General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

---

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ General Asylum ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

Simaudio 820S, Chapter 31

Posted by Luminator (A) on June 19, 2025 at 12:49:54

I spent the summer of 1990 not at college at UC Santa Cruz, not at home in San Francisco. I spent it at my secondary home, Honolulu. That summer, I took a morning class at Hawaii Pacific University, which was located right in the financial district. My two study buddies, Gabby and Paola, were international students from Brazil. They lived in a "gulag-style" apartment, near the Pagoda hotel and restaurant.

Gabby and Paola had a bazillion bikinis. But even their regular clothes consisted of thin tops and bottoms. When it came to tops, both women tied a temporary knot behind the neck. They'd then tie the strings behind the back, and redo the top knot behind the neck.

Gabby, Paola, and I were Catholic. We went to Mass, and even confession, at nearby Sts. Peter & Paul (above). Whether in church, or lying poolside, Gabby and Paola asked what you were daydreaming about. High-end audio, of course! Both Gabby and Paola understood that, if you liked music, high-end audio was a means to deepen your appreciation, understanding, discovery, and enjoyment of the music.

As that summer of 1990 came to an end, I left my Billabong, HIC (Hawaiian Island Creations), Local Motion, and T&C (Town & Country) swimwear in Honolulu. I returned home to San Francisco, where I did not have any good swimwear.

In September 1990, I moved back to UCSC. The next day, I met up with my friend/study buddy, Kim, at her Stevenson dining hall. There, she introduced me to her girlfriends: Ngoc, Pauline, Quyen, and Tuyet. After checking out each other's dorm room, I mentioned that I was headed into town, to get sundry items, and swimwear. The five girls decided to go with me.

The Santa Cruz shops had trunks from brands like Hobie, O'Neill, and OP (Ocean Pacific). Having watched me try on trunks and board shorts, the girls realized that they were in need of swimwear. But it was early evening, and we had to return to campus, before our dining halls closed.

The next morning, we ate breakfast at the College Eight (now Rachel Carson) dining hall. Ngoc and Quyen were roommates, who lived at College Eight. Since I was from Hawaii, the five girls wanted me to help them buy swimwear. More specifically, they all insisted on bikinis. Moreover, some were adamant about getting string bikinis.

Sigh, but none of them knew what to do with a string bikini, and its four knots. Take the bottom, make sure you tie two temporary knots. Step into the bottom as if it were pants. Pull it up, and then readjust the knots and string positions to your liking.

Sigh, the girls fumbled with the bikini tops. Ngoc and Quyen first tried to tie the strings behind their back. With visions of Gabby and Paola, I told the girls to make a temporary knot up top. Slip the bikini over your head. Then tie the strings behind your back. Finally, readjust the knot behind your neck.

The girls were happy with their selections. You advised them, "I don't care what the label says. From all my friends and relatives in Hawaii, before you actually use the bikini, hand wash it in cold water with mild soap. Then hang it to dry."

Kim flashed a smile, "Okay, but now I want to see you in Speedos!"

I think it was in January 1991. Tuyet's brother came up from L.A., and visited us at UCSC. He played guitar, and perked up, when he found that you were an audiophile. He said that he'd never played a bass guitar or ukulele, both of which had four strings. He briefly mentioned that camera, professional headphone, and intercom headset equipment used 4-pin XLRs. In all your years in high-end audio, you did not recall hearing anything about 4-pin XLRs.

In summer 1991, I returned to Honolulu. I had to pay another visit to the late Stewart Ono (AA's UncleStu52) at Audio Directions Ltd. There, Stu was working on a Conrad-Johnson preamp. Stu told the customer that the main problem was with the power supply. Stu also said that, if the customer were going to repair the power supply, he should also get some mods done. Those included replacing the skimpy attached powercord.

Stu then turned his attention to a disassembled AKG K-1000 ear-speaker. And that was the first time I ever saw a 4-pin XLR.

Which brings us, once again, to the Simaudio 820S power supply, and its 4-pin XLRs, which are used for "analog DC power." We've previously tried myriad 4-pin XLR cables. Each revealed something different, about the 820S. But a few years ago, my audiophile acquaintance from Florida sold his 610LP phonostage to another audiophile. The latter eventually picked up an 820S. The two audiophiles then wondered why no one bothered to ask any of the audiophile cable brands about 4-pin XLR cables.

We'll have to dedicate a separate post, but Kimber Kable take the leads from their Carbon line-level interconnect, to construct a single 4-pin XLR cable.

