32, Ormond Beach, Florida. Tel: (800) 752-4018. Email: [email protected]. Web: analogmatters.com.

Footnote 2: Data Conversion Systems, Ltd., Unit 1, Buckingway Business Park, Anderson Rd., Swavesey, Cambridge CB24 4AE, England, UK. US distributor: Data Conversion Systems Americas, LLC, PNC Bank Bldg., 300 Delaware Ave., Suite 210, Wilmington, DE 19801. Tel: (302) 473-9050. Web: dcsaudio.com

Footnote 3: See lina.dcsaudio.com/merchandise/lina-amplifier and moon-audio.com/dcs-lina-headphone-amplifier.html.

Footnote 4: See dcsaudio.com/edit/lina_amp_drive.

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February 29, 2024 at 04:05PM