Stereophile, May 1996

ILLUMINATI DATAFLEX(D-60) STUDIO S/PDIF COAXIAL
& ORCHID AES/EBU BALANCED

DIGITAL DATALINKS

Jonathan Scull
Illuminati DataFlex Studio coaxial digital datalink. Price: $225/ Im, plus $100 for BNC or RCA termination. Illuminati Orchid AES/EBU balanced digital datalink. Price: $750/1.5m terminated. Approximate number of dealers: 325. Manufacturer: Illuminati

Chris Soniniovigo, designer and chief cook and bottlewasher at Illuminati Electronic Systems and Cables, has made a real name for himself in digital datalinks. A classic behind-the-scenes kind of guy, Chris is happiest when sitting at his computer cooking up a new design or refining his present ones. I've seen him in a suit at CES, but clearly he prefers his otherwise ubiquitous T-shirt and jeans. He's single, given to cigars and scotch, and is committed to the Holy Grail of electrical precision.

Illuminati's earlier cables were superstiff-real bears to work with-and looked completely strange. DataStream Reference, the first coax design, also sported odd vase-shaped RCA connectors that wouldn't fit all female connectors. Everyone bitched about their ergonomics, but no one, to my knowledge, complained about the sound.

Chris has addressed these issues in his latest designs: the sleek-looking and easy-to-bend D-60 DataFlex Studio coax AES/EBU balanced datalinks. These latest efforts are so successful, in my opinion, that I felt the time had come to put it in writing. For details on their construction and the philosophy behind IIluminati's products, read my sidebar interview with Chris.

Kathleen and I have listened to the current Illuminati cables on a wide variety of systems during the last six months. We've heard them on the Avalon Ascents via our Jadis JA 200s, with the giant Symphonic Line Kraft 400 solid-state amps from Germany, and with the highpowered American tube amps from Manley Labs. We auditioned them on such speakers as the Reference 3A Royal Master Controls and the Jadis Eurythmic II hybrid horns, with singleended amps ranging from the Wavelength Cardinal XS monos to the Cary 301SEs, the Jadis

Associated line-level interconnect and speaker cables included XLO Signature, Discovery Signature, Siltech, and Synergistic Research. We also recently laid in a set of TARA Labs' top-of-thelaic Decade interconnect and speaker cable. (I will have much to say about these terrific-sounding cables soon. We cycled through power cords from Marigo, Synergistic, and Essential Sound Products.

Other coax on hand included Marigo Apparition Reference Signature and the slightly more malleable Reference 2, Kimber AGDL and TGDL and XLO. AES/EBU entries included AudioQuest AudioTruth Diamond x3, Kimber AGDL and TGDL Apogee Electronics Wyde Eye, and Chris's older AES/FBU cable, which I also liked very much. Optical connections were made with what I consider to be the finest glass cable on the planet, Aural Symphonics Optical Gen.1, which only achieves thus exalted status when gooped with their impedancematching ioGel,

IF THIS IS THURSDAY IT MUST BE SWEDEN The Forsell Air Bearing CD Transport MKII has no optic transmitter installed - I found that merely connecting the board's ribbon cable to the clock degraded the sound of the electrical coax and AES/EBU outputs. The Forsell DAC (run without its top cover in place has to be pulled from the tight embrace of Michael Green's Signature ClampRack to reach a jumper in order to change its internal impedance from 75 ohms to 110 ohms for AES/EBU connection. So I just don't bother with it overmuch-or at all. Besides, the digital datalink that still sounds the best between the Forsell DAC and its transport is that old standby, Kimber AGDL with a Cable jacket wrapped around its stranded conductors. As a result, the Jades JS1 strutting its multiple inputs, became the default processor for this review. But it should be Stated For The Record that the Forsell D/A is fir from chopped liver! (What do they call chopped liver in Sweden?)

The Forsell DAC had been sitting idle for some time while we listened to the all Jades system that was featured in the March Stereophile. I'd been giving it a little R&R because (he admitted sheepishly) I thought I'd fried its little digital brain. Like all the components in our system, the Forsell DAC (left permanently powered up) had been fitted with a heavy, stiff, and unwieldy Large & InCharge Audiophile Power Cord. (No names, please! One day I fitted yet another behemoth cord to a digital device situated close to the convoluted path of the Forsell's cord, and in so doing jostled it a bit. This resulted in a rapid intermittent contact to the Swedish DAC. By the time I realized what was going on, the poor guy was in a high state of confusion. I swear I heard it say, "Hi, my name is Sven Gump. You can call me Sven Gump." Uh-oh.

