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Published LessLoss Reviews Now Number Over 698

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Firewall Module

Date Added: 07/24/2019 by Joerg Mehnhardt
Custom power distributor with six onboard Firewall 64X modules.

Just received the distributor today. Almost had to ask how to get it out of the perfectly made box :)

It looks way better in real life as I thought, and I see, that you intentionally rounded the edges on each part, which I misinterpreted on the pictures.
The color fits nicely into the room and it looks impressive overall. Moved it behind the rack though after the first few songs and knowing, I will never turn back.

What can I say … bass again deeper, stronger and better controlled. Richer colors and textures, more "organic". More consistent and coherent sound sources of all kinds. And more palpable. I almost tried to grab a harmonica. And all this within less than an two hours after plug-in.

Unfortunately, you did not send any instructions … So, how can I get rid of the musicians in my room. They won’t leave even after finishing their songs :)

Louis, chapeau!!!!
Thanks for this wonderful device (is this just a device???) and thank you too for your patience with me.
It was a lot of fun to chat with you, and I hope, I did not get on your nerves too much.

My review for publishing has to wait until later, after a little more burn-in.

Thanks again and have a great weekend,
Joerg

Daily responses follow:

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So glad, you could convince me to go this direction !!!!!

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Man, I love this distributor !!!!!

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I thought, I knew about you making good gear already … but this new experience is … like Venus … another planet :)

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Sitting here 500 km from home since Sunday, visiting my Dad, and cannot wait to hear the improvement tomorrow night!!

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After a long train ride, I finally got to enjoy the stereo and "THE DISTRIBUTOR”.

Surprise … my stereo sounds so much more natural after 5x24/7 :):):)
Thank you so much for your inventions wrapped into such an entertaining social connection !!!!

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Just listening while I type this … wonderfully rich, powerful and smooth at the same time, just making me happy !!!
Have a great weekend!

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Wow, burn-in milestone … sibilance finally down a lot, which was my biggest challenge since ever I started my digital only stereo. All is rich and has a body, bass finally punches. Thanks so much for this wonderful device!!!
What possibly can the cable add to this :)
Best regards
Joerg

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The Black Eyes Peas “Elephunk” (Hip-Hop) never sounded so good with clear and rich voices and slamming punchy bass driving it, WOW WOW WOW, very cool.
Not a real Hip-Hop fan, but this one gets played sometimes

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Great chance today to get a second opinion.
My stepson was over with his family. He is a professional flamenco guitar player and has a widespread taste for all kinds of music.
We send all females out of the room ...
Then, I asked him to choose music, that he remembered on my stereo … without telling him the reason.
He came up with Mr. Bungle, some very extraordinary experimental rock band with interesting sounds and good recording. We didn't play it recently, but it was obvious, when the first bass sounds came in and he had to smile. This was not possible before, especially now with feeling the bass with your body. The next thing he could describe, was the way better separation of instruments and voices. He agreed to more natural sounds as well. And he continued with other songs and later with other bands. We cranked it up very high and had so much fun !!

Will be hard to wait for the other cables :)

Thanks again Louis!!

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Just had a wonderful listening of my stereo. Unbelievable what happened after my last email. Since last Wednesday, the voices are considerably improving, standing out more with more texture and details … and less sibilance. The remaining sibilance is closer coupled to the rest of the voice and sounds more like real. The stage takes the entire room, at least ahead of me, with even more space between the instruments. Was it the C-MARC power cable or the distributor?? Probably teamwork :)

And yes, terrible burn-in days before with different surprises like flat stage, dull voices, resonances … But I know this for quite some time, not only with your products :)
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Bindbreaker Vibration Control Equipment Foot

Date Added: 07/24/2019 by Matthew Kudelka
Bass goes deeper and cleaner, an adjustment always does that. What I didn’t expect was that the treble did the same with your footers installed — it goes higher and smoother. But the difference I didn’t expect was to the soundstage, which is much expanded into the corners of the room and toward the listening chair. I’m shocked. My wife is also shocked. She rarely tells me she has noticed a difference when I've made a change to the system, but she did this time. So you’ve passed the Wife Test.

