In praise of the Oyaide Vondita power cable

[Anyoldears]

I have been running the Puritan Ultimate power cable for a while, upgraded with Furutech 1363 rhodium (UK) plug and FI-50 NCF IEC connectors. It sounded great, and whilst not quite as good as the top end cables for 2.5K+, I felt it was competitive enough to beat them on overall value terms ie the uptick in quality I would have got by spending all that extra money would be pretty small.

However I was tipped off recently to try the Oyaide Vondita cable. There is very little internet presence for this cable, but it is comparatively cheap, so thought I would simply buy some and try it. I took the same connectors off my old cable and put it on the new one. It has two drain wires wrapped around the core that I wrapped onto the earth wire as I wired it. I actually connected these to the earth wires at both ends, although I now see that Furutech recommend only the wall socket end is connected in their similar version of cable. I might play with that another time...

Anyway, how does it sound? Well, as you have already guessed from the title, bloody amazing! Much more energy and dynamic sound to the music, maybe a fraction smoother, really projects the music into the room. I could hear the positive difference within 2 seconds, it was that obvious!

The person who tipped me to it off did a side by side with the Furutech DPS4.1 cable. He reckoned the 4.1 had a slight edge in stereo picture but otherwise they were equal. The UK prices are £470/m for the 4.1 and £170/m for the Oyaide Vondita, just over a third of the price. Excellent value, and I suspect will give a few top end cables a run for their money when wired with good quality connectors!!

 

[hoodjem]

The person who tipped me to it off did a side by side with the Furutech DPS4.1 cable. He reckoned the 4.1 had a slight edge in stereo picture but otherwise they were equal. The UK prices are £470/m for the 4.1 and £170/m for the Oyaide Vondita, just over a third of the price. Excellent value, and I suspect will give a few top end cables a run for their money when wired with good quality connectors!!

Holy cow: £170 per meter!

I just checked The Cable Co. website.
They list Oyaide Vondita X power cable for $1195 per 1.8 meters (70.8 inches) with plugs attached.

Are these the same cables?

 

[Anyoldears]

Holy cow: £170 per meter!

I just checked The Cable Co. website.
They list Oyaide Vondita X power cable for $1195 per 1.8 meters (70.8 inches).

Are these the same cables?

Price I quoted is the raw cable with no connectors. The X has connectors on it, so the price difference is the actual connectors themselves. £170/m is $405 for 1.8m, so nearly $800 for the connectors (and the time to assemble)

 

[nortberg]

I have been running the Puritan Ultimate power cable for a while, upgraded with Furutech 1363 rhodium (UK) plug and FI-50 NCF IEC connectors. It sounded great, and whilst not quite as good as the top end cables for 2.5K+, I felt it was competitive enough to beat them on overall value terms ie the uptick in quality I would have got by spending all that extra money would be pretty small.

However I was tipped off recently to try the Oyaide Vondita cable. There is very little internet presence for this cable, but it is comparatively cheap, so thought I would simply buy some and try it. I took the same connectors off my old cable and put it on the new one. It has two drain wires wrapped around the core that I wrapped onto the earth wire as I wired it. I actually connected these to the earth wires at both ends, although I now see that Furutech recommend only the wall socket end is connected in their similar version of cable. I might play with that another time...

Anyway, how does it sound? Well, as you have already guessed from the title, bloody amazing! Much more energy and dynamic sound to the music, maybe a fraction smoother, really projects the music into the room. I could hear the positive difference within 2 seconds, it was that obvious!

The person who tipped me to it off did a side by side with the Furutech DPS4.1 cable. He reckoned the 4.1 had a slight edge in stereo picture but otherwise they were equal. The UK prices are £470/m for the 4.1 and £170/m for the Oyaide Vondita, just over a third of the price. Excellent value, and I suspect will give a few top end cables a run for their money when wired with good quality connectors!!

Do your findings still hold true compared to the Ultimate now you have lived with the Vondita for a while?

 

[Anyoldears]

Do your findings still hold true compared to the Ultimate now you have lived with the Vondita for a while?

Well I sold all my Puritan cables so .....

 

[nortberg]

Well I sold all my Puritan cables so .....

Thanks, will probably order a meter and knock up a cable to try on my amp. If my findings are similar to yours I will replace all the Ultimates and make piggy tails for the Swiss Digital Fuse Boxes with the Vondita also.

 

[katolino]

Trying the vondita right now on my Puritan. Cord is paired with eti legato gold c19 and ms hd gold schuko. Sound is dreadful. Forward and bloated. Over damped (bad soft) with sluggish transients. It lacks purity. Noise however is very low and I can see why some can call it natural; but its fake natural for me. Hopefully the schuko is to blame? I will try with other schukos and report back.

 

[Anyoldears]

Trying the vondita right now on my Puritan. Cord is paired with eti legato gold c19 and ms hd gold schuko. Sound is dreadful. Forward and bloated. Over damped (bad soft) with sluggish transients. It lacks purity. Noise however is very low and I can see why some can call it natural; but its fake natural for me. Hopefully the schuko is to blame? I will try with other schukos and report back.

