Hello Frank,

I recieved the cables today.My impressions(after a brief unthaw,outside mailbox=partial cryo treatment as temps here are -20 F.): I like the exposed multi colored braid. I was expecting a much stiffer cable, being a 10 conductor assembly, but these are very flexible.The quality of the braid is very good,very uniform for hand braiding. The RCA terminations seem to be of good quality(from what I can see since they are mostly concealed by heatshrink).

After checking continuity & resistance with my DMM I installed the BKMs in my living room system, between my dac and integrated tube/ss amp combo. I played some Diane Krall Live in Paris,and the first thing I noticed was the BKMs seemed to bring out more "sparkle" in my system. Being a skeptic I replaced Diane with Charlie Hayden's Best Of Quartet West. The instruments had more of that "snap" like you get at live performances. My system seems to better resolve the spaces between the notes now also,the dark spaces are darker so-to-speak. So far I would say the BKMs are for sure more revealing than my teflon coated,diy, solid silver, Eichmann Bullet terminated cables that I previously held to high regard in the place the Blacksheeps are now serving duty. Surprising for sure!

More to come once I've lived with the BKMs for a while.

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All the best,
diyAudio

sources - Buffalo 24 DAC and Jolida JD-100 CD player
Mars IC are used to connect the above sources to the pre below
preamp - Tube line pre based on Allen Wright's FVP5A line stage.
Amps - Mini-Aleph, TAD-1000 PPP KT88 monblocks.
Speakers - Dahlquist 3 ways, Carver AL-III+.

First of all, the construction. The braiding method is amazing. I actually spent a good 15 mins to try figuring how that was done, but I failed

After a total of 4 hours of listening sessions, I found the Mars have very clear mid high, maybe that's the "sparkle" that igwt felt. I compared the Mars to 2 similar IC's that are in the same price range - Audio Art and DH Lab silver plated IC. The Mars is definitely more pronounced in the mid-high range but seem to a bit shy on the low end - just by comparison to the other competitors, not lack.

When I used the Mars with the Buffalo + FVP5A + Mini-A + Dahlquist, there was a touch of sibilance; however, when it is used in the all tube combo and the carver ribbon, the sound was simply sweet.

Fred

I was expeting rather little...and thus I've been all the more surprised. Cables were, first of all, well (safely) packed externally, and furthermore they had an unexpected professional looking inner package. So much for the little unimportant things that matter

The sound is convincing! Full, extended, present yet controlled extremes, fluid unaggressive midrange, warm in tonality. The Mars is very interesting. It's pleasant to handle, flexible; plugs grip well (this was expected); and...it kind of seems longer than 1m, which I thought it were

Sound (including sonic color) resembles the Audioquest King Cobra, rather than the VDH The Bay C5 (two interconnects I've used recently).

The treble is (as it was said) indeed slightly tilted up, but it's pleasant as it is... maybe with burn in it'll become more even. I guess that if the wire was silver plated / teflon wire, with this geometry it would have been too bright and aggressive. I'm surprised that a supposedly generic wire can sound so good.

Thank you very much, Frank!
AFTER BURNING
I will say that burning them in has definitely improved them; now the treble feels perfectly aligned with the midrange, plus the midrange has improved in tonal naturaless and sweetness, plus the bass seems to have become completely under control. Very nice, I say.
Trust me, the Mars is a special interconnect. It's excellent in all the typical audiophilish parameters, but there's more to it - it feels uncommonly "beautiful", while sounding very neutral and impartial to this or that specific aspect of sound.

I think it must be in part that music-friendly distortion spectrum produced by the PVC dielectric, as from Audioquest's literature

Andrea from Italy

Here's the current setup:

Rega Apollo -> BKM -> Promitheus Audio TVC passive pre -> RH84 (single-ended EL84 amp) -> Fostex FE206e

For testing purposes the BKMs are replacing Morrow Audio MA3s, which are currently my reference IC - probably not a fair fight... The Morrows are 1.5M vs. the 1M BKMs.

My initial impressions from the last couple nights have been that the high and mid-range frequencies seem to be accentuated, whereas the bass is either a little shy or not clearly defined; the behavior seems to be dependant on the recording.

As I type this, I'm listening to a mostly acoustic recording (Bill Frisell's "Disfarmer"), and the bass is almost overpowering - but again, the overall sense is of booming bass rather than a well-defined plucking of the lower acoustic bass strings (e.g. open E) and subsequent decay. OTOH, all of the the instruments are easily located and the soundstage is quite wide - wider than the Morrows, actually. It seems that the higher the frequency, the better defined the instrument. In short, it strikes me as a "bright" cable.

Having said all that, I would not be surprised if both extremes normalized a bit, if not significantly, with break-in - the Morrows certainly did. If it's OK with Frank, I'd like to do just that; I can leave the source running through the passive pre but with the amp turned off. I think 50 hours or so would do in order to get a sense of whether break in helps in the slightest
AFTER BURNING

After about 40 or so hours of break-in, the cables are definitely balancing out. The bass is tighter and more coherent, and the highs have mellowed out a tad, but are still somewhat forward. I'm not sure I'd call it a "bright" cable any more - it's much more toward what I'd call neutral, albeit with a slight sparkle or tizz. The detail retrieval and imaging are still amazing - I'll have to plug the Morrows back in and see how they stack up.

I would strongly recommend that anyone trying these cables give them a chance to break in, for at least 50 hours. Whether you listen to them during the break in period or not is your call.

Before anyone interjects, it's not that my ears/brain have gotten used to them; the breaking in was done while I was at work or sleeping, with the CD on repeat with a very dynamic disc (Polytown, if you must know) playing into my passive preamp but with the amp off.

Though the treble is a bit tipped up, they're not fatiguing - I find myself looking for discs that will really highlight its pros or reveal its cons, and instead of analyzing I'm just listening and enjoying.

Something that did occur to me is that Fostex drivers, the FE206E in particular, are known for their tendency to "shout". I've never experienced this characteristic in mine until I tried the Blacksheep Mars. I'm starting to wonder if the brightness I'm hearing is less a quality of the cable as much as it is actually the true nature of the Fostex driver shining through a neutral, revealing cable... I'm anxious to read other folks' experiences.

Beeah NY,USA