I’m delighted, and she’s delighted.
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Bindbreaker Vibration Control Equipment Foot

Date Added: 07/16/2019 by Johnathan Popan
After installing the custom power distribution unit (with 12 firewall 64x units inside) in my system and being completely blown away, I put three bindbreakers underneath that unit and I noticed (hahaha, like everyone else) a small but very noticeable difference in regards to the overall clarity. I wasn't entirely sure what exactly it did to the sound although as I purchased more bindbreaker feet, the difference became more and more appearant. I noticed that the bass was tighter, and even the mids and highs were tighter also. It sounds strange saying that the high frequencies were tighter, but that is what I heard. It sounded faster and more focused, as if the sound stage didn't just have better separation of sounds but the entire sound stage started to separate from the speakers. Even with the distribution unit, there was still a sort of flatness to the sound that's hard to really explain, that I never noticed until getting bindbreaker feet for my equipment. What I heard when I purchased bindbreaker feet for all of my equipment and even my SVS SB-16 Ultra subwoofer and Philharmonic 3 speakers was that the sound became extremely solid and fast (instead of slow and rubbery), with tons of "pop", further enhancing the dimentionality that the distribution unit gives and was completely released from the bounds of the speakers floating very lightly and effortlessly in mid-air. Back to the flatness of the sound I only noticed after getting the bindbreaker feet. It's not to say that the sound was dimensionally flat with the distribution unit but without the bindbreaker feet, although after a while of trying to figure out what I was hearing I came to the conclusion that the sound was texturally flat. I realized that with the distribution unit the sound was definitely more defined with more textures, although I do have to say that specifically, definition is the forte of these feet and does more in this area than even the c-marc power cables and distribution unit. What I was hearing was a VERY shredded and defined sound, where the finest textures are easily heard. The sound was as crisp as pork rinds(lol) but never harsh or edgy, always natural sounding. I know it states on the website that these feet aren't necessarily made for speakers although when I saw the price of still point products, I gave these feet a try even with my speakers and subwoofer and they sounded absolutely stunning! Please don't be afraid of purchasing these for your speaker as they WILL further enhance the sound(as long as they are not above the weight limit). They compliment the c-marc power cables and distribution unit beautifully and never take the sound in a direction that is not natural or organic. These feet don't make a big difference(as a lot of reviews mention) when you put them under one device, although when you use these feet under all your equipment, they make a drastic difference in the sound that I can't live without! I cannot recommend these Bindbreaker feet enough!
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Firewall Module; C-MARC Classic Power Cable

Date Added: 07/16/2019 by Johnathan Popan
After purchasing c-marc large hookup wiring for soldering inside my speakers and being extremely impressed with the performance, I started e-mailing Louis where we got onto the subject of the firewall 64x units, which led to the ordering of the custom power distribution unit. While I was waiting for the power distribution unit I purchased a super c-marc power cable and I was again very much impressed no matter what I connected it. The first unit I connected it to was my PC monitor(Asus pa279q). The moment I started looking at videos, playing blu rays and gaming I immediately noticed that it looked like a completely different monitor. The black levels were much deeper and the contrast was definitely higher to the point where the difference between brighter parts of a scene and where the shadows are have a realistic difference between them. A thick grey veil was taken away leaving colors that were much more natural, vibrant, vivid and lifelike. The way that the super c-marc power cable reveals the finest and most minute details in the image leads me to believe that it increases the resolution of the image in ways that no amount of resolution from the graphics card can. It increases resolution, it increases image depth by a lot, it takes away that sameness effect that the RF gives and causes every object to look like it is it's own object and it's in its own space. After enjoying the image quality that the super c-marc power cable gave the monitor, I then connected it to the xmc-1 pre/pro and I immediately was amazed at how it increased the resolution and transformed the sound-stage from being flat to having depth. There definitely were other differences like much lower noise levels, more natural tone, smoother more liquid sound, although the number 1 factor that stood out to me was the increase in resolution and the transformation of the sound-stage. When I connected it to the PC, I noticed a lot of the same differences like when I connected it to the processor although to a lesser degree and it did not change the sound-stage like when it was connected to the processor. The number 1 difference it made connected to the PC is lack of noise and smoothness. There was also a difference in video quality, although again, not to the same degree as when connected directly to the monitor.