Finally, the Jades review in the can, we sent the SE300B amplifiers off to Santa Fe for their fateful rendezvous with Tor uemada--1 mean Thomas J. Norton. (He must he awake at nights wondering what I'll think of next to send him to measure. I fear 22 years in the Air Force did nothing whatsoever to prepare him for the vicissitudes of single-ended amps! And so I thought to awaken the Swedish DAC from its slumber. All seemed well until I switched on the air-bearing transport, which had likewise been enjoying a little vacation. But its cute little Japanese pump (heretofore fairly quiet had evidently decided Basta!--it was noisy, raucous, and obviously no longer fit for duty. As we waited for a replacement pump from the good Doctor, I fed digits to the Forsell DAC with the Jades transport to
check its post-snooze IQ.

It was to gush. The Forsell is still the most analog-sounding DAC I have ever heard. The roundness, the air, the enormous soundstage, and the gentle, rich, full harmonic palette just poured out of its analog outputs. "Liquid" doesn't do it justice! (Where'd I put that towel?)

In fact, the Jades and Forsell DACs often polarized visiting audiophiles sitting in the Ribbon Chair. Some preferred the JS1's life, pace, rhythm, snappy transients, detail, tight bass, and pure musical excitement. Others swooned over the Forsell's positively huge soundstage, incredible air, beautifully developed tonal palette, and terrifically analog musicality. Me? I like 'em both!

As switching inputs to the Jadis JS1 requires no more than a flick of an expensive-feeling selector knob, I'll cover both cables at once rather than reveal their charms separately.

For some no doubt aberrant reason, I've never been much of a Keith Jarrett fan. I just didn't understand him as an artist. But listening to The Köln Concert (ECM 1064/65, I realized the supreme folly of my ways. Twenty-one minutes and change into Part 1, Jarrett "makes for me the goosebeumps," as Poirot might put it. As I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me, I felt the powerful, trance-inducing rhythms well out of his piano in a captivating, visceral manner. "Present" is just not the word I'd use to describe the spiritually encompassing sense of musical communication pouring through the system at that moment. I felt as if I was in his firmament, so to speak, in the very mental state I imagined him to be in when he played this music. The sense of excitement and passion was incredible.

As always, I find the way a system or a cable, for that matter-manages to reproduce the piano to be very telling. And as I listened to this particular recording, switching between the two Illuminate cables, I might easily note that they both sounded robust and bigchested. Powerful and dynamic, colorful, open, lots of air (for digital, that is; sorry, very precise and quick, neutral, and certainly widebandwidth. The 'links seem to obey their prime directive of getting the heck out of the way of the music. (See my interview with Chris Sommovigo for details.

Let's begin with the DataFlex Studio -or D-60, as it's known by its catalog number. For sheer musical pleasure, I always turn to an old favorite, Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson, recorded in 1959 and, from what I can make out, released in '61. This AAD German Verve import (829 167-2), "remastered directly from the original analog master tapes," seemed to highlight in a most delightful manner all the best qualities of the DataFlex. First, it was big, bold, and colorful without getting too hi-fi or technicolor about it. (As if digital could ever be guilty of too much tonal color. I see my analog slip is showing, but hey-lion, do I really feel? Well, at least you know ... )

Take track 7, "This Can't Be Love." Why this old chestnut? For its extraordinary rhythm and pace, Webster's fulsome and exuberant tenor sax, Ray Brown's movin'-it- all-right-along pluckedbass line, a restrained and elegant Oscar Peterson on piano, and Ed Thigpen holding the entire ensemble together with a snappy-yetrestrained beat. The lifelike cymbal crashes were born of quick and beautifully formed highfrequency initial transients followed by the burnished bloom of wood-on-metal shimmer punctuated by snare. Nor did the cymbals jut out of the soundstage in an unseemly or noticeable fashion -- rest of the 'stage was open, airy, and transparent. Ray Brown's bass sounded weighty and admirably acoustic, while still maintaining control, tightness, and pitch differentiation, giving the acoustic truth to the sound created by the transient and subsequent bloom that diffused out into our little world.

