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Kimber KCAG, Part 9




Late summer 1994. My girlfriend ACS was preparing for her senior year at UC Berkeley. She and her former college roommate, Angie, went to "the Orient," as they called it. I did not go with them, because I went instead to my second home, Honolulu. That was my first time back, since 1991.



Contemporary Hawaiian music was making large inroads. Keola Beamer's new album, Wooden Boat , could be found at Costco. My favorite was/is "Shells." Years later, "Shells" was played at my wedding banquet.

And of course, I had to visit Stewart Ono (the late UncleStu52) at Audio Directions Ltd. I did ask him about the Kimber KCAG line-level interconnect. He said he did not have any in stock, but that he could order some. He said that, of all the brands he carried, Kimber were the fastest, in shipping out product. He said that his customers occasionally inquired about KCAG, but very few were serious. Stu said that, AudioQuest, being on the California coast, could take 4 to 5 business days. But Utah's Kimber often needed just 3 business days, to have shipments arrive in Honolulu.

At the time, I had front-end components from CAL and Theta. Various audiophiles recommended Kimber and XLO for these sources. I had various preamps and power amps from Adcom, B&K, Classe', and Muse. The same audiophiles recommended Cardas and MIT for these. I stewed, "What to do? What to do?"

While my parents and brother remained in Honolulu for another couple of weeks, I returned home to San Francisco. ACS and Angie picked me up from SFO. They were so excited, they stayed over at my place, and made Berkeley/Oakland plans for the next day.



The three of us went to Piedmont Springs . While stewing in the outdoor hot tub, ACS and Angie told me all about their trip. Their favorite was staying at an onsen, outdoor natural springs. They liked it so much, they wanted to do something similar with me, when we were all home. ACS and Angie had no biases, regarding interconnects. They asked questions in their academic tone, gave feedback honestly, be it positive, negative, or quid pro quo.



So when we went to Fentons Creamery , which was/is up the street from Piedmont Springs, ACS and Angie got me thinking about the source components. And that was what helped me decide to get a balanced Kimber KCAG, for my Theta DAC. Current-production balanced KCAG still includes the Switchcraft XLR, which has been in use, since at least the early-90s.



Thankfully, current-production KCAG has signal flow direction arrows on the heatshrink wrap. Yeah, yeah, you don't need direction arrows on a balanced interconnect, but still. No serial numbers appear on the balanced KCAG. If you get KCAG with WBT-0147 RCAs, the RCA shell will have serial numbers, but not the KCAG itself. Beware of fakes.



We let this KCAG stew on an audiodharma Cable Cooker for 3 days, the same amount of time it used to take Kimber to ship to Hawaii.



3 days is a short length of Cook time. Even so, the KCAG exhibits signs of having too much Cook time. Overall sound is muffled, lacking in transparency, focus, and speed. Drums are blunted. Vocalists are robbed of their breath. The contrast between music and silence is minimized. If you slump into a pool of water, so that your head is underwater, that is what the over-Cooked KCAG sounds like.

Don't panic. Just leave the Cooked KCAG hooked up. Give it some regular playing time. In a few days, the sonic haze, stupor, and laziness dissipate.

-Lummy The Loch Monster



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Topic - Kimber KCAG, Part 9 - Luminator 15:15:04 05/15/21 (7)

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