I took the connectors off the old cable and put them on the new so I could compare apples to apples. Dont see how else you can compare without doing that....

 

[katolino]

Previously I had puritan ultimate with same c19 iec. I had an iego 8055 schuko. What ever the case what matters is that the current sound is plain bad. And this is enough to judge. I hope the schuko is to blame; which is possible given the very high resolution of vondita. Maybe I got a misfortunate match of the cable with the connectors. I will report back, but I think vondita is heavily voiced. Also Furutech fi 50 ncf have a universal solution and makes cable comparisons easy. However I am not a fan of those connectors :d

 

[Zhon1]

Previously I had puritan ultimate with same c19 iec. I had an iego 8055 schuko. What ever the case what matters is that the current sound is plain bad. And this is enough to judge. I hope the schuko is to blame; which is possible given the very high resolution of vondita. Maybe I got a misfortunate match of the cable with the connectors. I will report back, but I think vondita is heavily voiced. Also Furutech fi 50 ncf have a universal solution and makes cable comparisons easy. However I am not a fan of those connectors :d

Agree that the Vondita-X is voiced. The sound has a distinct sweetness that doesn’t focus much on attack with the stock M1/F1 connectors. Maybe the FI-50 NCF can fix that? Currently using one on my DAC, it’s a great cord.

 

[nortberg]

Trying the vondita right now on my Puritan. Cord is paired with eti legato gold c19 and ms hd gold schuko. Sound is dreadful. Forward and bloated. Over damped (bad soft) with sluggish transients. It lacks purity. Noise however is very low and I can see why some can call it natural; but its fake natural for me. Hopefully the schuko is to blame? I will try with other schukos and report back.

How many hours have you got on the cable, maybe needs a day or two to settle if brand new?

 

[katolino]

How many hours have you got on the cable, maybe needs a day or two to settle if brand new?

The cable is left untouched for the last 6 days. Continuous and idle usage. The issue is not break-in related.

 

[katolino]

Ok. This is my final assessment of the Vondita (after experimenting with different connectors) and how it compared vs puritan ultimate; both fed PSM156. Long story short the puritan is just better but the vondita shows that the puritan is also lacking in some departments. stock puritan ultimate cord is not by any means a final destination cable and really I have no idea why they sell the cable with those crappy connectors. Although Puritan ultimate does not do many mistakes (a rare merit) with the supplied connectors it just sounds dull (no natural color) with very low diversification between recordings. Upgrading to either ETI or Iego connectors (synergistic with puritan ultimate) gives massive leap in performance.

The Vondita on the other hand is heavily voiced. No question about it. It modulates /shapes the signal into what the company thought was correct. The tone is sophisticated and mysterious (not dark or bright). The cable is really non analytical sounding and possess a heavy damped signature (breathes but in an edited way). Attack is deleted (funny to listen). Resolution is very high and noise low. However, to give any sort of excitment to vondita I guess you would need either to go with furutech 50 ncf plugs or oyaide top models. For me when a cable needs these sort of plugs to play properly is indicative of a flawed design (also I find these plugs to sound otherworldly). I guess in life you get what you pay for. In general I am done with all japanese cables once and for good (furutech, oyaide, nanotech, acrolink, acoustic revive). They all shape the sound one way or another. Acoustic revive does that offense in a lesser degree however (in the low tier models only). Now OCC and the japanese conductors are indeed very good; Zenwave or Neotech seems to be a one-way road to get these type of conductors but without the voicing.

 

[miniguy]

Ok. This is my final assessment of the Vondita (after experimenting with different connectors) and how it compared vs puritan ultimate; both fed PSM156. Long story short the puritan is just better but the vondita shows that the puritan is also lacking in some departments. stock puritan ultimate cord is not by any means a final destination cable and really I have no idea why they sell the cable with those crappy connectors. Although Puritan ultimate does not do many mistakes (a rare merit) with the supplied connectors it just sounds dull (no natural color) with very low diversification between recordings. Upgrading to either ETI or Iego connectors (synergistic with puritan ultimate) gives massive leap in performance.

The Vondita on the other hand is heavily voiced. No question about it. It modulates /shapes the signal into what the company thought was correct. The tone is sophisticated and mysterious (not dark or bright). The cable is really non analytical sounding and possess a heavy damped signature (breathes but in an edited way). Attack is deleted (funny to listen). Resolution is very high and noise low. However, to give any sort of excitment to vondita I guess you would need either to go with furutech 50 ncf plugs or oyaide top models. For me when a cable needs these sort of plugs to play properly is indicative of a flawed design (also I find these plugs to sound otherworldly). I guess in life you get what you pay for. In general I am done with all japanese cables once and for good (furutech, oyaide, nanotech, acrolink, acoustic revive). They all shape the sound one way or another. Acoustic revive does that offense in a lesser degree however (in the low tier models only). Now OCC and the japanese conductors are indeed very good; Zenwave or Neotech seems to be a one-way road to get these type of conductors but without the voicing.

