Turning to rock or pop, the results are if anything, even more obvious. The 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged album is both a long-time favourite and a recording that captures the warmth weight and intimacy of the band at their peak. The 16/44 download captures that musical quality – at least it does if you play it through the RakuStream+. The Reiki cable brings weight and shape to the instruments and music, an emotionally expressive purpose and humanity to Natalie Merchant’s distinctive vocals. The ‘Because The Night’ cover has real drive, attitude and power, while the band’s own tracks, like ‘Don’t Talk’ or ‘What’s The Matter Here?’ have a pace, rhythmic integrity and the ability to change density in a really convincing fashion. It’s a world away from the stilted, halting and compressed rendition you get from the V2, shorn of life, shorn of presence and devoid of the catchy, communicative quality that makes this such a great recording.
Surprising! But maybe it shouldn’t be?
On the one hand this is the sort of ‘stop you in your tracks’ change that demands repeated experimentation, just to ensure that you really are hearing and not imagining the differences. On the other, stop and consider the actual, topological changes you’ve just made to the system and maybe those differences shouldn’t come as a surprise. Think back to where this piece started and the difference between the RakuStream and virtually all the other network cables on the market. The V2 grounding complies with the Cat 8 standard. That means that any ground noise generated by the switch is connected directly to the streaming input of the C1.2. By floating its shield grounds at the opposite end to the switch, the RakuStream+ prevents the ground noise generated by the Netgear box from entering the C1.2’s streaming input circuitry, DAC and by extensions its analogue output. Think about the differences described and they are totally congruent with a drop in noise floor and in addition the resulting increase in temporal accuracy within the DAC itself. How much noise does a Netgear switch produce? Even with a linear power supply, the answer is clearly, “A lot!” again, not exactly a surprise and well in line with previous experience.
How does that equate to the experience of the Reiki Audio cable in the Reiki audio network eco-system? Again, think it through and it makes perfect sense. The SuperSwitch is also super quiet. Therefore, the continuous grounding of the V2 has less of a negative impact, while its superior conductor quality and air-space dielectric score in terms of resolution and transparency, helping to level the playing field.
All of which creates an interesting question: if the RakuStream+ is so good, do you need a Reiki Audio SuperSwitch? That wasn’t a question I’d anticipated having to answer, but having already inserted the whole Reiki network into the smaller system, listening again while introducing one switch and its power supply into the equation, in place of the cable, really wasn’t that much extra work. The results were however, worthwhile.
