Marantz/B&W scarred me for life!

[I-S]

Well, almost.

My old system (CD63, PM66SE, DM602) was so harsh that it could cut things. I got used to it and lived with it for years. However, recently I changed to Rotel CD and amp, and changed my cables, and the system doesn't suffer the same affliction anymore.

However, A couple of weeks ago I was in birmingham at the symphony hall. One of the pieces was a rendition of tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, with a very talented young Estonian woman playing the solos on the Stradivarius "Huggins" violin. As the piece soared, I gritted my teeth for the sheer harshness of the top note that I'd got so used to with the marantz kit.

Thankfully it never came. What did come was the sweetest sound you've ever heard... And one that I don't believe ANY hifi anywhere can or will match.

I was surprised by my readiness for the harshness though, and realised that I can place the blame for this squarely at my old system's door. That's not what hifi is for!

[technobear]

You have my sympathy. I have suffered at the hands of two Marantz CD players. A CD50SE (mine) and a CD63SE (an ex's). Truly ghastly. Thankfully I have now discovered Arcam and no longer need to wince and turn the volume down as I once did.

Chris

[Robbo]

CD50SE (mine)

I had one of those (in fact I still do in the loft). I didnt think it was that bad, but it is easily beaten by more modern players.

Robbo

[technobear]

Originally posted by Robbo
I had one of those (in fact I still do in the loft). Best place for it :lol:

It was a rather unforgiving player for rock music. I used to put on U2 and all the house spiders could be seen marching to the kitchen :eek: Talk about sonic buzzsaw!

Chris

[Robbo]

I uused to use it with a harman kardon 6100 integrated and mission 762s. I built this system out of 5 star what hifi reviews. that was back in the days when I though what the mags said was gospel:rolleyes:

We all live and learn!

TBH, it wasnt a bad system. Though I imagine if it were partnered with the B+Ws it would be would be horrible as I think the metal dome tweeter used in the cheaper B&Ws was truly nasty.

Robbo

[Rory]

yeh...wouldn't put blame solely on the cdp.... Marantz bits aren't exactly dull sounding, shall we say coupled with bright sounding metal dome tweeters- i have metal dome tweeters with a bright sounding cdp but have always toned it down with amplification- nad, arcam, now plinius :cool:

[adam]

That is the same almost as my starter system many years ago with the marantz pm44se and 601,and i don't think it was that bad,easy to say once you've upgraded and can look back and critisize,the marantz amp is flat as a pancake i found,and thier cd players are over rated,by the media,but are still good,and again feel the finger of blame is not intirely its fault,as rory said the harvest yellow tweeter on the 600 series was very metallic sounding and forward,and is a hard characteristic to get rid of, no matter the other electronics (used on the end of valve amp),that metallicness remains.

The cdm1 were far smoother,then on the se version B&W changed some capacitors on the crossovers,which made the se brighter.

[davidcotton]

Only heard marantz and sony cdps tbh (aside from a 10 year old technics that is still going)

When I eventually get round to auditioning might give a couple of different players a spin as well just to see...

[I-S]

Actually, it is possible to temper the tweeter on the 602s (the goldish coloured one). In my case, it took Rotel electronics and FFRC speaker cable to rein it in, but now harshness is rare, and only prompted by very hard sounds (Bob Dylan's harmonica can do it).

[timpy]

It is unfair to blame one component for the sins of a system where synergy may well be lacking. Marantz / B&W is not a match made in heaven for their buget gear. At the top end they both use a similar voicing trick to increase "excitement and interest". Put together it is most likely too much.

The question I have is, if you're allergic to hardness, what is that ghastly FFRC doing in your current system? If it was in the Marantz / B&W system then it must have been pretty near unlistenable in the HF region!!!!

Cheers

[PBirkett]

To the contrary, I found FFRC soft and dull in the treble. I'd have thought it a good choice to calm treble?
:confused:

[michaelab]

Originally posted by Robbo
I had one of those (in fact I still do in the loft). I didnt think it was that bad, but it is easily beaten by more modern players
I still have one (Marantz CD50SE) and to date it's still the only hifi (as opposed to portable) CD player I've ever bought. It's still going strong as the transport in my system having had a Trichord Digital Ooutput Board stuck in it (by me).

Even before though, I didn't think it was bad. Beaten my more modern players as Robbo says but pretty good for a 13 year old CDP that cost me £350.

Michael.

