That my next step should be to replace the AC cord of the Shindo Haut-Brion power amplifier—the amp in use at the time—was obvious, but utterly lacking in the excitement of anticipation: Since upgrading the preamp's power cord produced so modest a change, I assumed that performing the same swap on the next component downstream would produce an even subtler change, if any. Yet when we made the swap and began listening, I heard a difference so startlingly apparent that I laughed aloud—as did Danny Labrecque, whom I then chided for committing the unpardonable sin of messing with my head (though the verb I used was not messing). With the Luna Orange cord feeding my Haut-Brion, it was as if I'd found, somewhere in my system, a theretofore undiscovered knob labeled Vividness, and had goosed it up a couple clicks.
Where to begin? RCA's uncharacteristically dry and very direct-sounding recording of violinist Vittorio Emanuele and the Società Corelli performing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (LP, RCA Living Stereo LSC-2424) became even more direct, more corporeal, and altogether more realistic, with increases in instrumental color saturation and texture, and seeming expansions of dynamic shadings and tactile expressiveness. In the "Frost Scene" of Purcell's King Arthur, in the recording with Anthony Lewis conducting the St. Anthony Singers and the Philomusica of London (2 LPs, L'Oiseau-Lyre SOL-60008/9), the Cold Genius's shivering, and that of the accompanying strings, in the aria "What power art thou?" was more forceful and effective—if not for the word's negative connotation, which has no place here, I would say it was exaggerated—and the soloist's voice (footnote 3) seemed uncannily louder, and more distinct from its surroundings.
There were no deficits in the switch from the stock Shindo AC cord to the Luna Orange—only benefits, and all of the sort I enjoy. I already prize my system for its ability to sound beautifully, colorfully, excitingly vivid, and the Luna cord increased those qualities. (Good Catholic that I am, I almost felt guilty—worried that my system might now sound too vivid.) Before trying the Luna Orange on my Shindo Haut-Brion—an amp that, according to accepted wisdom, is not amenable to such aftermarket accessories—I had never heard a power cord exert such an audible effect, let alone such an enhancement.
God Is Love
Seriously, though: When I heard the unmistakable increase in vividness that resulted when I replaced my amplifier's stock AC cord with the Luna Orange, I thought: I like this a lot, and this is enough. This is as vivid as I want things to get. Let's stop here! I believe I may have said more or less the same thing the first time I smoked pot. But the whole idea of spending the afternoon with a cable maker was to try all of the cables he'd brought, and I was okay with that: The system was having a good day, we were listening to good music (Labrecque turned me on to the Scottish band Hood; I turned him on to Pacita Tomás), and, most important, Labrecque never prompted or primed me to hear whatever he may have wanted me to hear—uncommon in such circumstances, if not quite unique. And in any event, after the experiences described above, all that remained to be tried were the speaker cables and three more power cords, two Orange and one Mauve, intended for use with the Auditorium 23 Hommage Cinema loudspeakers presently in my system (review to come): Each Hommage Cinema contains an EQ-adjustable solid-state amplifier that powers a pair of low-frequency drivers, while the field-coil midrange and treble drivers of both speakers are powered by a single outboard supply, made for Auditorium 23 by the German manufacturer AcousticPlan. Labrecque and I swapped out my own Auditorium 23 speaker cables for the Luna Mauves, and I heard another slight gain in detail and vividness—though the latter was to a smaller degree than when I'd switched power cords on my amplifier. In one sense, those changes were entertaining, even electrifying—recordings now sounded more up-front and exciting—yet in another, they seemed to nudge my system in a direction that, taken to an extreme, would change its character from what I prefer. For whatever reason—age? experience? simple good luck in finding the sort of playback sound that I enjoy?—I envision my system as presenting music in a certain very non-hi-fi way, and I become uncomfortable when it wanders from that, commendable though the changes might otherwise be.
Finally, Labrecque and I replaced the stock power cords of the Auditorium 23 Hommage Cinema speakers with the two remaining Luna Orange cords, and the stock cord of the AcousticPlan field-coil power supply with the Luna Mauve cord, all three at once. I had the vague impression of the system moving even further in the direction described above—more detail, more vividness, maybe even a bit more bass clout—but a vague impression was all it was. It may have been illusory.
