Hi.
Welcome to Audiophilia. We publish honest and accurate reviews of high end audio equipment and music.
Welcome to Audiophilia. We publish honest and accurate reviews of high end audio equipment and music.
All in Cables
Cables are notoriously difficult to review. Capturing the subtle, even minute changes good cables make can be challenging to describe on the page. The ear is a much better arbiter than the written word. Thus, the description must be super accurate if the writer has a whisker of a chance convincing cable naysayers. Also, long term thinking is required to really hear the positive effects cables have on your system.
Connecting two or more cables from a ‘loom’ from one manufacturer makes things even more difficult, even though multiple products of the same design in the system should make changes seem more obvious. Literally, too much information in one sitting can lead to confusion (ever wonder why on black box recordings pilots ignore obvious multiple klaxon warnings when in deeply stressful situations?). As Emperor Joseph II says to Mozart, ‘Too many notes’.
After two reviews of Audio Art Cable products already under my belt, I am now presenting the 3rd: Audio Art Cable Statement e2 Cryo AC Cable. It is a power cable at 15A, IEC, with solid, classy-looking, silver colored Furutech Nano Crystal Formula FI-50(R) NCF and FI-48(R) NCF plug sets.
They retail for $1, 380/metre; I was sent two for my review to use with my monoblock amps. As with the other two cables I reviewed, this AC cable is from the Statement series, their flagship level of cabling, and has a similar, attractive Techflex sleeving. It is the thickest of the three cables, about 1” in diameter, but relatively easy to manipulate and connect. The wiring is a 10 gauge, 6N pure single crystal UP-OCC copper/silver plated UP-OCC hybrid array. The Furutech plug sets used are considered some of the very finest available for power cable termination.
This is my second review of Audio Art Cable products; the first review was for speaker cables. This time round, a pair of balanced (XLR) interconnects: Audio Art Cable Statement e IC Cryo Silver XLR; again from their Statement series which is their highest level.
These XLR cables offer the same attractive grey look with a braided Techflex sleeving as the speaker cables, but are thinner (3/8” diameter versus 1/2”). The cable’s MSRP is $960/1 metre pair. I was sent a 1.5 meter pair for this review at $1040. This is not expensive in the realm of high-end audio where a pair of XLR interconnects can be found at prices that can compete with a car.
Days before the World Health Organization proclaimed a pandemic in early March, 2020, I was introduced to Rob Fritz, Founder of Audio Art Cable, based in San Diego, CA; a company founded in 2005. After several emails and a phone conversation, I was impressed with what I learned and thus agreed to review from a variety of their very reasonably priced, high end, hand-made cables from among speaker, interconnect and power. The Audio Art Cable website also contained an intriguing statement that caught my eye and impressed me further:
There’s a good chance, after you’re done evaluating the performance improvement of Audio Art Cables in your system, that you’ll forget about your new cables—as you should. The music will captivate you, pull you into its magical spell, as you dance, or hum, or tap...and smile...
I would add after ‘smile’, ‘and distract you from worries’.
The key technology Allnic Audio’s owner/designer Kang Su Park calls ‘Zero Loss’ is used in all his cables and power cords including the previously reviewed ZL-5000 Power Cable and the subject of this review, the Mu-7R RCA Cable.
Cables can be difficult to nail down in review, specifically their ‘sound’ and the effect on the overall sonic picture. Much like the ZL-5000, which totally exceeded my expectations, I treat cables as a component, nothing less.
Audiophiles with a high-end audio system eventually recognize that cables make a difference in the sound quality (SQ) of their system. Interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, USB cables and so on. Sometimes the SQ is just different, sometimes ‘better’, sometimes ‘worse’ as compared to the cables they already have.
Controversial as it is, it is what it is. For me the time came about six years ago when I experimented with power cables that clearly made a positive difference in my ever evolving system, particularly amplifiers. That the soundstage grew in all three dimensions and the bass benefited were the most obvious improvements. As a scientist and skeptical as I should be, I was baffled; but I accepted what I heard with my own ears and moved on—keeping the new cables and enjoying the sound.
Designer Kang Su Park of Korea’s Allnic Audio is an obvious deep thinker and top tinkerer. We recently published a review of his H-1202 tubed phono stage. It was a marvellous piece of design with superb sound. Park also designs cables. When David Beetles from Allnic distributor Hammertone Audio asked Audiophilia to review the H-1202, he slipped into the conversation that a loom of Allnic Audio cables was also available for review. Cables—discussing or writing about them—do not scare me. Some publications won’t touch them. Mention of the ‘C word’ in forums or on Facebook and you’re likely to get an earful. For the naysayers, enjoy your Belden wire and lamp cord. For the rest of us confirmed cable fans, please allow us our fun. Either tribe, please read on.
In my last review I wrote of my predilection for one piece of gear/one review and for the component to focus on a single audio task. Here, Beetles presented me with two different power cords (Park calls them Power Cables) and their top of the line speaker cables and interconnects. It crossed my mind to do a full loom review, but my musical instincts nudged me toward my singles preference. With all the Korean wire in place, we’re talking north of 10 grand’s worth of cables. Before you faint, that’s peanuts compared to a full set of some crazy, esoteric cables.
It was just about fifteen years ago that I first became aware of and reviewed the Audience Au24 interconnects and speaker wires. At that time, I made particular mention of their user friendliness and was also favourably impressed with the musicality of these rather thin cables. Then as now, many audiophiles have been conditioned to believe that the better and more expensive audio cables are, the heaver gauged and more massive the cables have to be. I have friends who truly believe that “you need a thick cable to carry the full audio signal”. Personally, I have grown tired of cables that could be considered “Audio Pipes”.
Audience has steadfastly resisted this trend. As soon as I became aware that Audience had revised their entire line and the new Au24 SX interconnects and speaker wire were at the very top of that line, I felt that it was a good time to revisit Audience’s cables. I contacted Audience’s John Mc Donald to arrange for some review samples.
Wireworld Cable Technology is a Florida, USA company that makes audio cables (digital, analog, power, speaker, headphone) and at various levels and prices. President David Salz has been passionately designing cables for decades. For about three years now, I have been using their original Wireworld Platinum Starlight USB (A/B) cable as my reference for connecting my music server to my DAC.
Roy Harris/ I noticed a thread on a popular audio forum whose subject was the High Fidelity Cables CT-1. The thread generated over 200 responses. As I read the posts, I noticed unanimous praise for the aforementioned cable products. At the time, Audiophilia had no plans for me to review another cable. However, the comments I read, piqued my interest.
