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AudioQuest Hawk Eye, Part 6




Ah, the Fall 1991 quarter. As a junior at UC Santa Cruz, I moved out of the tiny dorms, and into a more spacious apartment. Thus, my three housemates and I could cobble together audio and video gear. For my stereo back at home, I bought a Muse Model 100 power amp, and a slew of AudioQuest cables. That meant bringing my old products to college. Via student clubs, we got to choose from an expanded dating pool. My ex-girlfriend, KJ, actually came down from her UC Berkeley, to spend her 18th birthday with me. I hit it off right away with a visiting student from Maine, Sabrina, who became my girlfriend for that quarter. And prog rock band Fates Warning came out with the excellent Parallels .

But at the end of 1991, it all came crashing down. Sabrina returned to her native Maine. I did not end up getting back with KJ. The Muse amp was disappointing, so I wished I had used those funds towards a Theta DS Pro Prime instead. And Fates Warning's "We Only Say Goodbye," though a killer song, just poured salt on the wound.

In the February 1992 Stereophile, Jack English reviewed four digital cables, including the XLO Reference Type 4. That further whetted my appetite for an outboard DAC. Though we were in a long drought, February 1992 was a rainy month. Valentine's Day 1992 was on a Friday, the one before the long Presidents Day weekend. My future girlfriend, ACS, then a freshman at UC Berkeley, took the intercampus jitney that evening, to UCSC. It had rained earlier in the day, so the ground was wet. When ACS arrived, some mist lingered amongst the trees. So it was kind of...romantic.

After showering, my housemate Dave would simply wrap a towel around his waist. And he'd stay that way for quite a while. When ACS and I entered the apartment, Dave was sitting on the couch. The apartment was kind of warm and relatively humid. Since Dave wasn't wearing a shirt, a clammy ACS asked if she, too, could go topless. Instead of "We Only Say Goodbye," we listened to the epic, but still brisk, "The Eleventh Hour."

I did not acquire a DAC, until September 1993. ACS and I liked both the XLO Reference Type 4 and AudioQuest Digital Pro. She felt that the XLO was slightly warm, like a light-colored tea, softly humming a song, or that relatively humid and warm Valentine's 1992.



During the last week of 1993, we had a bowling tournament in Las Vegas. But that meant we missed the early January 1994 Winter CES. There, our friends became wide-eyed, at all of the porn stars promoting, among other things, interactive video. In fact, until COVID-19, porn was an integral part of the activities surrounding CES. Anyway, ACS forgave ourselves, for missing that 1994 WCES. Also, by listening more to the AQ Digital Pro, she felt it was sonically forgiving.



Well, we haven't had the Digital Pro for a quarter century, but we do have the more modern Hawk Eye. In a sense of deja vu, ACS and I can't pick a winner, between the XLO Reference Type 4 and AudioQuest Hawk Eye. She once again shrugs, and chalks it up to "different, not superior or inferior."

Tonally, the Hawk Eye is more even. That is, as you use it with more and more sources and DACs, you find that it does a decent job of reflecting the gear's tonal balance. The images are more diffuse. Yet, despite looking at fuzzier images, you find yourself moving with little resistance to whatever music is playing. At least the music isn't dry, stiff, lifeless, slow, boring, static, and 2-dimensional. The background silence is not airless and hermetically sealed as other cables, and it still has some contrast with the images themselves. It's more like breathing in the night air, beneath the UC Santa Cruz trees, a few hours after it had rained.

There are times, even with MP3, where you shake off the Hawk Eye's somewhat fuzzy imaging, and groove to the music. Yeah, you wish the sonics were tighter, yet, because you're moving to the music, you aren't that upset with the lack of razor-sharp mages. Yes, similar in spirit to the old Digital Pro, the Hawk Eye is forgiving.

-Lummy The Loch Monster



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Topic - AudioQuest Hawk Eye, Part 6 - Luminator 23:24:09 10/15/20 (0)

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