At the end of the day, when Labrecque began his drive back to Quebec, he left with me the various Luna cables. A day or so later, I reverted to my own speaker cables, and to the stock power cords for the Auditorium 23 speakers and AcousticPlan power supply—and was once again very happy: With the Luna Red interconnects still in place around my phono transformer, and with Luna Orange power cords on my preamp and amp, I was thoroughly delighted with the sound of my system, which now had more color and presence, more flesh and blood, than it had had before Labrecque's visit—but just the right amount of more.
In the days that followed, I tried removing from my system all of the Luna cables—reverting to the stock cables and cords, of course—then reintroducing them one by one, just as they'd been by Danny Labrecque. I confirmed every one of the impressions described above.
Then I mixed things up a little. I switched over to my combination of Thorens TD 124 turntable, Abis SA-1.2 tonearm, and Denon DL-103 cartridge (footnote 4). (When I use the Denon, I bypass the Hommage T2 step-up transformer and go straight into the Shindo Masseto's MC inputs.) Then I tried replacing the Shindo interconnects that usually go from my preamp to my amp(s) with the 1m Luna Red. Even more subtly than when the Reds bookended my Hommage T2, the sound changed, seeming once again a bit more detailed. But this time, it had less heft. When I played "Big Ben," from Country Cooking's 14 Bluegrass Instrumentals (LP, Rounder 006), I enjoyed the more explicit sound and grooved to the excellent musical momentum and flow, but wished for a little more foundation from the double bass. I called it a wash and went back to the Shindo cables.
Having relieved the Luna Mauve AC cord of its duties on the AcousticPlan field-coil supply, I tried using it to power my Masseto preamp, in place of the Luna Orange. Vivid became vivid. It was entertaining with some selections, but with others—including the brilliant "Sweet Angeline," from Mott the Hoople's Brain Capers (LP, Atlantic SD 8304), a recording that already has a bit of a bite (footnote 5)—the extra vividness was just too much. Then I reverted to the Orange on the preamp and moved the Mauve cord to the Haut-Brion amp. Similarly, I was overwhelmed by a too-present, too-saturated sound with some recordings, such as the second half of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's "God Is Love" (10" LP single, Drag City DC483/PR48)—especially in the chorus at the end, with the backing vocals at full tilt.
Plug Crawl
After that, I tried something different: I replaced the Shindo Haut-Brion stereo amplifier (push-pull tubes, solid-state-rectified, 20Wpc) and its Luna Orange power cord (which I now regarded as being hardwired in place, even though it wasn't) with my Shindo Corton-Charlemagne monoblocks (push-pull tubes, tube-rectified, 25Wpc). I listened first to the latter with their stock cords in place, noting the inherent differences between these two very good, somewhat different-sounding amps: the Haut-Brion with its markedly superior texture and sense of touch and impact—especially on the leading edges of notes, especially on plucked string instruments—and the Corton-Charlemagnes with their deeper, more powerful bass and their larger-by-half sense of scale. Then I swapped the stock cords for the Luna Orange cords . . . and was gobsmacked by the mere fact that I was not gobsmacked.
Yes, there was a difference. Yes, the Luna Orange cords were my favorites—but, in the words of Basil Fawlty, only a little. At first, I preferred the stock Shindo cords, if only because, with the Luna cords, the Corton-Charlemagnes sounded slightly smaller—very slightly, but enough to be noticeable. But then, with the aid of two more swaps, I realized that the Luna cords endowed the Shindo monoblocks with more presence, and more musical and spatial focus. Interesting.
There followed just one more bit of tomfoolery: I took the 1m pair of Luna Red interconnects and one of the Luna Orange power cords into the living room, to try in my system there: Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player, Croft Phono Integrated amp, and Quad ESL speakers. (The 3m Luna Mauve speaker cables weren't long enough for this installation.)
In my living-room system, the 1m Red interconnects replaced a 1m pair of Nordost Blue Heavens ($375) between my CD player and my integrated amp. Readers familiar with the Nordost—a reliably open- and clear-sounding cable not known for repressing high frequencies—will be surprised that, in this setup, the Luna Reds had the effect of accentuating the percussive rather than the melodic qualities of acoustic guitars throughout XTC's Mummer (Japanese CD, EMI/Toshiba TOCP-65716), and contributed a slight increase in the audibility of room sound, reverb tails, "air." In this system, I slightly preferred the far less expensive Nordosts.
That said, when I once again added a Luna Orange power cord to an amp with solid-state rectification (just sayin'), the gains in tonal color and texture, spatial presence, and, to a slighter but no less real extent, bass depth and impact, were real—hilariously, surprisingly, delightfully real.