Apparently, Kimber, in the past, have made a few 4-pin XLR cables for customers. But we have an audiodharma Cable Cooker, as well as the appropriate RCA-to-XLR adapters, to treat 4-pin XLR cables. If you have multiple samples of the latter, you may daisy-chain them.

This Simaudio 820S is using two of the Kimber Carbon 4-pin XLR cables. There's nothing wrong with Simaudio's stock DC cables. But other cables have brought out things in the 820S (and connected components) the stock cables couldn't. And if you are looking for accuracy, quietness, and transparency, the Kimber Carbon allows the 820S to deliver more of these qualities.

We'll have to dedicate a separate post, about the Simaudio 740P preamp (above). Adding an 820S to a 740P allows the latter to sound less garbled and scrunched-up (not that the 740P is garbled and scrunched-up, to begin with). And then, when you add a Kimber Carbon 4-pin XLR, the 740P becomes cleaner, clearer, more accurate and transparent.

But readers ask, "But does that make it sound significantly better?"

Yes and no. The 740P gets out of the way. But it is not a source component. It will simply tell you more of what is going on. Interestingly, the 740P, by being more accurate, is better able to resolve the often subtle sonic differences, among interconnects. Now you have an easier time, comparing, for example, Kimber's own KS-1136 and Naked.

Kim was 4'10". When it came to bikinis, she needed one which made her look like a woman, not a child. Kim loved the orange/yellow/white bikini I directed her towards. It made her feel confident. And that is how you'd feel, if you came across the Kimber KS-1136, which has a balanced, "professional" sonic character.

The 740P now is imbued with enough resolution, to reveal how the Naked goes beyond the KS-1136. The Naked has less of a sonic fingerprint. It's about being comfortable in your own skin, regardless of what you are (or are not) wearing.

The Floridian audiophile repeatedly says, "Simaudio are in the business of making sales. So of course they are going to hype how the 820S and 740P sound." He adds, "But to me, the 820S and 791 [which he now has] are about not having a sound." He points to AA's Amp/Preamp forum, "Everyone's arguing about sound. The 820S is about dropping out, leaving the sound wars behind, and just getting on with life and music."

"This rocks!" exclaims the guy who now has the Simaudio 610LP, "It's even better than Modern English's 'I Melt With You'." After he calmed down, he agreed with the Floridian, "Man, I've always played 'mix & match' with carts and phonostages. This (adding an 820S and Kimber Carbon) just gets the hell out of the way, ditches the masks and mirrors. It is so quiet, it reveals everything. And that includes all the loading and gain settings."

Preamps and phonotages are dandy, but where the Kimber Carbon 4-pin XLR really shines is on CD players and DACs.

When the Simaudio 750D (above) is used as a CD player, the transport curtails or rolls-off the treble. The 820S and Carbon do not magically make up for this loss in treble. However, the Carbon keeps noise away, so the entire recording, including in the treble, better maintains separation of images. There's less grain on the music itself, less grain in-between the images. On studio recordings, you more easily hear where vocals trail off, and synthesized or guitar tracks extend the trail.

Not only are images more intact, soundstages are not as truncated or reined-in. If you listen to Broadway musicals, the soundstaging makes you feel more like being seated in the middle, perhaps in Row 10. If you like orchestral works, the combination of soundstaging and cleaner instrumental textures makes the jobs of audio products downstream easier. Keeping the MIDI threads separate really makes EDM work its magic, whether that is to thrill or go into a trance. But be careful; with music this infectious, you may forget about your physical limitations. You may get up and boogie, only to have your body parts let you down :-)

Whether used as a CD player or DAC, there's nothing wrong with the 750D's treble quality. It's just that it's down in level, which leaves it vulnerable to being drowned out. By interfering less with the 750D's treble, the 820S and Kimber Carbon give the treble breathing room.

My audiophile circle/network/web really hasn't heard much from me, in the past year. Some of that is due to being busy. But a lot of that stems from putting in the work, pushing the envelope, and discovering more ways to squeeze out more from our existing audio equipment.

We've really put the Simaudio 820S through hoops. The various samples have been used with some pretty expensive powercords. Heck, even some of the after-market fuses are pricey. But for a couple hundred bucks, the Kimber Carbon 4-pin XLR brings out more of what the 820S can do.

Previously, when adding an 820S, you contentedly nodded. Now insert a Kimber Carbon 4-pin XLR cable, and ditch the contentment. When music, video games, TV, radio, and movies are playing, no one talks about the sound. Everyone is into whatever is playing. And that's how it should be.

-Lummy The Loch Monster

• Ink And Paper   (Open in New Window)

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

Sonic Craft

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---