The Vondita-X with its proprietary connectors as a factory assembly was engineered to sound best with those connectors. It is a top value power cable as such, and any use of different connectors will give a different sound. Also, note that the factory assembled cable is subjected to Telos QBT processing which is absent from the raw cable purchased in bulk.

VONDITA

A Bewitching Tone. "VONDITA" - The premium 4.0sq. power cable with 102SSC and special 4E stranding

www.oyaide.com

 

[Zhon1]

Ok. This is my final assessment of the Vondita (after experimenting with different connectors) and how it compared vs puritan ultimate; both fed PSM156. Long story short the puritan is just better but the vondita shows that the puritan is also lacking in some departments. stock puritan ultimate cord is not by any means a final destination cable and really I have no idea why they sell the cable with those crappy connectors. Although Puritan ultimate does not do many mistakes (a rare merit) with the supplied connectors it just sounds dull (no natural color) with very low diversification between recordings. Upgrading to either ETI or Iego connectors (synergistic with puritan ultimate) gives massive leap in performance.

The Vondita on the other hand is heavily voiced. No question about it. It modulates /shapes the signal into what the company thought was correct. The tone is sophisticated and mysterious (not dark or bright). The cable is really non analytical sounding and possess a heavy damped signature (breathes but in an edited way). Attack is deleted (funny to listen). Resolution is very high and noise low. However, to give any sort of excitment to vondita I guess you would need either to go with furutech 50 ncf plugs or oyaide top models. For me when a cable needs these sort of plugs to play properly is indicative of a flawed design (also I find these plugs to sound otherworldly). I guess in life you get what you pay for. In general I am done with all japanese cables once and for good (furutech, oyaide, nanotech, acrolink, acoustic revive). They all shape the sound one way or another. Acoustic revive does that offense in a lesser degree however (in the low tier models only). Now OCC and the japanese conductors are indeed very good; Zenwave or Neotech seems to be a one-way road to get these type of conductors but without the voicing.

Appreciate your thoughts. I found that the Vondita works best on digital sources and requires some tailoring to compensate for the lack of attack, but the reward is the incredible resolution and low noise, esp. beneficial for source components.

 

[AudioLibertarian]

I have used Vondita X power cable with their Delrin- made connectors (USA-style) for a year now, and its been very, very good. Yes, it does a have way for sweetness and not "harsh", and is mostly appropriately "musical". Nordost cables the Vondita-X is NOT. I used it first with my R2R DAC, that combo while sounding really good, was slightly too sweet and lacking attack, but just a little. Later, I swapped cables and I put a very "dynamic" high current custom made power cord (made with Oyaide M1 F1 connectors) into my dac, and paired Vondita-X with neutral sounding Swiss Ensemble Audio Massimo Evivo, and the resultant system synergy has been marvelous. Again, your results may vary, as we all seek different virtues in our equipment, however to me, the tonality and imaging density is spot-on. Its design goals I believe is to get the "essense" of live performance and that it does. It is reminiscient of the Kondo gear of sorts in its sound signature, sorta addicting, little "prettier" than real thing, but again one's experience may vary. I plan on buying a second Vodnita-X to try with my preamp in the near future.

 

[Zhon1]

I have used Vondita X power cable with their Delrin- made connectors (USA-style) for a year now, and its been very, very good. Yes, it does a have way for sweetness and not "harsh", and is mostly appropriately "musical". Nordost cables the Vondita-X is NOT. I used it first with my R2R DAC, that combo while sounding really good, was slightly too sweet and lacking attack, but just a little. Later, I swapped cables and I put a very "dynamic" high current custom made power cord (made with Oyaide M1 F1 connectors) into my dac, and paired Vondita-X with neutral sounding Swiss Ensemble Audio Massimo Evivo, and the resultant system synergy has been marvelous. Again, your results may vary, as we all seek different virtues in our equipment, however to me, the tonality and imaging density is spot-on. Its design goals I believe is to get the "essense" of live performance and that it does. It is reminiscient of the Kondo gear of sorts in its sound signature, sorta addicting, little "prettier" than real thing, but again one's experience may vary. I plan on buying a second Vodnita-X to try with my preamp in the near future.

I use two Galibier Wind River power cords on my streamer and amp, which work great with the Vondita. They are made from tin-plated copper in a cotton sheath with ETI Legatos, similar to vintage WE or Deulund DCA wire, and are very dynamic and musical. This combo injects a bit more dynamics into my system while retaining what Vondita does well, namely, pinpoint imaging, black background, and overall resolution. The Wind River, by comparison, has a bit more 'floaty' imaging, slightly hazier background, but is even more 'real' sounding in the midrange than the Vondita. The Vondita-X, with all its characteristics, is an absolute steal of a power cord, especially if you buy it from the Japanese sellers on eBay for $520. Hell, I'd buy it for the full price ($1195) from the Cable Co. and I'd still feel it's a steal.