[timpy]

Originally posted by PBirkett
To the contrary, I found FFRC soft and dull in the treble. I'd have thought it a good choice to calm treble?
:confused:

Paul

It depends on the system. As with any cable with a strong electrical characteristic, it's performance will be governed and more drastically affected by kit used with it. It also depends on how you make it, but it tends towards a high capcitance I'm told, which can make many things sound ragged a the top. Certainly the stuff we had here managed to make Tannoys sound aggressive with several different amplifiers, which is quite a trick!!

There is nothing wrong with high capacitance cables (unless you're a Naim owner :D:D:D:D:D ;) ), Isolda is one for instance, but Townshend don't leave it's electrical characteristics down to change as viewed by the kit at either end (hence the cable terminations). I'll bet the Goertz equivalent is nowhere near as consistant or predictable from system to system.

Horses for courses of course, but FFRC sucks IMHO.

Cheers

[adam]

Originally posted by Isaac Sibson
Actually, it is possible to temper the tweeter on the 602s (the goldish coloured one). In my case, it took Rotel electronics and FFRC speaker cable to rein it in, but now harshness is rare, and only prompted by very hard sounds (Bob Dylan's harmonica can do it).

I would have thought using a smooth copland valve amp,and smooth audioquest midnight cables,would have more of an effect,than the change of ffrc cable,unfortunatley it didn't and the tweeter remained bright and spitty to me.But to be honest you can't appreciate this until you live with better speakers, then switch back,and you see just how bright the original 601 were.

This isn't a critisism as im a B&W fan,and used thier speakers for many years.

[wadia-miester]

Originally posted by timpy

Horses for courses of course, but FFRC sucks IMHO.

Cheers

Whoooo there Timpy :eek: , you best watch out mate, CJ will be in like Flynn :D , shame on you too, and a dac 20 owner as well, you'll be black-balled, but in all fairiness you are quite correct. :)

[PBirkett]

Originally posted by timpy
Horses for courses of course, but FFRC sucks IMHO.

But you'll notice, I didnt disagree :D

To my ears, it doesnt sound any better than speaker cable costing less than £2 / metre.

[I-S]

FFRC the way I build it certainly is not harsh in the treble. It's not lacking treble, but it is smooth and avoids harshness.

Since you're in cheltenham, pretty much single-figure mileage away, I'm happy to loan you a proper set sometime should you wish?

Certainly it was an enormous improvement on Cable Talk 3, and some people who've bought from me have used it to replace Silver Anniversary Biwire, which comes in at a hefty £8.50/m.

I don't claim that it's the be all and end all of hifi cables, because obviously it isn't. What it IS is damn good for the money.

I do recognise that the original 600 series are quite harsh at the top end, but I've found that they can be tempered this way.

[wadia-miester]

I'm sure Timpy will gladly take up the option :) you can do a direct comparsion with some £4@meter off the roll stuff we've got kicking about, should prove an intresting comparision.

[timpy]

Originally posted by PBirkett
But you'll notice, I didnt disagree :D

To my ears, it doesnt sound any better than speaker cable costing less than £2 / metre.

Indeed I did notice that ;)

Isaac, many thanks for the offer. I don't doubt that that there is better FFRC in the world than I (I say "I" in the loosest possible sense, the beauty of having students lying about :D ) knocked up, but to be honest unless it is likely to rival Isolda then I'll pass thanks.

The trouble with having had much much better cabling is that you can't imagine ever going back. Having tried the Isolda in one of my other two systems, it would benefit (no scrub that, it does need it!!!!!!), even though it would be the single most expensive component in the system. 2 * 4 metres = 500quid!!

Where's the secondhand section..... :D:D

Cheers

[I-S]

But therein lay my point.

You can't flatly say FFRC sucks when comparing it to a cable that costs over £60/m! It is reasonable to compare it with other cables that cost similar and a bit more, eg QED Bronze, Cable Talk 3, QED SA, Cable Talk 4, etc, around the £3/m - £10/m area, because that's the sort of system that it fits into. Those are also the sorts of cables that one would reasonably expect to use with a budget speaker such as the DM600 series.

Horses for Courses is exactly right, and I don't think that many people are going to go spending twice as much on speaker cable as they did on speakers. Thus townshend Isolda isn't exactly the horse for the DM600 course, whereas FFRC stands quite well in comparison to the other (previously mentioned) horses that ordinarily would be found on this course.

[timpy]

When we tried the FFRC there was no Isolda here.

When we tried it, it wasn't competitive with anything, and we had Cable Talk 3, Cable Talk 4.1, Gale XL315, Ortophon SPK 200, QED SA, QED Original, Chord Co. Oddyssey, Jamo High Definition, Naim NAC A4, Linn K20 and Supra 4 all lying about at the time, plus some others I can't remember. The FFRC wasn't better than any of them, not anywhere!!!

