Some Faber's Cables hot news:

Dear audio friends,

this short page is just to update you about a few news that Fabrizio Baretta showed me.

The first new is -of course- a new signal cable that will be the new top of the line of the Faber's Cables production. The name will probably be “XXSolution” and even if that is not so much different from the name of the actual top of the line cable (that is, the XSolution) this cable is very different from the previous top. It is build with three concentric levels, each one composed by 4 silver-plated wires and uses inside very particular materials, like paper, copper tape, carbon fibre and teflon sheath. Fabrizio brought in my home two samples: the first was very long (more than 2m), while the second was 1.2m long but had four special RCA connectors, instead of the standard Yarbo RCA connectors.

The new Faber's Cables XXSolution with Bocchino RCA connectors.	The label of this very special unbalanced cable.

These special connectors were the Bocchino Audio Brenda B11 plugs, that are hand-made in Australia by Carmine Bocchino starting from a solid piece of High Conductivity Oxygen Free copper and, at the end, are silver plated.

Bocchino Audio Brenda X11 connectors, costs around 200 US$ each.	My Faber dream...

Listening this XXsolution prototype instead of my reference cable (a Faber's Cables that is only a step before the XSolution) the difference was really impressive. The extension in the high frequency was without audible limits, with realistic instrument attacks and extremely rapid transients. Even so, there was no signs of listening fatigue or any kind of distortion. The soundstage was big, with every instrument reproduced in his own space and surrounded by all its harmonic tones. The 2m long cable was slightly warmer than the one with the Bocchino connectors (that maybe was more neutral?), but with both I heard really wonderful music. To make it short, I believe that this is the best signal cable that I ever heard and I wish to buy one, even if I know that it will be very expensive.

The second hot news was the first prototype of Faber's Cables DAC. I don't know if it will ever become a commercial product, but this electronic was really interesting. We connected it to the SPDIF output (16bit 44kHz) of my Sony XA5400ES player using the XXSolution B11 cable (not designed expressly to be a digital cable but working very well even so). The outputs of the Faber's DAC were connected to my preamp with the two longer XXSolution.

The Faber's DAC connected to my system with CJ MV55 power amp.	The DAC was connected with the Faber's top signal cables.
The output stage is made with power MOSFET, that becomes very hot. Note the Sowter output transformers sused to convert the balanced output in SE.	The board with some of the power supply regulators (left) and the DAC “Buffalo” board with the ESS ES9018 Sabre32 Reference chip (on the centre). On the right the USB input board.
The generous power supply with the two Audio transformers and the digital one (in the centre).	The Faber's DAC in my system with the CJ MV60SE.

The sound of this prototype DAC was very good, with a warmth midrange, solid bass, large soundstage and an overall sense of relaxation. I associated this characteristic to the absence of NFD and Opamps, since the output stage is built with discrete solid state components. If I could find a limit, it was in the very high frequency details, that I have found a little smoother than how I am used with my Sony player.

At that point Faber showed me his latest news: the AC filter based on the Jack Bybee Technology. Inserting it just in front of the DAC main AC receptacle improved the highs details and notably the general sense of clearness. That will probably be another Faber's winner, as happened with the Faber's Six power distributor.

The Faber's Cables AC filter (4A maximum absorption) has a light aluminium body.

AC absolute phase:

Before to say goodbye I would add another Fabrizio suggestion. Visiting so many audiophiles he has noted how easy is to find some component with the wrong AC phase. For example, during the previous visit he made me I wanted to show him how much better my very old CJ MV55 power amp became using four Philips EL34 xf2 O-O getter from the 60ies. After a short audition, he asked me to invert the power AC plug, because he had a bad feeling. I was sure that the phase was “correct”, with the white cable going into the neutral wire of my AC outlet and the black wire (in series with the fuse and power switch) going to the main AC phase. But, surprisingly, the power amp with the inverted phase sounded better!

How is that possible?

Well, the explanation is quite simple: the best sounding “phase” and “neutral” connections inside an electronic component are not determined by which wire is interrupted by the power switch or protected by the fuse, but instead are determined by the main power transformer inner construction. Sometimes the transformer builder shows the “phase” input on the primary with a dot or other marks, sometimes not. In the case of my Conrad Johnson MV55 amp, its Foster 783P1 transformer has no marks, but looking at the application scheme it seems to me that the phase should be the yellow wire (or red/yellow for a 220V connection like mine), while the neutral input should be the black wire. Of course my amp was connected with yellow/red and black wires inverted and that explain why the sound improved inverting the Shuko plug on the AC outlet!

Original (wrong) connection with neutral to red/yellow and phase to black.	Improved version with neutral to the black wire and phase to a large Bybee and then to the red/yellow wire (220 V scheme).

Looking to the CJ scheme shown below, you can see what I would call the wrong-sounding connection: with white (neutral) entering in the upper input (yellow wire) and the black (phase) entering in the lower input (black wire).

Is it just a problem with my MV55 sample? Well, I don't know, but I checked also my more recent CJ MV60SE and there again I have found the phase wire (brown this time) entering in the lower primary input (black wire) of the 783P1 transformer and the neutral wire (blue this time) entering in the higher primary input (yellow/red).Of course, I inverted them also in the MV60SE and the sound improved...

Lastly I tried to invert the Shuko plug of my CJ Premier Fourteen preamp but I had the feeling that the sound was worse than before, so I suppose that the primary of that transformer (Triad 8494?) is correctly connected to the white and black AC wires.

Two amps are too little to make a statistics, but if all the CJ amps with the 783 transformer are connected with inverted AC phase then you can have an explanation why Conrad Johnson is much more famous for their preamplifiers than for their power amplifiers!