Fruit of the loom. With four AC cords rather than just one, my Flame loom eclipsed our resident Earth equivalent on the power score. Was banishing my four remaining Allnic cords on the speaker and sub monos what moved my needle the most because it made up one coherent harness? Whatever the correct reply, the needle certainly moved. I confirmed this over both my regular Qualio IQ speakers and these visiting Lindemann monitors. The Flame effect manifested across a few parameters. Truly excellent recordings gained more distance over the middle of the pack and even the good stack. Everything sounded clarified but superior productions moved forward the most. 'Better' meant more pronounced silence from which rose more crystallized contrast. A quite peculiar very pellucid sensation registered on percussive sounds and all manner of strings again, be those a qanun or guitars from the Portuguese, Manouche and Flamenco milieus, oud or tambur, sitar, sarod, cello or upright bass. Some of them are played/recorded with specific glassy, watery, wiry or hollow tonalities. Warmer fuzzier cables buff those out or fill them in. What that does is homogenize recorded textural variety in the name of smoothness. With the Flame loom plus one Earth cord on the DAC and the aforementioned 6m Earth XLR between sidewall DAC and front-wall crossover, overtones as steadfast arbiters of timbre rendered still more evolved. This registered quite as though a subtle energy damper or subliminal shadow had lifted. Dynamic flutters and swells deflected more. At the same time tone body made small gains. This progression reminded me of how upgrading the more youthful, fresh and minorly brazen Kinki EX-M1 integrated to Mr. Liu's more mature and elegant EX-B7 monos refines the general profile for greater sophistication without trading any liveliness or detail magnification. It mirrors how Earth transitions to Flame.
To answer my earlier question, Flame did not step on the gas in any sense of subjectively greater RPM. The primary distinction was one of even quieter cables. They passed more molecular stuff without relying on high SPL to penetrate the finer layers otherwise obscured by coarser stuff. The three biggest beneficiaries were microdynamics, harmonic structures and contrast ratio. Rather than feel supercharged or edge of seat however, this makeover was accompanied by greater ease.
Adolescent ignorance mistakes good dynamics for the solid black bars of redacted documents. Those show no range at all, just constant red-lined loudness. Proper recorded dynamic range looks like a fish skeleton. The spine is zero whilst bones of varying length and thickness represent amplitude variations with plenty of narrower or wider gaps. Detailing those bony splines and what happens between them closer to zero is the realm of microdynamics. It's where nuanced musical inflection lives. The above screen shots from Audirvana show various successful fish dinners. Use the mouse-over enlarger to see more detail.
Though they had nothing to do with sound, two things I didn't fancy: branding and the new trap execution. To me Exact Express suggests a same-day print shop. Yikes. And then I much prefer the simpler styling and matte finish of the Earth traps. Whilst I appreciate that exposed copper tarnishes unless at least lacquered, Flame's gold plating and hyper sculpting veers into bling. Of course my ears couldn't care less. Going momentarily negative is just for that even keel. Referencing 5" widebanders sans energy-stifling spiders run unfiltered out to 15kHz was a parallel and ace test on whether Flame's greater suddenness and lucidity hid any stridency. Not. Regardless of my predominantly acoustic material, I heard no such behaviour despite a cable profile we expect would park such speaker types very close to said edge. That's back at Flame's greater sophistication and easefulness over Earth.
iFi Audio recently split off their new Silent Power brand for various noise-attenuating accessories and power-line kit. There might once even have existed an actual wire brand called Silent Cables. I seem to recall it in connection with the late Lloyd Walker. In any event, this emphasis on silence as that which isn't sound reminds us. Polarity is the spice of life. There can't be day without night. Food tastes so much better when we're famished. Music playback feels livelier and more communicative when its counter polarity is deep silence. Beyond the obvious point where we can hear actual noise, we tend to remain oblivious to the presence of more subliminal noise because music's louder parts and even our ambient noise mask it. Subliminal system noise only registers by its sudden drop to set up a before and after. Changing naught else, 'after' invariably means having more access to micro detail. That could be dynamic nuance, ambient recovery or richer harmonic differentiation when fainter overtones step into audibility. Sometimes our listening mood doesn't unpack the effect into multiple threads. We just notice greater contrast ratio. There's more distance between sounds and silence. Now sounds emerge with more difference or uniqueness. That difference is synonymous with noticing more. It simply means having a fuller more satisfying experience that's easier to enter then sustain.
The only off-brand signal-path cable here was an S/PDIF link between Singxer SU-6 USB bridge and Laiv Harmony DAC.
Into this sunny picture intrudes commerce with its calculating mind. Here I strongly suspect that a full loom of Earth outperforms a partial loom of Flame. Consistency is boss. As I plainly learnt, this includes power cables. They too should match and fall in line. Depending on budget, we can certainly mix Earth and Flame to eliminate as many off-brand cables as feasible. At least that's my takeaway from today's gig. A coherent cable concept from beginning to end seems to truly lock in the most decisive signature. To indulge the hacknayed phrase, it suddenly nets the happy math of a sum greater than its parts. Everything pulls in the same direction like a tug-of-war team trying to topple the opposition. With Exact Express, that sum is about maximal bandwidth, quickness and silence. The Flame loom is déjà vu Earth at a higher pitch. We could justifiably grandfather the new loom into the earlier award. But in the end I really think that eliminating typical cable mishmash from different brands to zero in on one design philosophy and execution overrides fretting over what tier we can afford to buy from. I'd much rather have a full budget loom than a hodgepodge of lofty leashes. Given the close material similarities between Earth and Flame, I'd count them as one. Now it'll be primarily budget and length requirements which dictate our details.
To wrap, the Exact Express Flame loom is about an unembellished impulsive sound that's fully exposed or 'stepped out' top to bottom. With appropriate hardware it will approximate the suddenness of the nearfield. It's the opposite of sleepy, overcast or vague. Neither is it warmed up, fat or bassy. Within the context of recent reviews and when allied to Kinki-style gain circuits—ultra bandwidth, DC coupled—our Exact Express loom managed a Raal 1995-style ribbon headfi taste over capable loudspeakers. In my book that's worth shouting about. And though particularly with cables it shouldn't matter, this slinky easy-to-route stuff also really looks the business without charging us crazy coin relative to how that sector has trended over recent years. If this were Flamenco, we'd shout "Olé". Being cables, we hit 'play' instead and run some signal through them. That most assuredly could be flamenco so Olé it is!