But the real killer for it was, whilst you can argue that any one of the above cables is better than any other, unlike FFRC they don't exhibit any particular or overriding sonic flaw, where the FFRC had hardness and grainyness stamped all the way through it. Bass was soft too, not in level but in definition, and it didn't time either. That balance may appeal to some people / systems, but it's not safe enough for a commercial balance in budget kit, which is one reason I expect no-one makes a cable similar in construction. Safe isn't often very inspiring, but it usually doesn't get thrown away (as did the FFRC).

I don't understand the apparent pre-disposition people have against proper cabling. They seem quite happy to blow ever increasing sums on boxes, many of which only ever work to a fraction of their potential due to the ancillaries they are used with. I'm not saying this just because we market a few interconnect cables either. Some huge gains can be made in the correct selection of speaker cable for instance (there are some truly good ones out there already) but it seems the area is rarely addressed.

Cheers

[I-S]

Then I would say that something was wrong with the FFRC you tested or you were using components that weren't suited to it.

FFRC was so much better than cable talk 3 in my system it wasn't funny (it was one of the biggest changes I've ever heard).

Quite a few of the people I've sold FFRC to use B&W DM600 series speakers, so it may be that FFRC is particularly suited to these speakers, who knows. But I know a few people who would certainly disagree over whether FFRC is competitive with a whole load of those cables you mention.

[wadia-miester]

Originally posted by timpy
Some huge gains can be made in the correct selection of speaker cable for instance (there are some truly good ones out there already) but it seems the area is rarely addressed.

Cheers

Far more elequently put that I could, but surprising truthfull. WM

[PBirkett]

Well, I've compared FFRC to Gale XL315, QED Silver Anniversary, and more recently, Chord Odyssey. Sounds like I had a similar experience to Timpy, I found it inferior to all of them. It had a soft treble, and the sound seemed "messed up" in places, the bass was weak and lacked any kind of drive (noticable with dance music more than anything else I feel), and the midrange was recessed to the point of being non-existant, especially compared to QED SA.

Maybe it was badly made or crap cable or whatever, but I am more than happy with my QED Silver Anniversary to want to try it again.

We (me and my mate) repeated the experiment using cheapo Shark cable from Maplin, v XL315 v QED SA v FFRC. This time on a Pioneer A400 and Wharfedale Diamond speakers. The result was the same, he even preferred the cheapo Shark cable to the FFRC, as did I.

When I first built the FFRC, I wanted to like it, after all everyone was raving about it, and it did stay in my system for a while, but the whole time it was in I was not satisfied with my system, and contemplated upgrading boxes, when all along it was never the problem. Then I got the QED SA, and it blew the FFRC into kingdom come to be honest.

I even prefer the QED SA to the much more expensive Chord Odyssey in my system. So it led me to the conclusion that expensive isnt always better (well maybe it is in Isolda's case), but that just about anything was better than FFRC.

So whether or not my FFRC was just crap or whatever, my opinion of it has been so tarnished that it will never beckon my system again.

[I-S]

Ahh, well, if so many luminaries tell me I'm wrong I guess I must be.

[cookiemonster]

There is certainly more of a disparity in folks opinions of FFRC than there are with other cables. I would hazard a guess, as has been suggested, that some of the problems experienced with this cable are partially due to poor samples. I have witnessed other FFRC 'attempts', and none have at least visually compared to the constuction and quality of the current set which i employ;) .
However, sonically, i have only ever tried one set of FFRC in my system, and so this is purely conjecture as to whether or not shoddy construction techniques could account for the disparaging comments flying about regarding the sonic charecteristics. I won't repeat again my observations regarding its performance in relation to similarly priced commercially available options, but it supercedes those that i have tried.

Isolda DCT may be the ONLY cable:notworthy to have, but is obviously a bit of a joke when using <£500 speakers (correct me if my maths is incorrect). But in the <£10 arena i would contend that there is definitely an argument for FFRC. I will have some properly made stuff on demo for visiting afficianados in the near future (they may not show now they know:p ), so i will ensure that my kevlar jacket is well harnessed in light of some of the comments bandying about:D . If all else fails it makes a good 'toe rope' i once heard:MILD:

[timpy]

Just for completeness the components we used were:

Audiolab 8000LX, Arcam Delta 90, and Pioneer A400 amps. We had an Arcam Alpha 10 too but I don't remember using it for the tests and the (not very comprehensive) notes don't mention it.

Speakers were Mission 774 (which were possibly not well run in at that time) and so Mission 771, Tannoy MX1 and Linn Keilidh speakers were used as well.