Before I get into how the custom Lessloss power distribution unit sounds like, let's get into the specifications:

- Chassis mostly made out of 1 1/2" thick oak-wood
- Two thick slabs of panzerholz plywood(to bolt/glue the inlet/outlets into it)
- 1 IeGo AC-01 BK(Cu-Au) inlet
- 4 Furutech GTX-S NCF(R) outlets
- Polished and grounded(with large internal hookup wire) copper shields around the inlet and outlets
- All Lessloss c-marc triaxial internal wiring
- 12 firewall 64x units

After connecting a super c-marc power cable from the power outlet to the inlet of the distribution unit and four connecting from the power distribution unit to the PC, the XMC-1 processor and the two benchmark AHB2 amplifiers I fired up the equipment to hear how it would sound. When I started to play some music, I immediately heard the purist, most calm, pleasant and mesmerizing sound coming out of a black hole of complete silence as there was absolutely no sibilant in the sound with just empty space between each note. It's as if a very thick and abrasive blanket of static colored steel wool(called RF) has been taken out of the sound which imparted a brittle, dry and closed/collapsed sound that always bites into your ears but is now unbelievably smooth and liquid that flows out of the speakers like water. The sound-stage, at this point, is completely open and holographic, with each sound, not artificially laser-etched into the sound-stage, but effortlessly floating in mid-air separate from other sounds much like in reality. Instead of having a sound that is resolutely and tonally masked, uninteresting/bland and lifeless because of the blanket of steel wool, the sound is extremely vivid, revealing the finest detail, nuances and colors. The sound is much more tangible, defined, rich and full transporting you to the venue where the artist is singing. The attacks have plenty of contrast and inter-lapping of decay from various instruments are easily heard. The resolution and smoothness go hand-in-hand creating a sound that is not smooth but dark, or resolute but cold/analytical, but a sound that is just right. As far as color/timbre/tonality is concerned, each individual sound is vibrantly painted with many various shades of organic colors as if rainbows are bursting forth from my speakers, that especially make acoustic instruments sound very authentic and real. Electric guitars and electronic music aren't quite as tonally rich although they also do have a certain tone to them. I'd also like to make a quick mention of my experience of re-playing Alan Wake after adding this unit to my system. If you've ever played Alan Wake, you know that it's not necessarily a terrifying horror game, although it most certainly does have an eerie, moody and dark atmosphere to it. After adding this unit to my system, playing the game was much more entertaining, vivid, engaging and well, eerie. I really felt the game's dark atmosphere coming alive in the room as I ran across Bright Falls in the night, going from mission to mission. After owning this Legendary product for a few months I can most certainly say that there are very few words that can describe this unit's performance. It is truly in a class of its own.

In conclusion, I would have to say that this unit really reveals the soul of the music. It eliminates other-worldy amounts of RF and leaves you with a high resolution, vivid, organic, beautiful, confident, expressive, holographic and rich sound that has plenty of definition. You are left with living music.

Thank you Louis and Lessloss team for building the crown jewel of my audio system! This unit has taken my system much closer to the peak of mount Everest!
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C-MARC Classic Power Cable; Firewall Module

Date Added: 07/12/2019 by Joerg Meinhardt
Just got my distributor loaded with 6 integrated units of Firewall 64x two weeks ago and have enjoyed it so much. Will write a report on this separately.

So curious, what the other LessLoss products might be like after getting to know the fantastic Firewall Distributor, I ordered one C-MARC Power Cable. Just to get an idea, what the next year end bonus should be financing.

I received it this morning and without burn-in took a half hour listen. It was surprising, that it would beat my previous power cable like nothing even at this early stage. Again the typical things, that happen with LessLoss: Stronger, deeper, better controlled bass, an amazing extension of the stage space especially behind the front wall for the cable, better and more stable placement, instruments and voices have more body, sound richer, still more detailed. And all seems believable and natural.