Earlier, I described the effects of the Luna AC cords as increases in vividness. A few weeks later, my perspective is somewhat different: It seems to me that, when added to the two products with which they had the most audible effects—the Shindo Haut-Brion power amp and the Croft Phono Integrated—the effect of the Luna power cords was to magnify the essential character of each product. The Orange cord didn't change the balance or perspective or timing of my Shindo Haut-Brion; it simply made it more Shindo Haut-Brion. Same thing with the Croft. And in both cases, a little more of a good thing was wonderful.
Footnote 3: Either Hervey Alan or Trevor Anthony, the two basses credited in the liner notes; information is not given as to who sang which role(s).
Footnote 4: I purchased my sample of the Denon just a few weeks ago: sadly, I'd wrecked the cantilever of its predecessor, which I'm thinking of making into a lapel pin.
Footnote 5: I've never heard an original (1971) Island UK copy of this album, so I don't know if this objectionable aspect of its sound is attributable to the original recording or to the US mastering, but I suspect the latter: I hear the same bite in a lot of other Atlantic albums of that era (think Loudon Wainwright III, from 1970).
Seriously, though: When I heard the unmistakable increase in vividness that resulted when I replaced my amplifier's stock AC cord with the Luna Orange, I thought: I like this a lot, and this is enough. This is as vivid as I want things to get. Let's stop here! I believe I may have said more or less the same thing the first time I smoked pot. But the whole idea of spending the afternoon with a cable maker was to try all of the cables he'd brought, and I was okay with that: The system was having a good day, we were listening to good music (Labrecque turned me on to the Scottish band Hood; I turned him on to Pacita Tomás), and, most important, Labrecque never prompted or primed me to hear whatever he may have wanted me to hear—uncommon in such circumstances, if not quite unique. And in any event, after the experiences described above, all that remained to be tried were the speaker cables and three more power cords, two Orange and one Mauve, intended for use with the Auditorium 23 Hommage Cinema loudspeakers presently in my system (review to come): Each Hommage Cinema contains an EQ-adjustable solid-state amplifier that powers a pair of low-frequency drivers, while the field-coil midrange and treble drivers of both speakers are powered by a single outboard supply, made for Auditorium 23 by the German manufacturer AcousticPlan. Labrecque and I swapped out my own Auditorium 23 speaker cables for the Luna Mauves, and I heard another slight gain in detail and vividness—though the latter was to a smaller degree than when I'd switched power cords on my amplifier. In one sense, those changes were entertaining, even electrifying—recordings now sounded more up-front and exciting—yet in another, they seemed to nudge my system in a direction that, taken to an extreme, would change its character from what I prefer. For whatever reason—age? experience? simple good luck in finding the sort of playback sound that I enjoy?—I envision my system as presenting music in a certain very non-hi-fi way, and I become uncomfortable when it wanders from that, commendable though the changes might otherwise be.
At the end of the day, when Labrecque began his drive back to Quebec, he left with me the various Luna cables. A day or so later, I reverted to my own speaker cables, and to the stock power cords for the Auditorium 23 speakers and AcousticPlan power supply—and was once again very happy: With the Luna Red interconnects still in place around my phono transformer, and with Luna Orange power cords on my preamp and amp, I was thoroughly delighted with the sound of my system, which now had more color and presence, more flesh and blood, than it had had before Labrecque's visit—but just the right amount of more.
In the days that followed, I tried removing from my system all of the Luna cables—reverting to the stock cables and cords, of course—then reintroducing them one by one, just as they'd been by Danny Labrecque. I confirmed every one of the impressions described above.
After that, I tried something different: I replaced the Shindo Haut-Brion stereo amplifier (push-pull tubes, solid-state-rectified, 20Wpc) and its Luna Orange power cord (which I now regarded as being hardwired in place, even though it wasn't) with my Shindo Corton-Charlemagne monoblocks (push-pull tubes, tube-rectified, 25Wpc). I listened first to the latter with their stock cords in place, noting the inherent differences between these two very good, somewhat different-sounding amps: the Haut-Brion with its markedly superior texture and sense of touch and impact—especially on the leading edges of notes, especially on plucked string instruments—and the Corton-Charlemagnes with their deeper, more powerful bass and their larger-by-half sense of scale. Then I swapped the stock cords for the Luna Orange cords . . . and was gobsmacked by the mere fact that I was not gobsmacked.
Footnote 3: Either Hervey Alan or Trevor Anthony, the two basses credited in the liner notes; information is not given as to who sang which role(s).
