Strength: Detail, service
Weaknesses: Matching with my system (Err… may not quite be a weakness though)
The cable I received looks good but is not exactly the same as the picture shown on its website. Firebird I received sports a black body bullet plug vs. blue in the picture. It’s not off as the text indicated that the plug will be ‘black’ but the picture is slightly misleading. No harm done on this part for sure but just a cosmetic thing and FYI.
Service is good and fast as usual and this is my third transactions with the website. Have no problem buying stuff from the website so far and highly recommend people to try the service.
I have no time recently to really burn the cable by simply listening or turning on my main system. I solved this problem by plugging Firebird between my cable box audio out and VCR line in. Tune VCR to the line in so that the soundtrack from cable box will go into VCR. I left my VCR on for about 8 – 12 hours a day, roughly 3 days a week for 5 weeks or so.
My first impression on Firebird right out of the box was detail, detail and detail. Really lots of them. I heard lots of things I haven’t heard before in my system and almost every CD I played. It was kinda fun to hear this kind of detail and I felt
I needed more and more of it so I increased the volume level. While the detail was very impressive, it’s getting to point of annoying. Right out of the box, Firebird sounded
a spoiled child that wanted your attention all the time as long as it was in the system. Firebird showed lots of new things to you, making sure you won’t ignore its presence in the system. I couldn’t read book while it was on.
The high volume level started to take a toll after about half an hour of listening as the ear kinda felt fatigued and it sounds more stressed. Also, I felt
there was no depth at all from Firebird. As if the world became flat… While it was very good on music with few pieces, once more pieces were added, I felt there were little spaces left between each instrument that some time I felt it ‘step’ on each other just to show off its presence. I didn’t feel anything that I can call soundstage at this point. At the end of the first listening, I felt much more relax when I switched back to my old interconnect, Audioquest Topaz, but, somehow, I missed all the fun Firebird gave me, which was tons of detail. “Mind you this is right out of the box sounds so I’m not surprised but I have fun with it so far.”
After 5 weeks of hooking with my VCR, the sound becomes more subdue and easier to the ears in a good way. The detail which was its strong point was still there but much more listenable and still fun to listen too. The spoil child feelings kinda vanished so the cable was great with age. You could hear some sound start to rise and decay very clearly. Really nice.
Nevertheless, I think it began to show the weakness in my system which is the CD player, particularly its DAC which is decade old. You and me know that DAC in those ages will not match whatever available now as digital world moves real fast. The rather salient weakness of the older DAC is probably the treble, I believe. Firebird did not hide this fact and made my Denon CD player sound
cheap digital sound on its treble. The soundstage continued to be rather limit and I felt the far left and right sound was kinda ‘inside’ the speaker and nothing was beyond both of the speaker. There was very little space with each musical instrument so when all of them played at the same time, it felt
the room was rather crowded it was getting difficult to breath and I wanted to get out. The depth was kinda improved from right out of the box but I still don’t feel it that much vs. Topaz. When I switched back to my old Audio Topaz IC, I felt much more relax again.
The comparison I felt between Topaz and Firebird is that Firebird is really good on detail while Topaz is rather warm and full body. Firebird will not hesitate to push every nuance to the front so you could hear all of it. Topaz, however, is more subdued in this. There is definitely the same detail in the sound but it does not push it to the front and some time you will miss such detail.
One of the greatest things of Topaz on my system is that it gives a rather full body sound. Topaz has a rather skewed tonal balance toward midrange and bass with much less on treble while Firebird is more neutral on everything. The midrange of Topaz, particularly the vocal, is warm and full, kinda sweet in a way that I really
and easy to listen on a long period of time. I didn’t feel this with Firebird. Firebird gave out a rather clear vocal but not sweet and with little body and it sounds anything but warm and full body.
Topaz’s bass has a body that is much more believable in term of size. This is in contrast with Firebird in that the bass of firebird is tight and slam but that’s it. You felt the impact, no doubt, but there is no smooth follow-through
Topaz. It’s
you slam the drum real hard it gave out big ‘boom’ sound and stop right way. It doesn’t sound natural in my system.
And the treble, Topaz, to me, failed on this front. Its treble tends to be rather muted and I don’t feel the hi-hat shimmering
Firebird at all. Nevertheless, it helped tame the inferior treble my CD player has and make it a pleasure to listen to my current CD player. The bad becomes good in a way! Firebird, to me, will not hesitate to show that the treble of my CD player has a lot left to be desired. It gave out a rather dull and cheap treble sound, the kind that analog lover complains about CD in the early age.
Soundstage and depth, Topaz win on my system. I felt something beyond my speaker and definitely I could tell the singer stand a little bit forward vs. other musical instrument. Mind you that mine is a cheap entry system and it won’t sound very real
expensive one in a great tuned room. However, for the price, it gave me some tiny bit of those thing with Topaz but not with Firebird.
In all, I stick with my previous interconnect, Audioquest Topaz, to my system and use Firebird for my DVD player. While Firebird is really a decent IC, I think it does not match my current set as it makes no compromise to the weakness in my system. In this sense, Audioquest Topaz is a much better choice if you happen to have ‘something’ to ‘cover up.’
Kinda interesting in that Topaz IC and my CD player comes from the same era, the era the CD player still has a very bad treble due to its DAC design. As such, it is my belief that Topaz is designed in a way to ‘match’ such weaknesses in those days and may be part of the reason why they sound great together. I will not say that Firebird is a bad IC. It’s a decent one and sounds really great on the detail. However, I wouldn’t say that it’s better than Audioquest Topaz, at least on my decade old system. With interconnect, the matching is the most important thing.
From this incident, I couldn’t stress hard enough for those of you who wants to buy an interconnect to ‘try before you buy’. You could end up getting a great IC but does not match with your system and make it
a torture to finish the piece of music that you
even though all pieces in your system are of great caliber.
I will definitely try Firebird again later or when I changed my CD player which is in need of a new one soon and let you know my opinion on it. Of course, all comment are welcome on this writing.
Associated equipment: Denon DCD-1015G CD player, NAD 312 integrated amplifier, Grado SR60 headphone, Audioquest Topaz interconnect, Avbestbuy’s Firebird interconnect, Audioquest Type IV speaker cable.