I put this cable between wall outlet and the LessLoss distributor.

The upgrade with the distributor was so phenomenal, and still the C-MARC comes with this surprise of further improvement.

I am happy and will replace all other cables with C-MARCs.

I was starting to think about adding subwoofers, but adding the LessLoss Firewall distributor plus the C-MARC power cable really made it senseless. Is it the amp, that does not have to 'over-work' on super high frequencies and instead can focus on the relevant ones … especially the bass?? Amazing what my speakers can produce if you feed it right!

Thanks, Louis!!!
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Firewall Module; C-MARC bulk wire and cable

Date Added: 06/18/2019 by Michael Sadighpour
This week-end I decided to install the C-MARC Firewall 64X units on my KEF LS50W active speakers. (One on each speaker) along with 2 C-MARC power cables per speaker and 1 for my power conditioner. At first I was somewhat disappointed and underwhelmed. I let the system play music, lowered the volume and listened again the next day. You know you have something special installed in your system when you start listening to your usual test tracks and you won't go beyond the 1st one because the difference is so big and the sound is so pleasing to the ears that you just keep listening! In the past few years of getting into audiophilia, this was the learned lesson! When you keep changing tracks or don't listen for long sessions to the system, many a time, it is not the music, but the incorrect presentation of it that is subconsciously non-engaging and bothersome. With new C-MARC power cords and C-MARC FW64X filters, there is no extra emphasis on highs or lows. It's just a proper presentation of music across the spectrum. I don't even turn it up that much as the music is all there. Highs, lows, vocals with exceptional details, all flowing in liquid form. The music just flows as if l have added a Chord DAC with crazy high number of taps! A great way to improve the sound in your system. These are component level improvements. Great for folks with all in one active speakers with built in DAC and streamer who think they can't upgrade their sound. Well done Louis and the LessLoss team.
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C-MARC Classic loudspeaker cable, stereo pair

Date Added: 06/15/2019 by Kovács Andor
I'm very pleased with the new C-MARC speaker cables. What comes out right at the very first hearing is the fantastic cleanliness and quietness of the cable. The high range is more pronounced and more expressive, and the deep ones are more well defined. Interestingly, the adjacent room is not disturbed by the deep range. Where is this voice from the previous torrential depths? Much better. The centers are also classy, with more details that have not been noticed before, and clearly more veils have been removed from the sound. Be patient. The cable needs a long burning-in time! More than once I was listening much better, as the sound developed.

I can only recommend it to everyone, it's worth the price!
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C-MARC Classic loudspeaker cable, stereo pair; Firewall Module

Date Added: 06/10/2019 by Aleksander Astrov, Estonia (currently based in Hungary & Austria
One word that seems to pop up more often than others in the reviews of LessLoss products is 'natural.' But what exactly is 'natural'?

I was born on the 'wrong' side of the Iron Curtain. So my love-affair with recorded music began through reel-to-reel machines (luckily, good Soviet rip-offs of ReVox or Akai ones). When, at some point, I first saw The Beatles on VHS, I had to leave the room. The 'real' fab four looked utterly disappointing; certainly less real to me than the image I already had in my mind. And 'image' here refers not to visual representation, but to 'imagination.'

The point I am trying to make: I do not expect recordings to transport me to the venues where they were made, be it a studio or a concert hall. I want them 'to take me places' instead, imaginary places that artists created while recording them (in an attempt, I suspect, to 'escape' any studio or a concert hall). That is what music is for me: human creation that, once brought into the world of nature, sounds like it belongs there. If 'nature' is 'creation' in the biblical sense, then 'art' is a continuous quest for extending 'nature,' premised on the belief that humans, as part of creation, are capable of - or even tasked with - providing such an extension.

I guess, you may call me a 'romantic' listener, as opposed to the 'analytical' one. I won't argue with that, as long as my 'romanticism' is not confused with a tonal preference for mellower, euphonic sound often described as 'musicality.' I think 'musicality' is a concept useful for distinguishing music, as an artistic extension of nature, from just any sound. Yet, its usefulness is mostly limited to the realm of composition and performance, and becomes more questionable once we are talking about reproduction. You cannot turn sound into music by putting it through a high-end amplifier. You can, however, turn music into sound by playing it through some inadequate gear.

