Tried something new and extremely surprising today;

ELROD new MASTER SERIES Statement Gold,a true surprise; changes the game considerably

Installed ONE of these in the system today on my Esoteric A-02 power amp to replace a 2 year old Elrod Statement Gold next-gen cable as a test.

Cable was cooked for 6 days and then rounded out by David on his system to a full 2 weeks of burn-in. 

To say the design changes are major would be a huge understatement....double the width of the widest ribbons used to date and double the count over what was already his latest generation design for Statement Gold; that's all that can be said. Furutech's latest FI-50 NCF connectors are utilized as they were determined to be superior to anything else available.

Within the first 12 hours the phrase (which I've only used once before for any cable) "component-level upgrade" came to mind. It's as if my amp had been further upgraded along with my entire system. This is no exaggeration and I'm surprised at the uplift from a single power cord from the level I already was experiencing. All frequency bands experienced significant changes for the better, an already 3-dimensional wrap-around soundstage on most recordings became an even more dense, musical energy-filled 3D wrap-around deeply immersive soundstage on EVERY recording, every note, voice, etc...became even more real and life-like, inner detail increased on most material (already have tons of inner detail thanks to the TAD R1s), musical energy increased in the room and the listener is pulled even deeper into the recording. I found myself rewinding or starting tracks over many times as the surprise factor with this change was extremely high.

I had talked to a couple of guys who had gone this route picking up this brand new cable family in the last month; they were saying that the Master Series Golds eclipsed the Diamond and MBX2 families of cables and simply blew the doors off the latest Statement Gold generation. That all sounded hard to believe (particularly the part about eclipsing MBX2 and Diamond/X2; after 12 hours, I do believe it to be true...

Tough part about the Elrod line is the website has not been updated in a long, long time as more time is spent on design and build than on marketing. My advice is to reach out to me or others using these cables and get some candid conversations going. Also, you can easily reach David Elrod via phone / email; he's a wealth of knowledge and will discuss cables, music, system design/synergy with any serious audio-nut.

Oh well...an audio-nuts job (of obsessing) is never done; I will be trying some of these in the months to come!

In short, any adjustment time was very short....

Sheffield Drum Disc, Japanese Taiko Drumming (Ondekoza), Kim Hok-Man, all the classics have come out to play. What great ride these are going to be!

If you have not done so already - It may be time to break out the Sheffield labs drum tracks test CD and crank it! Those speakers will do justice to anything and everything with real live SPL levels.

The short answer after several weeks of owning the R1s is 'yes, definitely but don't use the Stillpoints spikes with the Ultra5 footers'; more on that later. The supplied TAD footers (small spikes are all that came with mine straight from Japan) are adequate but frankly I'd just put the R1s flat on the floor even carpet if the TAD spikes were the only option; their sheer weight couples them well enough.  The Ultra5s are an expense to be certain, need 3 of them per R1 but they tighten up the bass even more and are well worth it.  

To understand where I'm coming from, through a recent and difficult decision process, I had to part with my Legacy AERIS+Wavelet+HDPlex setup.  The performance of that speaker full range and particularly in the bass/sub-bass and mid-bass plus its mid-range was world class and I miss it already. The drivers on the AERIS were the fastest, most accurate and capable of prodigious bass output that I've ever heard coupled with amazing attack, decay, bass transients, etc...Add to that the fact that the R1s roll off below 21-22Hz in my room (so the AERIS go much! deeper) and you'll know why I miss the AERIS already. (Yes, I'm saying the AERIS are and compete with world-class speakers well above their price class and I miss them even compared to the R1s which I love the sound of...)

Back to the R1s...they are an amazing speaker that impress me in so many ways and I'm glad to have found them over all others I heard and considered; if I had to leave the active-speaker AERIS+Wavelet (+more boxes/gear & cables to drive them active), I am VERY glad that it was for the R1s!

The 2 bass drivers in the R1s that cover the range are incredibly fast and accurate and more importantly, extremely musical. The concentric midrange+tweeter multi-driver is the ONLY Beryllium driver I've ever heard that I like the sound of; it's amazing and deserves a page of comments on its own.  The large port on the bottom front of the speaker is horn-shaped and as you can imagine, delivers all the musical benefits of that being incorporated in the design.  The cabinet design and mass of the R1s is incredibly tight, solid and yields an ultra-solid imaging and sound-staging performance.  All that stated, with the R1s simply mass-coupled by their wide bases to the carpet, there is a bit less attack and accurate decay than I would like.  

The Ultra5 footers (no spikes) improve the speaker's performance in my room substantially, bass became much more tight, accurate and tuneful, imaging and soundstage overall became a bit more accurate and more tight and overall I simply like how they sound better.  I took them off for a day or two but suffice it to say, they are back on and will remain there.

Regarding the Stillpoint spikes (that I also bought but won't be able to utilize) that are of amazing girth and quality. My advice is not to use them with the R1s.  I found that given the small length of the smaller-diameter part of the coupling bolt that goes into the Ultra5 versus the length and diameter of the bolt that goes into the bottom of the R1, that when I used the spikes as well, the forces place on the coupling when tilting or moving the speakers given their 330lb weight and how massive the spikes are/how they "bite" into carpet and sub-floor resulted in a slight bend/partial buckling of the overall assembly where it joins the bottom of the R1.  Stillpoints should make a longer threaded input on the Ultra5s and lengthen that part of the coupling bolt plus make it a larger diameter.   This is a lot easier to explain via phone versus try to write about the inherent design/usage problem.  Drop me a message, I'll be happy to talk about this or anything else audio-related in more detail!

Please note that since you own the CR-1s, the Ultra5s plus spikes may work fine for you but the Ultra5s are sure to be a great choice regardless.

To reiterate,....Ultra5s, definitely yes, get them but simply use the Ultra5s directly on carpet, area rug or floor with the R1s, don't use the spikes.