So chalk up "fast, open, and detailed," without problems of etch or digital hash. Sure, this is an effect of the entire system, but it's easy enough to find the hash by substituting other, less capable, datalinks. In fact, as I've mentioned before, it's the datalink connection that for me remains one of the most critical in the entire system. Get it wrong and you can blow the whole Clung-you'll never find the music hiding between the digits.

If you're reading this magazine, then I'm sure you're familiar with a scenario similar to the following: You seat visitors in your version of the Ribbon Chair and play some tunes. It's always interesting to see exactly how long it takes before they turn to you and start gabbing. The longer they remain silent, the closer you've come to making the magic in your own system. When they sit quietly until the end of the track, well, you've come a long way, baby!

Spinning "The Touch of Your Lips" front this CIA often elicited a very long silence indeed. Ben Webster's sax was beautifully focused, highlighted, illuminated warm, and approachable, filled with texture and nuance of overtone. As his instrument traversed the midrange and up, it became a captivating musical experience.

Switching to the AES/EBU Orchid, the soundstage immediately became quieter all 'round, with a blacker, more velvety background. The imaging seemed to move back several feet and narrow up just a tad from the DataFlcx Studio's presentation. In an interesting twist, focus suffered slightly-as I've always found to be the case with bal anced digital connections of whatever type-while the sense of palpability in creased, offsetting the softer focus. It seemed as if the "roundness," the di mensionality of the performers, was enhanced.

Also, while the D-60 was very specific about the total (and often enormous) volume of space in a recording, the Orchid seemed to define the boundary less specifically, tapering off the size of the soundstage into space more seamlessly. Concomitant with these effects, the sense of acoustic decay was slightly better-devclopcd with the Orchid, perhaps a byproduct of the lower noisefloor was more air there in which to decay, so to say.

In my experience, AES/EBU digital connections decrease the energy in the uppernidrainge/lower-treble region, creating a slightly more polite and recessed presentation than coax. Depending on the recording, this might rob the music of some of its visceral quality the presentation would become more fluid but less of the moment. I'd say AES/EBU might be considered the thinking audiophile's digital link. Of course, thus wasn't always a bad thing, especially given the liashy digital nature evident in some CDs. Happily, I noted loss of this withdrawal or damping of energy in the critical presence region with the Orchid, an aspect of its sound that I really appreciated.

For example, when listening to the a11-digital soundtrack to the French film The Accompanist (Travelling K 1008), the Orchid proved just perfect at re-creating the divine compositions of Strauss, Mozart, Berlioz, Massenet, and Schumann, among others, in heartbreaking, glorious fashion, exhibiting less of the digital glaze that plagues the recording. Likewise with the Tons les Matins do Monde soundtrack (Travelling K 4640), which features works by Savall, Marais, Lully, Colonibe, and Couperin. Here, too, the D-60 was just too much, the kinder Orchid improving Anglo-French relations nicely. You see, the Orchid can be . . . politic.

If anything, the Orchid's midrange was just a touch further developed than the D-60's. There was just that bit more detail, texture, liquidity, and nuance available than with the coax link. Iii the wine way that balanced lowered the energy in the presence region, coax has always appeared to be more focused, alive, and sometimes even slightly raucous and gutsy in this region of the frequency response-another way of saving "more real." I like the sharper end of the musical stick, when it's called for, as well as its gentler caressing side.

Drop Dexter Gordon's Go (blue Note CDP 7 46094 2) on the transport and cue up track 4 for yet another rendition of "Love For Sale"altogether a more energetic reading than the Siri Svale Band cooks up oil their disc (we'll come to them in a minute). Here we be jumpin' with Dex! This CD of a '62 session sounds like a typical mid' 80s inyour-face Blue Note release, but the energy of Dexter's "boss" tenor really drives the 4/4 rhythm section. Color ire .. . exuberant! Another fine quality of the Illuminati: It jumps!

The slightly more gutsy D-60 got the bite right oil thus recording, while the Orchid made things sound just a touch too pretty, aid perhaps a hair slowersounding than the coax. Still, the Orchid is several orders of magnitude faster and more energetic than balanced cables of any other manufacturer I've tried (except the TARA Labs Decade datalink, but that's another story for later). I preferred the Aural Symphonies glass connection for its smoothness with this slightly hashy-sounding 1986 mastering.

