1+1=4. Unpacking the last few paragraphs, we understand that the RCA EP's effect on the music was multifold. In no particular sequence—how you respond to, rate and prioritize its facets depends on your triggers—there's less separation and nails-on-glass rhythmic precision. There's richer deeper tone. There's more relaxed rather than driven timing. There's a wetter atmosphere and more enhanced sense of spaciousness. To be lazy, we could invoke a bit of triode or DSD flavor if a slightly softer more relaxed and sensual sound is how we perceive those. Yet another evaluation layer calls out SPL behavior. Typically our overall sound gets thinner and desaturates as we turn down the volume. We all notice a certain point at which our system's proverbial curtain rises. Suddenly we see all as though to the tune of the late Robin Williams' "Gooood Morning Vietnaaaam". All sleepiness has vanished.
With the RCA EP's subtle enhancements of tone, what delayed a bit in the usual entropy was where tone density and timbral richness dilute. I could listen more quietly before the curtain began to lower. Getting a bit thicker and richer rated purely positive. On the other SPL end, I rated the same thickening a bit less. That's because now it more overlaid my subjective speed or rhythmic energy. Being a purely personal reaction, your response could be the opposite. The important bit is to appreciate that this more decay-rich action may well cause nonlinear appreciation relative to playback levels.
Autoformer preamp into 4th-order 40Hz Linkwitz-Riley fixed analog filter box.
What should be clear regardless is this being the antidote to forwardness and grain. It makes for more settled energetics and extra smoothness. That's because more watercolor transitions undermine all etchiness. Propulsive becomes more elegiac, ruthlessly separated subtly blended. I'll now borrow from a recent interview whose engineer quipped that many audible differences past amp/speaker/room interactions are far less significant than the effect which just one glass of wine has on our perception. So we might invoke that same slight mellowing and slowing down which in vino veritas causes our brain. It's the opposite of a triple-shot ristretto.
With multiple digital outputs on my SD transport and matching inputs on the discrete R2R Denafrips Terminator DAC, I could easily compare the LessLoss as S/PDIF coax to my standard Allnic Audio AES/EBU. Both ran in parallel. Changing DAC inputs made for instant A/B. There was a very slight difference following in the vein already explained. I could mark it right at the switchover. Might someone very sensitive to alcohol already find two sips of wine stronger? Without doubt the LessLoss makes for an excellent digital leash since I usually prefer AES/EBU (and I²S over HDMI to that when it is available). In this context, the offset was ultra marginal so a fat compliment to the Lithuanian.
Do you still equate higher resolution with energetic prickliness, extreme separation and utter nothingness between images? Now you won't think the LessLoss RCA Entropic Process very resolved. It's those whose experience knows that noise reduction always shows nothingness to be filled with more and more planktonic bits who recognize that more nano-scale visibility of life inside the nothingness denotes higher resolution. Unless a recording was mastered outdoors, there will always be reflections no matter how subtle. Sounds won't clip off instantly but linger. These parts fill the areas between, around and behind the primary images. The upshot is less separation just as is the case for indoors live sound where sounds blend. They don't remain apart like angry spouses who erect a Chinese wall of pillows along their bed's center line. Instead they intertwine like new lovers. Another upshot is that electronica mastered for chiseled-from-granite bass beats and mega discreteness of sundry effects will relax a bit wherever extreme damping—quasi absorption of all secondary sounds—finds itself countered by the LessLoss cable's more generous decay action. With three of my system connections LessLoss'd, I heard this effect maximized. That helped to better describe it. It's a very real effect. It simply runs counter to both an ultra-damped aesthetic and any insistence on a treble-first balance. The RCA Entropic Process sound is a bit warmer, darker, softer and texturally generous.
Perhaps it's a wee bit like listening after a glass of wine? If so, there's simply zero alcohol involved.
In that 'cheers' is how today's story would have ended!
