March 22, 2012

  • Adcom GCD-700, Part 11

    When I was in college, the rooms were so tiny.  There was no space for CRT televisions.  So most college kids only had clearance for a 13" TV.  My housemates and I started the 1991-2 school year with a 13" TV.  But then, in early 1992, one of my housemates brought down a 19" TV.  Not only that, it had MTS stereo.  Cha-ching!  Since I had bought an AudioQuest Topaz for use between the CD player and receiver, we were then able to use my old Monster Cable IL-400 between TV and receiver.  Cha-ching!

    With the 19" TV in the living room, we then moved the 13" TV into a bedroom.  Cha-ching!  My roommate Eric brought down his SNES, which we hooked up to the 13" TV.  Cha-ching!  Ya know, nowadays, with flat screens, even people's computer monitors are larger than 13".

    But back to my college apartment's living room.  While watching MTV, we saw the video for Too Much Joy's "Crush Story."  Doug complained, "Why does everything sound like that, nowadays?"

    Well, in the grunge years, everything had to sound like it was coming from a garage. 

    My housemate Dave would invite one or two of his female friends over.  Guess what they did.  After dinner, they'd pop in porno tapes into the VCR!  I recall one of his friends getting bored with blowjobs, so she fast forwarded those scenes.  Man, that 4-head monaural VCR was grainy.

    In those days, I was making the cable switch from Monster to AudioQuest.  But as I read those Audio Advisor ads, I sort of felt buyer's remorse.  With the redwoods surrounding the apartments, I felt as though I should have bought Cardas. 

    I mentioned yesterday that the Quadlink 5-C worked well between my Adcom GTP-400 and GFA-535, but not on the GCD-700.  Well, well, well, the Cardas Clear, in some ways, brings out the best in the GCD-700.  Yeah, yeah, it costs 2.5 times that of the GCD-700 itself.  But when it comes to "believing" that the music is real, this is the interconnect of choice.  The images are perfectly scaled.  It's like an accurate rendition of porn actors' size.  The Clear makes the XLO S3-1 sound comparatively warm and dry.  There is an absence of grain, so it's like porn is uninterrupted, without that choppy picture, and jittery audio.  Some interconnects (e.g., Oritek X-2 and XLO Signature 1.1) will allow the GCD-700 to sound faster.  But the Clear isn't slow.  Rather, it's unhurried.  I can imagine Doug's female companion getting frustrated, not being able to speed things up.  But for other listeners, the Clear fully develops the harmonics and decay.  It's like not being rushed or pressured, while having sex.  So you can make it last, and enjoy every moment.  

    However, and this is a criticism of the GCD-700, the jacks are too closely-spaced.  The Shunyata Antares will not fit at all.  The Cardas Clear's RCAs actually touch each other.  While touching each other is great in porn and sex, it is very very bad in audio!