And what of Illuminati dynamics? Let ire tell you a story. I was out the other day shopping for CDs with a visiting audio victim of our acquaintance. I was looking for the Yellowjackets' Lin, Wires (GRP GRD-9667). He looked at me in astonishment. "Yellowjackets?! Eeeww www!" So intolerant, the young. Anyway, whatever you may think about the Yellowjackets, track 9 is a killer drum heart-stopper that'll move \-oil and your woofers about the room lickety-split! The wickedly fast drum licks whip out at the listener at a startling dynamic clip that the D-60 just nails. There's a lot of air iii thus recording anyway, so if anything, the volume the I )60 wraps around the listener is enormous and alive, even in the silences between the riffs. The acoustic sounded alive and filled with Musicians, even if they weren't playing at the moment. Here, again, I preferred the D-60 for its gutsy and exciting presentation. The rest of the album? Hey, my bud's right -if you like Dave Grusin and the GRP sound, you'll love this albuin. Different strokes . . .

Listening to the bass on Ben Meets Oscar, Dex's Go, and especially oil the Sir] Svale Band's version of "Love For Sale" (Sonor SON CD 2001), I'd say the Stygian depths were rendered -,with (continued on 1)202) (continued from p.199) slightly more tightness and pitch differentiation with the coax D-60, but were more round, acoustic, and redolent with harmonics with the balanced Orchid. The D-60, too, seemed able to dig lower down the scale in some ultimate sense than the Orchid, but it was a near thing. Once again, in this regard I preferred the D-60's focus, its exciting and involving speed.

The coax D-60 had the greater power to inspire. Listening to Ol' Blue Eyes on Francis A. grid Edward K. (Reprise 1024-2) brought me the velvet glove along with the power and bite that made it real. Accompanying horns were focused, burnished, alive, and lovely. If not quite as refined as the Orchid, the D60 still handled decay well, Sinatra's voice sounding ambient as hell and beautifully illuminated in real acoustic space. The lower midrange was fleshed out and complete without getting tubby or boomy about it. The D-60 always sounded vibrant and alive-not zippy at all, but fast and vivid.

The Orchid rendered this recording pretty well, sweetening the highs to some extent. Nevertheless, there was some noticeable diminution of pace and rhythm with the AES/EBU connection, accompanied by an ST-optical-like overall smoothness that could be very appealing in its own right. And, of course, the quieting of the balanced connection made for a huge and airy background in which the merrymaking took place. (It was Frank's birthday, after all.)

Even though I prefer the coax D-60 for its guts'n'glory presentation-its excitement-the Orchid came across as more refined, and for certain music it was the best choice. Again, I recommend wiring with multiple digital datalinks if your DAC/transport allows, and choosing one to listen through based on mood and music. Pick your temperament: a little cutting and bold, or laid-back and refined. I know which I'd choose: The D-60 coax almost every time. It digs out the maximum in detail, as on Bill Henderson's Live at the Times CD (Discovery DSCD779). The sound of the audience, the rattle of plates and silverware, the clink of glasses, the pop of an opened bottle-all can be made out
better with the coax. What's all that got to do with enjoying the music? Plenty. Not only is it participatory in a You-Are-There way, Bill's voice also benefited from the slightly enhanced detail, letting him through one step closer to alive than with the Orchid.

CONSIDER ME ILLUMINATED

If you go for Chris Sommovigo's lluminati digital datalinks, be aware that they do take some time to burn-in and open up. They will reward your patience (and your smarting pocket with topflight sound. They're not finicky about what transport and DAC they're used with, and have always ranked at or near the top of the best of the digital datalinks we have around here to play with. If you've gotten the idea that I prefer the coax D60 to the Orchid, you're right. But-and it's a big butthe Orchid manifested its own set of strengths that made it a very viable alternative.

Base your decision on your own set of priorities. Remember, this is all about the qualities that you prize most when listening to music on your system. Make sure you use your ears for more than hat stops!

My highest and most enthusiastic recommendation -its hard to go wrong with cables such as these.

Stereophile, May 1996