July 11, 2015

  • Simaudio Neo 260D, Part 11

    When it comes to audio, I've gone through so many electronics, I am jaded. I really only get nostalgic about the system I had during my senior year of college. It comprised the Sony CDP-520ES II; Adcom GTP-400 and GFA-535; and Pinnacle PN-5+. If there were any other audiophiles at UCSC's Crown-Merrill apartments, I was not aware of them. My housemates, who were not audiophiles, also used and loved this system. With their untrained ears, they still heard the effects the Simms Navcom Silencers made under the components. They would have been open-minded enough, to accept that fuses could change or alter the sound of the electronics.

    That Adcom GFA-535 was about what you'd expect for a cheap solid state amp: hard, with hardly any soundstage. With that type of sound, the GFA-535 probably would have liked the Synergistic Research Quantum Red. This fuse would have stretched the imaging, reduced some of the grain, and imbued the amp with whatever PRAT it could muster.

    But the GFA-535 came out in the late-80s, while the Quantum Red is a current-production product. So imagining my old GFA-535 with Quantum Red fuses is just that - an imagination. Still, it's fun to dream about how the Quantum Red could have elevated the performance of that senior-year system.
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    But we do not have to dream about sticking the Quantum Red into the Simaudio Neo 260D. We can actually do it.

    No surprises here. The Quantum Red makes image outlines wide and tall, without much depth. It also sucks the air and space out from above and between those images. Thus, physicality isn't as good, as with other fuses. With the right powercords on the Neo 260D, the Quantum Red turns the Neo 260D into a PRAT machine. Your feet and knees will be moving! If you use the Neo 260D primarily as a CD player, the Quantum Red won't magically do anything about the transport's rolled-off upper mids and lower treble. But if you use the Neo 260D primarily for its internal DAC section, employing the Quantum Red potentially can make the Neo 260D (especially with Cooked powercords and interconnects, which do not impede the music's speed and movement) fleet of foot, and quick with the slashing of the sword through vegetation.

    And speaking of clearing out the weeds (stop thinking of shaving pubic and armpit hair!), instrumental textures are kept clean and glossy. If you like slick and airbrushed photography, the Neo 260D would like not red lipstick, but the Synergistic Research Quantum Red.