My main 'players' are: an R2R DAC (Metrum Acoustics Pavane), a valve pre and a hybrid power amps from Croft Acoustics, and the full-range Eclipse TD712zMk2 speakers. Common to all of them is priority given to speed, dynamics and timing. (It is not by chance that with all these three brands sooner or later you run into some, however distant, reference to Quad electrostatics.) Also of note with Crofts and Metrum is their tonal richness, and with the Eclipses, the lack of internal resonances inevitable with more conventional speaker designs. Consequently, Eclipses are sometimes accused of being 'cold,' 'dry,' 'lean' or 'strident.' In my experience, this is where cables begin to matter.

With the LessLoss speaker wires, Eclipses sound anything but dry or strident, and not because of some added 'warmth.' What happens here is rather different. Whereas with other, perfectly revealing cables, instruments appear as flat placeholders located in a pseudo three-dimensional space, with C-MARC in the same system, there is a dense, continuous, breathing space entirely made-up of transients. Physicists have recently discovered that even the 'quantum leap' - the fastest event known to science - is in fact gradual, rather than instantaneous. Needless to say, so is the pluck of a string or a hit at a drum or triangle. If the components are literally up to speed with these musical events, transients are omnipresent. And then everything unfolds in time. Even space - the much-talked-about soundstage - becomes infused with skilfully controlled timing. And this is when sound becomes music. For this to happen, nothing should hold the components back; and it is cabling - internal, interconnects, and power - that often does.

In my system, the addition of C-Marc speaker wires moved the overall performance further in that specific direction: from sound to music. The fact that this move was due to the cables was confirmed when later I added new C-Marc Firewall modules: one before the power distributor, one before the DAC, and one before the preamp (other configurations are possible, each resulting in a distinctively different flavour, but I found this one to be the most satisfying). I suspect, with the power-conditioning modules, the physics of it is somewhat different from that of the speaker wires, but the nature of the overall improvement is easily recognisable.

If you are interested in the physics of it all, I suggest you ask Louis. Personally, I found his responses to my questions to be not only absolutely honest, but also intellectually illuminating. To stay true to my own 'romantic' disposition, I wrap it up with one example from extended listening sessions.

I cannot say LessLoss cables allowed me to hear sounds I never heard in recordings without them. But it was only with them in the system that I realised, for example, that Dino Saluzzi and Anja Lechner were not just playing tango on their Ojos Negros album; they were 'dancing' it with their instruments. I could vividly experience clouds of audible air bouncing off each other and then blending into some new sounds, no longer identifiable exclusively with either bandoneon or cello. 'You take two bodies and you twirl them into one,' as Paul Simon once put it in his poetic take on love-making…
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Firewall Module

Date Added: 06/09/2019 by Joerg Meinhardt
Daisy-Chained 4 Firewall 64Xs

Last year's Firewall 64Xs were in my system between distributor and the devices. One for digital Music Server, 2 for the DAC, 1 for the integrated Amp. For this setup, please see my comments from June 25, 2018.

Now while waiting for the ordered upgrade to the C-MARC Firewall 64X; I started a discussion with Lessloss's Louis and asked about a distributor with these 4 firewalls on board, one for each device and the forth shared by all. Fortunately, Louis shared his experience, that all firewalls shared by all devices would lead to a way better result.

So I tried this with my existing 4 firewalls being daisy-chained before the distributor. My concerns were, that the digital devices would be polluting the power after the filters and affect the partner devices.

But once I switched over, my jaws dropped again, just like last year. Just take all the effects from last year's comments and multiply. Less sibilance, bigger and more defined soundstage ... and the bass, deeper, stronger, and better controlled.

