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Cable Asylum Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys. |
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Cable Asylum Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys. |
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Presently, Hawaii and Northern California do not have an authorized Kimber Kable dealer.
In 1994, I went back to Honolulu for the first time since 1991. My relatives and their friends on dance teams had routines more like gymnastics. You wished that high-end audio products were that dexterous, strong, and flexible. And when you saw someone in blue, red, and black, you thought of the similarly-colored Kimber PBJ.
The foreground is Manoa Valley. The next valley over is Palolo. At the entrance of Palolo was Audio Directions Ltd., a Kimber dealer. Its owner was the late Stewart Ono, also known as UncleStu52, here on Audio Asylum.
ADL's main electronics lines were Conrad-Johnson and Quicksilver. Stu said, "I don't really sell a lot of balanced gear. But if you have balanced gear, you should really give the Kimber PBJ a try. You might be surprised. In many systems, you just might like the PBJ better," which was 1/5th the price of the all-silver KCAG.
Assuming that you have high-quality sources, you will notice that the PBJ isn't clean and open in the upper midrange. On certain voices and instruments here, that lends a gruff and curtailed sound. The PBJ has excellent midrange focus, but just doesn't reveal low-level details. You do not get the full measure of hands and feet on the dance floor; body parts touching, holding, and letting go; clothes stretching and rubbing; hair whipping through the air. You do not get the full measure of the thick, salty, warm, but unpolluted air; the offshore clouds filtering out some of the direct sun, but not the UV; the smells of water, sweat, and sunblock on your skin; the changing sound of the ocean water, as it approaches shore, crests, breaks, brushes by you, crashes, retreats, and drags sand with it.
Versus the PBJ, the KCAG is obviously more open and transparent. It maintains a cleaner upper midrange. It preserves soundstage height. While the KCAG does scope and scoop out more on the music's finer details, it casts a glow or light over the music. It's like being half-asleep, while the bus' air brakes engage. When you listen to slack key guitar, transients are faster than with the PBJ, but the notes seem a bit rounded. So you think "slick key" guitar instead. When you "look" at the recorded music, subjectively, image outlines seem a little more rounded than they should be.
In decent systems, the KCAG's less-restrictive soundstaging and more shimmery sound make it a better everyday choice. Also, on some recordings, the KCAG does a better job at maintaining contrast between music and background silence. But there are just certain times and recordings, which the PBJ portrays a more believable recreation. If you have a separate preamp and power amp, the KCAG will do a better job of getting out of the way. We know that two wrongs don't make a right, but this is an imprecise hobby. But if you have a balanced phonostage, and are tired of vinyl's awful upper-midrange warble and anomalies, you might find the PBJ to be more forgiving. Moreover, its subjectively more focused midrange aids vinyl's often 3D imaging.
Again, if no one tells you the prices of the PBJ and KCAG, you probably would not know that one costs 5X that of the other. And that speaks well for the affordable PBJ, especially the balanced XLR version.
-Lummy The Loch Monster
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Topic - Kimber PBJ, Part 10 - Luminator 18:27:41 09/17/22 (0)
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