I’ve listened to the system now for four or five hours with the new cable and my initial impressions are that the music emerges from a darker, more velvety background. Before the cable swap, I used to have to almost strain to enjoy the opening bars of Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre National de Lyon’s rendition of Ravel’s Bolero in 192khz 24bit. Either due to the drop in noise floor and/or increase in my system’s ability to reveal more of the low-level information, i.e. “microdynamics” (?), brought by the WestminsterLab cable, my system now allows me to become fully involved in the music without having to ride the gain control early on in the piece. Also, on Shelby Lynne’s “Just A Little Lovin’, also at 192khz 24bit, the cymbals shimmer a bit more to my liking and the drum rim shots seem to have quite a bit more “attack” or sharper transients in the opening sequence. Finally, in Leopold Ludwig and the LSO’s version of Dvorak’s New World Symphony also in 192khz 24bit, the English Horn solo in the Largo, or second movement, is the best I’ve ever heard it. Although I didn’t do any A/B comparisons to the cable I do intend to revisit that idea at some point.
I was kind of hoping for some increases in the width and depth of the X1’s already exceptional 3D sound stage but haven’t notice any so far. The X1 continues to hide the B&W 800’s from view with a sound stage that expands far outside the L/R and front to back physical placement of the speakers in my room. With the X1, I just don’t perceive that the sound is coming from a physical pair of speakers in the room.