Home Cable Asylum

Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys.

Revelation Audio Labs Passage, Part 4




When we were in high school in the late-80s, some of my friends lived in Chinatown and North Beach. Their "home" field was the asphalt/concrete North Beach Playground, now called Joe DiMaggio field. This picture shows Washington Square and Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church, wher Joe Di married Marilyn Monroe. Anyway, North Beach Playground is just a couple blocks to the right, off picture.



Since we liked to play softball and football, we wanted natural grass. Since our high school drew from throughout the City, we gladly ventured on MUNI and BART, and met our other friends at their neighborhood playgrounds. If you were the first to arrive, you'd grab a field, set down your bag, and listen to your Walkman. As the others arrived, someone would bring a boombox. We usually had a 50/50 male/female split. We'd get amped up to heavy metal, and then chill to love songs.



When taking a break, or switching sports, we liked listening to rock instrumentals. Prime examples included Marty Friedman's "Jewel;" Stuart Hamm's "Flow My Tears;" Tony MacAlpine's "Key To The City;" Vinnie Moore's "April Sky;" Joe Satriani's "Echo;" and Testament's "Musical Death (A Dirge)."



Testament's The New Order sounded like it was recorded on North Beach Playground's asphalt field(s). Several of us saw Testament in June 1988, at The Stone on Broadway & Montgomery, the entrance to North Beach. Actually, we'd see Testament several times, but during those shows, they did not perform "Musical Death (A Dirge)." Anyway, each month, a new-to-me audiophile will reach out, have read my posts, and claim that he had seen me in the past. If you had been at or near that June 1988 Testament concert, and had seen one blonde girl, one Jewish girl, and two wussy Asian girls, those were my friends.



After high school, we'd return to those San Francisco fields. Now that we were bigger, those fields seemed...smaller, more defined, and better-manicured. Maybe the City was flush with cash, but many of the fields and facilities were renovated. One of my audiophile acquaintances lives in North Carolina, and has the Simaudio 820S outboard powerstage, and 740P linestage preamplifier. He says that there is an audio analogy here. He has been using a Reveleation Audio Labs Passage 5-pin XLR cable between his 820S and 740P. Quite frankly, when we obtained the Passage, it sounded subpar. Then we secured the adapters needed to place the Passage on an audiodharma Cable Cooker. Even then, the Passage still sounded blah.

So the NC audiophile left the Passage in place, and stopped thinking about it. After a couple of months, his wife remarked that the system sounded more "variable," and asked "What did you do?"

Taken aback, he shrugged, "I didn't do anything." He hadn't made any changes to the system. Then he determined that, over the two months, the Passage had ever so slowly evolved. It shed some of the laziness and haze, and now his 740P was revealing more of what was going on upstream. And that was why his wife called the sound more "variable."



That Passage is now back with me. I use it between my Simaudio 820S and 750D CD player/DAC. Compared to my notes and recollection, the Passage, having gone back and forth across the US, and being used for months in NC, does sound better. Keeping my system the same, the Cooked-&-used Passage now preserves tighter images. You can "see" the instruments more clearly, similar to knowing the exact dimensions of the field, and where each player is.

In summer 1988, we were at West Sunset Playground, and ended off with Vinnie Moore's "April Sky," which was an electric guitar rendering of Bach's "Air on a G string." The beautiful weather and good vibes seemed to go on forever... With the well-used Passage, the 750D's unambiguous imaging causes my wife, who played violin in the high school orchestra, to remark, "I can play this with my eyes closed!" She then goes on YouTube, to find people using other instruments, to play this.



Growing up in Chinatown, my wife would go with her friends to the YMCA on Sacramento Street. They'd play basketball and go swimming. My wife put on Tony MacAlpine's "Key To The City," and the well-used Passage better reveals this low-budget recording. Without all the processing, this recording may be jagged, and all over the place, but there's a fire to MacAlpine's playing. And for a moment, my wife was a teen, back at the Chinatown YMCA. Then she shivered about being self-conscious showering with her girlfriends, and snapped back to the present.

My wife went to the December 1989 Testament concert at The Warfield. The well-used Passage has quieter backgrounds. Qualitatively, those are more "I'm holding my breath," versus "I'm staring at a dark night sky, and breathing in the cool air." Still, this causes my wife to reflect, and she does not recall Testament performing any of their instrumentals at that December 1989 show (though there were brief solos, I don't recall any instrumentals, either). You may wish for a more romantic take, but here, the Passage is just being accurate.

But there is a lesson here. The RAL Passage is somewhat odd, in that it (a) sounded subpar (but promising) new; (b) did show improvement, after being Cooked for 4 days; and (c) thereafter needed months of regular playing time, to shed some of the bloat, laziness, and haze. But once the Passage does, we feel that it is the more organized and accurate 5-pin XLR cable. Once you live with this focus, it's hard to do without.

Removing the Passage and 820S then becomes a major letdown. You feel as though you put on weight, became sluggish, and had what hair you had left turn white.

-Lummy The Loch Monster



This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  VH Audio  


Topic - Revelation Audio Labs Passage, Part 4 - Luminator 13:37:15 11/28/20 (1)

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.