Descripción
The Faithful Reproducer
One of the great things (and sometimes not so great things) about ribbon headphones is their ability to reveal the best and the worst of every component, cable and source type, in the system.
The development of our VM-1a amplifier and TI-1b interface brought our ribbon headphones even closer to the apex of personal music reproduction, and with that, a question. We wondered, just how far does this go? Is there more “up” from here?
Odd Bedfellows
Cables for ribbon headphones have an unusual relationship with their load. It is indeed rare that a cable will have a higher impedance than the load they drive. If you think about it long enough, your brain will begin to squirm in your skull.
Resistance, capacitance and inductance become a three-headed monster hiding under your bed. This is no causal hook-up. Get it wrong and you’re faking it. Get it right and you can enjoy faithful reproduction only a rare few have experienced.
The Path to Bliss
After careful analysis, we knew the target parameters. A difficult target and hit it we did! Yes, by the numbers, all should be well. This thing should be singing! Hmmm… let’s just say, it wasn’t!
Those beautiful ribbons wouldn’t lie to us. This, is where science, art and perception merge with desperation. This was to be our sonic statement we present to the world!
Lucky for us, we have Alex’ great mind to come up with a series of annealing steps to test its effect on sonics. Having a sample in Europe and the US we began various annealing cycles. Early on, it was obvious there was some very real effects on the nature of the sound.
Each cycle seemed to get gradually better. Eventually, we both had a sound that was so unlike anything we had heard before_extremely detailed resolution and a smoothness that can only be compared to natural acoustic instruments.