Sources were Arcam Alpha 8 cdp / Rotel CDP-965BX as transports driving a TAG DAC 20 (with IXOS 1051 and 105 digi interconnect and MF Nu-Vista Interconnects would have been in use at that time IIRC although the notes don't list them). Or a NAD C540 cdp with Sonic Link Violet interconnects, which most of the notes refer to. TAG didn't seem to get much play so it must have been done about the time it was in and out on loan to the mate with a TAG CDP20.

Actually looking at the few notes there are, brightness doesn't often make an appearance, but "roughness" and "obvious top" appears virtually in every entry along with "poor bass" and strident mid, apart from listener 3 that is (you know who you are...... please make a note the term "It's just crap" is not a helpful contribution when your come to review the notes!!!!!!!!!). Seems that the Cable Talk's didn't do very well either, as it seems to have suffered from something called "marshmellow bass" as well as the FFRC, whatever that may be and the 4.1 was noted as too smooth, but that exists in an 8m run, which may have something to do with it. FFRC lengths were 3m, and all the others bar 4.1 (were 3-5m). Objective and unfamiliar listeners are all very well until they have to try and describe something..... !!!!

Cheers

[timpy]

Originally posted by Isaac Sibson
Ahh, well, if so many luminaries tell me I'm wrong I guess I must be.

Just because you've found two/three people who don't agree with you doesn't make you wrong. It just means that you've found two people who's experience doesn't correspond with yours. Nothing wrong with that. I for one wouldn't care if I was the only one in the known universe who thought that FFRC was "****", it's my opinion, based on my experience and I stand by it.

Otherwise I'd just find myself hiding in the corner with lowrider.... ;)

Cheers

[michaelab]

FWIW I didn't find any flaws with my (self constructed) FFRC cable. It was quite a bit better than the Audioquest Type4 I'd been using upto that point. It wasn't outstanding but it didn't have any obvious flaws.

It doesn't compare to the Isolda I have now of course :D but then we're talking totally different price ranges. I'm using one of my 3m FFRC runs as a high-level sub cable now - works a lot better than the crap "mains wire" cable that came with my MJA Pro50 :MILD:

Michael.

[wadia-miester]

Well, if Isaac brings his Cat 5 along next week, I'll bring some off the roll £4@meter commerialy available cable along to compare in Dino rig, then you can determine for yourselves if it's worth the hassle :) Just for the record, there is approx 200m or so knocking about for one thing and another, but one thing is for sure, no attempt is going to be used for anything other than it's intended for telecommunications, one intresting point, Dyn audio new studio digital monitors, use a Cat 5 cable as a Clock syn/word bit line in to the speakers.

[I-S]

Dino already uses it.

[kermit]

on ffrc
may appeal to some people / systems, but it's not safe enough for a commercial balance in budget kit, which is one reason I expect no-one makes a cable similar in construction.


some of you guy,s are going to have to enlighten me .:rolleyes:
i,ve neither made nor heard ffrc , so i,m not in a position to comment , but i do have a question...

hopefully someone on here will have an answer .

like i said , i,ve never made it , never heard it , but when ever i think of ffrc i always think of it as the cheap alternative to kimber 4tc/8tc .
now the kimber cable gets good reviews , so whats the difference ?
i can,t see it being geometry as surely a woven cable is a woven cable .
if it,s because kimber uses multistrand instead of solid core (i,m theorising , it,s not a given fact), then i seem to remember an awful lot of guy,s saying don,t use multistrand , you must use solid core .
anyone got any ideas?
:)

ps , this is only conjecture , not fact , but don,t tnt audio have some claim to the design as it is (or name ?) and this is why it,s not for commercial use/sale .

[wadia-miester]

Originally posted by Isaac Sibson
Dino already uses it.

That is good, as this will show, when we 'change various other' components, down stream first, you will hear the 'Venturi effect' it has, then we can repeat the same thing with speaker cable in it's place, then you will understand. WM

[amazingtrade]

I found that FFRC gave my speakers greater detail and better bass timing, I can't really say I noticed a difference in the treble. I used to have bi-wired Gale XL315-2 before and I do prefer my FFRC. Maybe its just because its not bi-wired now it sounds better I don't know, also I have two runs of FFRC cable to terminal rather than the normal one and a half, so maybe this helps things. Its terminated with Shark plugs. And my XL315 didn't have any termination plugs so maybe it oxidised and that affected the sound quality.

My specs are Sony CDP530, Marantz PM6010OSE, Eltax Monitor III's (better than people say, they certainly but my JPW 310i's to shame) and a load of other sources including a Project Debut II.

I am happy with the sound anyway and I cannot be bothered to change my speaker cable again, anyway my mum has got my old XL315-2 cables now.