December 11, 2011

  • AudioQuest Lapis, Part 2

    During my four years (1989-1993) at UC Santa Cruz, I loved to come home to San Francisco.  When I couldn't find a ride, I had to take a combination of Santa Cruz-to-San Jose jitney, and Caltrain to S.F.  The jitney dropped passengers off at San Jose Diridon station.  From there, we saw the San Jose Arena being built.  20 years ago, the San Jose Diridon station was basically the end of the line.  In a way, it still is.  But during weekday commute times, there are six stations south of it.

    The first station to the north is College Park (above).  I recall that, when I used to take Caltrain home, by the time the train got to College Park, I had already settled into a seat.  I would be armed with a Stereophile magazine (then in digest size) or two.  And 20 years ago, I had borrowed KJ's Genesis We Can't Dance CD.

    At no time did We Can't Dance ever experience brisk sales.  It just sold in slow but steady fashion.  Perhaps that's a function of being released at grunge's explosion.  Nevertheless, We Can't Dance did not run out of singles, until February 1993's "Tell Me Why."  Anyway, I don't hear too many songs from this album playing on the radio.  Be that as it may, there was nothing like hearing "Hold On My Heart," while strolling through the streets of downtown San Francisco.  While the song does remind me of breaking up with KJ, it's just a sweet, sweet song.  I absolutely loved hearing KOIT play it, as I went to Ultimate Sound.

    Ultimate Sound was an AudioQuest dealer, and even had some spools of AQ speaker cable.  Nevertheless, customers generally bought more of Kimber and XLO than AQ.  Now that I think about it, I myself bought way more Kimber and XLO than AQ from Ultimate Sound.

    Here is the blurb of the AQ Lapis, as found in Stereophile's Recommended Components.  I actually bought Lapis from Performance Audio, not Ultimate Sound.  So what happened, when I brought the Lapis home?  Holy cow!  Although I was very satisfied with the excellent AQ Quartz, the Lapis was in an entirely different league.  And remember, this was with modest NAD, Sony, and Adcom gear.  Furthermore, this was without that era's cable burn-in device, the Duo-Tech Cable Enhancer.  It's too bad I no longer have the Lapis.  I wonder how good it would be, if it were placed on the Audio Dharma Cable Cooker.

    While attending UCSC, I tended to keep my good audio stuff at home at S.F.  At the beginning of my senior year, I said, "F--- that, made an exception, and brought the Lapis down with me to Santa Cruz!"  The system consisted of Sony CDP-520ESII CD player, Adcom GTP-400 tuner/preamp, and Adcom GFA-535 power amp.  The Lapis was so expensive, I simply could not afford another.  But it was so good, my housemates and I succumbed to audiophilia nervosa.  When we listened to CDs, such as KJ's We Can't Dance, we used the Lapis between the CD player and tuner/preamp.  But when we listened to the tuner section, we stuck the Lapis (replacing a 0.5m Topaz) between the Adcoms.

    The Lapis just had this way of bringing out the music, without letting grit, grain, hash interfere.  It didn't interfere with the music's flow, and thus, the emotion, when present, poured forth and gripped us.  Audiophiles are stupid and ignorant.  They make erroneous blanket statements, such as "silver cables are bright."

    Whose bright idea was that?!  The Lapis uses "Functionally Perfect Silver" conductors.  No one can accuse the Lapis of sounding bright.  If anything, it is slightly forgiving. 

    I don't know what happened to KJ's redbook We Can't Dance CD.  So now we have the superior-sounding hybrid SACD.

    In the mid-90s, I worked in S.F.'s South Beach.  KJ worked part-time at the Stockton Street Ghirardelli store.  I was dating Margaret, but I strongly preferred KJ.  On one occasion (spring '96, perhaps?), KJ and I met up after work.  Via her Walkman, Genesis' "Hold On My Heart" came on.  Out of sheer spontaneity, I kissed KJ.  Things like that helped set the tone for phasing Margaret out, and welcoming KJ back.

    I didn't just "phase out" the Lapis.  I abruptly sold most of my AQ cables, and replaced them (including the pairs of Lapis I had) with Kimber.  Though I'm very happy with my current stable of cables, I would welcome back the old AQ Lapis at any time.