My first ones took weeks to come on song, but the 2nd batch were there instantly like Martin's

Two 0.5m Harmonic Technology Digital Copper III 50Ω clock cables prepared and now plumbed into the system.  More about them tomorrow.

They look good Martin, like Acrolink cables.

Review here.

l agree Martin, sheilding is pretty bazaar thing.
As you know l've been playing with Copper tape for a bit, and it can simply transcend proceedings soundwise.

It also begs the question, could you improve a 2 sheilded cable by adding an additional sheild of Copper, or in your case go for 4 layers 🤔

l would imagine the additional sheilding helps with lower frequency reduction,rather than 5Mhz upwards,it probably reduces it,but won't totally stop it, due physical wall thickness needed to block low frequencies.

It's interesting stuff, for sure

I Love it...JML EMF~RFI specs 🤣

Actually you can use a SDR radio for the same task ,up to a point, and you physically see on your monitor screen if the sheilding is working or not.

You have valid point in regards to sheilding,it can bring clarity that the designers didn't invision, changing the signature sound.

Thanks Martin for allowing me to hear your system. What a fascinating talk we had around our systems and life. Martin system over the years has changed in terms of sound greatly.
We listened to a mixture of Martin choices and mine. I would say that each of our systems have been tuned to our particular music tastes, Martin system has a wide soundstage, with big open mids and plenty of bass texture and grunt when needed. My only real criticism is how it handles guitar sounds I could detect a touch of harshness, so both Jeff Beck torture track Blast from the east and Lario Basilio Your Love valve guitar tone missed that last bit of harmonic overtones that makes a valve guitar amplifier sing. Martin did move cables around and removed the grounding shield he made and this helped but still not quite there yet. To be honest I am not sure if Martin needs to get there.
I think my biggest surprise is timpani coming out in the mix, this is the first time I heard this in Martin system.
I really like you follow your own path Martin and trust your own process

Hey John, it's always a pleasure to see you. Thank you for the insightful critique, it's useful hearing another viewpoint and I value your feedback.

Yes, I do think I'm nearly there and I do also hear the occasional 'zing' in guitar and high voice, never really sure whether it's in the recording as I play many that have no such problems. It's interesting how the shielding just doesn't work for me and removing the last of it improved things, as well as separating the left channel speaker cable run from the power cable. I have to say that I'm very pleased with the way things have turned out and we're into 'final tweakery' to get it just right now.  I am still discovering so much new music.

Next steps:
- full graphene treatment for all contacts
- dress the cables carefully as I reconnect them, checking for crosstalk as you suggested

Further steps:
- Have ordered another Zero Zone 01-A supercap PSU to replace the Weiliang powering my 1st AfterDark clock
- Am on the waitlist for the EtherREGEN Gen2 to replace my original EtherREGEN

It doesn't always yield good results and sometimes requires a u-turn, but I absolutely must understand the reasons for trying things, which compels me to question and apply thought experiments.

Some events I can recall:

- I bought a BG7TBL clock for ham radio on an experimental whim, despite people telling me that the internal clock in the EtherREGEN is superior. It isn't, and I don't care what the numbers say. That started me down a route of discovery ending with two superb AfterDark clocks.

- different thoughts abounded on grounding clocks, I tried it and couldn't get on with the results with everything sounding sat upon. I don't ground my clocks now, only the components they feed.

- huge positive results elsewhere with the Finisar Active Optical Cable, so I tried it. It started off well but burn-in went the in the wrong direction and it ended up sounding harsh and nasty. I quickly went back to my HP SFPs and ipolex cables.

- the recent activity here with painting RFI paint on shields and grounding boxes. I tried it carefully, using only cardboard. It just didn't work with my grounding boxes or components, brightening the sound unbearably. I have now removed it all.

- I started my grounding box journey several years ago with the SGS, which was reasonably good. Tried Aucharm, Silent Point, RTZ, Black Ravioli and none quite did what I sensed was needed. Bought my first two Quartz Acoustic boxes and BANG! the perfect solution. I set about replacing them all with QA.

- The same thing with power cables, I bought my first Coherent power cable and BANG! again. Nothing else touches them so I replaced them all over the years. The same happened for speaker cables, my Coherent set comfortably seeing off a much more expensive pair of Kimber Select KS-3035.

- I have a vast collection of different footers in a box, testament to the number I tried including sprung, suspension, sorbothane and rubbery things. Nothing but nothing works as well as Black Ravioli so now everything is on them.

So you see, experimentation has sometimes been fun and sometimes pure frustration. But I've learned everything for myself rather than just follow doctrine and that means the overall direction has always been improvement even if it's sometimes two steps forward and one back.