Circle jerk? This figure of speech has a group of men get themselves off in the echo chamber of their own opinions. It occurred to me when a second shipment of five C-Marc Entropic 640X dropped. So I opted to play my now über-stacked card in one gamble. I went all in by daisy-chaining the upscale five then plugging their string into the Furutech GTO 2D NCF. That was already fitted with one standard 640X as were the components themselves. Beneath the Hifistay rack, I now had six in-line modules in one big lunar circle. Would I hear any difference? Before/after only took a few minutes of power down, unplug the six, reseat wall cord in passive distributor, power up then re-cue same track. Opinion chatter suddenly stopped. Clear changes. The massively serialized bunch treated power for three components at once. That made the sound darker, softer, denser, moved it forward then dialed up contrast. With our resident 3-meter C-Marc Entropic bridging wall to Furutech direct, the sound brightened up quite as though I'd turned up a light dimmer which the six had turned down.

The soundstage moved back a bit, image outlines grew sharper, contrast ratio stepped down. Repeating the pluggery confirmed it. And pluggery it was. These IEC contacts grip like a pit bull. Seating them proper wants determination until there's zero wiggle. That's ace for lower contact resistance but no fun across too many repeats. So kicking off today's sonic commentary, we already learnt that apparent excess remained effective. We also learnt of an unusual twosome, namely higher contrast plus softer darker density. Those don't often go together. Here they do. That would become a leitmotif for this gig. If your notion of resolution enhancements is more speed, detail and crispness, the LessLoss 640X tech does it different. To go easier on round two, I first used none, then one 640X on each component, then upgraded to one 640X C-Marc each. My extreme daisy chain was an obvious one-off. Nobody in their right mind—I think—would or should go that far. It simply made a point. Now I came across Mark Blackmore's AudioBeat review of the LessLoss Firewall for speakers. I was curious about his assessment. "…. a suggestion from LessLoss was that the Firewalls can be daisy-chained in series for even better performance and that proved to be true. The soundstage grew deeper and wider, with the treble becoming even smoother and sweeter. Purchasing two sets of Firewalls might be an expensive proposition but it produces an addictive result." Quite. What was his result?

"The Firewalls improved the focus and clarity for a clearer picture of the performers… reduction in grit in the treble might sound as though the treble had less presence or was less exciting particularly over the long term. I certainly have known a few audiophiles who prefer a great amount of treble energy but my personal preference is for smooth fatigue-free treble. The Firewalls delivered full frequency response without dulling or blunting the leading edge of treble attacks and that held true with every speaker I heard. Second, the Firewalls do such a good job of separating instruments and voices in recordings that some listeners may actually prefer a more homogenous blended soundstage. When we listened to "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes", the cut sounded a lot like a live performance before the addition of the Firewalls. But with the Firewalls, this track now sounded like a well-engineered studio recording with lots of layering and spotlighting of solo instruments." He concludes with calling the Firewall "an important addition to an audio system (which) improved the sound of every speaker I used during the review period." 

Most interesting to me was Mark's overlap with my own take on the power cord versions. That applies the same tech to a different type of signal, i.e. high-level music signal vs. alternating utility power. Without losing resolution but rather gaining separation, the treble feels smoother, less lit up as though some virtual stage lights had dimmed down a bit. Things get softer—"less fatiguing" in his words—yet contrast/resolution improves. How about dosages? How much did my pricier C-Marc Entropic loaners add of this effect over the standards? After all, $654 to $1'272 nearly doubles. Hard-won experience simply no longer believes that sonic returns in these games multiply as neatly.

Just then my publisher's job switched gears. I had to translate Ralph Werner's review of the Innuos LAN switch for a syndication order. And wouldn't you know it, "with the PhoenixNet in the loop, sonics gained some sonority to feel a tad earthier. I didn't think this was butter added to the lower midrange. Rather it cleaned up the treble to render the upper octaves purer even a tick milder… There was little doubt what the high-end switch contributed. 'Wie entgrated' read my notes which translates to 'deburred'. That referred to image edges that were at once rounder and more accurate to show less feathering or burrs. With that and the lift of a fine fog, not only did individual images gain in contrast but the entire stage felt more transparent and specific. Particularly the depth dimension gained. With wall-of-sound Rock, that mattered less to not at all but did change significantly on quality Jazz and classical albums whose productions captured actual venue cues. Here the PhoenixNet wrote real profits."

Hence a €2'749 network switch between router and server—RJ45 in, RJ45 out—reclocked, de-jittered and de-noised the digital signal and the reviewer's gains read very much like my descriptions of the LessLoss passive noise filtering so far. All I needed were two or three more links with a "like they said" and this gig could be up? But a big part of what reviewers do is contribute to the overall data base of anecdotal listening comments. It's what enriches their utility to the audiophile community at large. So to keep contributing is key. That doesn't warrant shortcuts. Triangulations however can be useful to appreciate that no matter where/how a hifi system shaves off UHF noise, the sonic wins could work the same groove. Let's return then to doing it on the AC line in serial fashion with two different grades of pigtail wiring using the same proprietary module.