And on top of this: I suffer from pretty polluted power brought to my door. And it got a lot worse earlier this year, which made me add 2 more power filters with "conservative" electronics (not from Lessloss). Now, I tried to disconnect them, and it was great, all the mids resonances and colorations were gone. This was not possible without the daisy-chaining. The Lessloss filters now have a lot more lively and believable presentation, than with the electronic filters.

Try it, you'll like it :)

As soon as I tested this, I changed my upgrade order into a custom made distributor from Lessloss with 5 outlets, internal C-MARC wiring and a 6 times Firewall power. So exciting to get it !!!

Thanks so much, Louis, for your guidance!!!
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Firewall Module

Date Added: 06/08/2019 by mdc
My impressions of the 2 units 'C-MARC' Firewall 64X that I have now used since about one month.

I am happy to report again a clear upgrade of the sound of my system.

Nothing special to say about the first weeks (the usual step back followed by a period of strange ups and downs) but ever since a few days ago, my system is really singing.

All the ‘traits’ of each and every previous upgrade are present but it’s clearly, and again, a much better sound: the music simply sounds better. More details, more slam, more ‘finesse’, more involvement and more emotions. A certain ‘richness’ now, also.

As reported previously, and I've been a LessLoss customer since many years, and this new upgrade is again transformational to the sound of my system.

And again, as before, it’s not limited to more and better bass or a more refined treble or anything/everything in-between.

The whole system simply sounds better and the music is elevated to yet again another level…

There is an example that I want to use but I fear it might be misinterpreted. Anyway, here we go: I have a ‘Loudness’ function/button on my Accuphase amplifier that I actually use when listening (more casually, obviously) to music at low level.

I like what this function does. The music is not bass heavy but on the contrary sounds very good.
I sometimes use it on some cd’s, even at somewhat higher volume level, as it clearly adds a round and more pleasant sound without boomy bass that is often linked with these 'loudness' type tone controls.

My attention was caught by the music sounding so good, at rather high volume, and I believed that this loudness function was on while it was in fact not.

I know that purists hate tone controls and it may be that Accuphase has mastered this 'loudness thing,' but with the addition of the 2 C-MARC Firewall 64X units, the music sounds like I have added tone controls ‘in some perfect way’ with just that touch of perfectly rounded emphasis that makes everything so involving.

The example I use may scare potential customers, hence my warning.

I am not an audiophile and I don’t master the vocabulary.

But what I mean is that the C-MARC Firewall 64X takes the sound to a richer level, more ‘organic’ as in ‘less digital’, i.e. more pleasant, more detailed with a richer and more informative treble as well.

Also, and I will use this expression for the first time, there is more silence between the notes, as if a remastering engineer removed the ‘noise’ on the cd’s.

I simple hear more music.

I have used repeatedly ‘rich’ and ‘richer’ to define my impressions. Again, it is meant in a good way: the sound is now clearer but addictive, adding another level of detail and involvement, a new sense of discovery, as well.

And yes, I listen to entire cd’s; I don’t limit myself to test cd’s I know, the usual suspects that are always used to test new equipment. Those, also, sound better which is a very strange feeling when it comes to music that I have been listening to in some cases for 20 years: ‘that’ was there for all those years and I only hear it today?

I am sure the sound will further evolve during the next weeks but this is again very, very promising.
And all this is experienced in connection with using the custom made power distributor which still "only" uses the previous Firewall technology...
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LessLoss History From the Very Beginnings

LessLoss started its business on Audiogon in late 2007. Within the first couple of month, word about LessLoss spread like wildfire among Audiogon members. Here is the feedback received from our clients during our first year of operation. This is from even before we had our own website.

Louis is one of the best in the business, truly professional and very fast production and delivery. I am very satisfied by your superb service. Many thanks.

Positive by Buyer Sebastian (135) on 07-29-2008

Excellent transaction with Lessloss on dynamic filtering power cord. Good communications & fast shipping. A+++++

Positive by Buyer Sennett (45) on 07-03-08

Bought 3 pc's from Liudas in Jan/08. Outstanding product as advertised. Performance is everything and more than I expected. Kudos to Lessloss cable for a great product. Very highly recommended...A+++

Positive by Buyer Phillykid (33) on 06-19-08

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