The following was written by a very valued friend and supporter of EWA and ABCaudio, who we shall refer to as 'H'. He writes very well as you will see, and describe very nicely what he heard when be bought an IC-40 USB cable for his system:
The IC-40 USB cable arrived here on Friday, and I've been doing quite a bit of back and forth listening, against a Zavfino 1877Phono Majestic USB cable, which easily bettered a long-standing Kimber cable.
Even taking into account that this cable is new and will presumably settle down over a couple of weeks, the improvement with your USB cable is easily heard. There is better resolution of detail, which is most obvious with things like drums and piano - in one case your cable clearly rendered the sound of the drum skin and its resonances, but with the other cable it sounded like a metal biscuit tin being struck. With piano, there is a much better sense of how notes are being played.
Not only detail, but also acoustic space and localisation of sounds. This is perhaps the most obvious positive aspect of your cable, where instruments/voices etc are better placed and seem to 'breathe' more freely and naturally. There is musical 'order' and 'coherence' to recordings, which clearly shows up what I'd been missing before.
Lastly, your cable brings a lovely organic, euphonic character to every recording, and even some fairly ropey ones (eg Carole King's Tapestry) turn out to be much more listenable. That 'organic' character really comes to the fore with a concert grand piano, where the sound board resonances are beautifully rendered and presented.
So, as you suspected, I won't be sending this cable back! I am seriously considering an IC40 digital cable (RCA-RCA).
Thank you, H. The biscuit tin reference is the highlight for us! We always value feedback from our listeners, Colin especially finds this makes it all worthwhile. If you are enjoying an EWA product, please consider writing to us with your thoughts? We may even add your comments as a testimonial on the blog and on the product page. Once again, we wish you all happy listening. Warm regards, Alan & Colin.