Swisscables review from MonoandStereo.com (Matej)

[wisnon]

http://www.monoandstereo.com/2013/11/swisscables-cables-review.html

I hear another review is in the works too.

These cables are hand made with no short cuts and designed by the LumenWhite team.

Barbara and Anton Suter have taken on quite a challenging task to produce these
cables, the puristic design of which cant be realized with all those short-cut means at the base
of more the 95 % of current cable production (like shrink wraps , premanufactured sub-assemblies and industrial wires)
and truly deserve a positive market reaction for this bold effort.

 

[MylesBAstor]

One thing he's totally off base about. No reviewer I know in all my years has ever shied away from doing a cable review. Garbage.

 

[mep]

One thing he's totally off base about. No reviewer I know in all my years has ever shied away from doing a cable review. Garbage.

Only one thing? Audio cables have to be the easiest cables on the planet to design for real cable engineers. In the grand scheme of electronics, designing for the audio bandwidth is a cakewalk compared to designing cables for the MHz and GHz bandwidths. Audio cables aren't going into a satellite that will be parked in space. How many cable companies were started by some guy living at home with his parents fooling around with stuff he bought at Home Depot and he liked what he "designed" better than what he could afford to buy and now he is a cable genius?

The referenced "review" was just another gushing testament to another cable company who has somehow figured out the secret that no one else but them knows about with regards to how to make the *best* audio cables. Lots of cable marketing is an assault on your intelligence.

Many cable companies have made large sums of money from the pioneering work done by Bruce Brisson and for many of them, that is where they got their start. Monster Cable and Transparent are two that come quickly to mind. Some cable companies don't actually have paid assemblers. They hire people as contractors who work out of their homes so they don't have to pay any benefits or workman's comp and then pay them for each cable they terminate. How many of these people do you think hold any sort of J-STD solder certifications and are recertified on a yearly basis? Ditto for those that actually show up at a facility owned by a cable company and are hourly employees.

 

[wisnon]

LumenWhite Designs is a what you consider akin to the analogy you presneted above. Have you heard LumenWhite products/ Have you seen what market niche they occupy? Speakers start at $30k and TT costs twice that!

This is no DIY product, but is hand built stuff in Switzerland based on solid design credentials and some of these cables ARE digital cables.

 

[mep]

LumenWhite Designs is a what you consider akin to the analogy you presneted above. Have you heard LumenWhite products

Nope.

Have you seen what market niche they occupy?

Nope.

Speakers start at $30k and TT costs twice that!

So what does that mean? I could start a company tomorrow out of my garage and tell everyone I was bringing a $300K table to market. Ditto for speakers. I don't know if you are being facetious or not here.

This is no DIY product, but is hand built stuff in Switzerland based on solid design credentials and some of these cables ARE digital cables.

So what do digital cables have to do with the price of tea in China when it comes to manufacturing cables? Are digital cables extra special and require more knowledge to design and build than any other audio cable?

 

[wisnon]

Nope.



Nope.



So what does that mean? I could start a company tomorrow out of my garage and tell everyone I was bringing a $300K table to market. Ditto for speakers. I don't know if you are being facetious or not here.



So what do digital cables have to do with the price of tea in China when it comes to manufacturing cables? Are digital cables extra special and require more knowledge to design and build than any other audio cable?

Sigh.

You brought up Mhz cables and digital cables operate in that range (at least for DSD).

Please go do a research on LumenWhite and you will understand. These cables are from the seme design house, not some basement DIY. LUMENWHITE speakers start at $30K. Read again what i posted. Their Mystere TT costs $60K!

Understand now?

 

[thedudeabides]

Sorry winson,

With all due respect, you are going to have to do alot better than that on this site.

A very discriminating, sophisticated group, myself not included.

Equipment cost is no guarantee of performance.

I trust you understand that basic fact.

GG

 

[wisnon]

Sorry winson,

With all due respect, you are going to have to do alot better than that on this site.

A very discriminating, sophisticated group, myself not included.

Equipment cost is no guarantee of performance.

I trust you understand that basic fact.

GG

Basic comprehension.

Mep spoke about basement DIY. I merely said that LumenWhite is a well established HIGH end brand. Dont tell me you guys have never heard of them.

I mean PUHLEASE. If you are so sophisticated, you would KNOW. If not, go do some research and come back when you are ready for serious discussion. They are pioneers in many areas.

If Wilson Audio made cables and someone made an analogy to DIY basement manufacturing, what would YOU say?

I am NOT trying to convince you of anything, i am merely correcting a BASIC misrepresentation of facts.

LumenWhite in no way, shape or form can be disrespected as a DIY startup. Is this a joke or what?

 

[thedudeabides]

I've heard of the brand but have not had the chance to hear any of their gear.

As I said, I was simply providing some general observations on this site and despite being involved in this hobby for some 35 years plus, I know I have nowhere near the amount of knowledge, personal experience, and sophistication that other members possess. Using education levels as a relative scale, I'm still in high school.

All I'm saying is that you may wish to reconsider your advocacy of this product line within the context of how you present that information on WBF.

GG

 

[wisnon]

I've heard of the brand but have not had the chance to hear any of their gear.

As I said, I was simply providing some general observations on this site and despite being involved in this hobby for some 35 years plus, I know I have nowhere near the amount of knowledge, personal experience, and sophistication that other members possess. Using education levels as a relative scale, I'm still in high school.

All I'm saying is that you may wish to reconsider your advocacy of this product line within the context of how you present that information on WBF.

GG

Again, I am just rebutting an obvious wrong assumption on the part of Mep. Let me say it one more time, LW is no fly by night DIY basement outfit. That is so far off base it is ludicrous. That has nothing to do with me being an advocate for anything.

You are wasting your time lecturing me. I have made not one single erroneous statement.

I referred to retail pricing to give a clue. I would expect smart and sophisticated people to run with that and inform themselves quickly. Like the products or not, that is your choice, but stick to verifiable facts.

I have heard of many venerable brands without hearing their gear and would never refer to them as DIY outfits. Not sure I ever heard Wilson speakers, but would be rightly castigated here if I called them a DIY outfit, even though I suspect that they are rnot my cup of tea.

 

[DaveyF]

Wisnon, I want to step in here...why, because I do understand where mep is coming from ( never thought I would say that, LOL). The reason that he is so seemingly skeptical is because as he says, it does NOT take a great deal of skill or for that matter knowledge, to cobble up a speaker cable in one's garage. We have seen this many times before...( heck, just last week a guy calls me and wants to sell me some hyper priced cables that he is making south of the border from me....in a little town called Tijuana! After some quizzing it comes out that he isn't making the cable himself, simply employing a few Mexican laborers to add the connections to what he claims is silver wire).
Now Lumenwhite is a known entity to many of us here on this board ( I have heard their speaker's...they did NOTHING for me, BUT that is irrelevant to this discussion). The question that I have is this...what makes you believe that the designer's of this particular cable are qualified to actually design the product? Your answer seems to be...1) The designer works for a well known (to a small group of a'philes) company and therefore they are competent and b) the price that is being asked for the cables insures that they are good.... At least this is what I am understanding from your post(s). Therefore, it would seem to me that your logic needs a little more explaining...IF you don't mind.

 

[mep]

Basic comprehension.

Mep spoke about basement DIY. I merely said that LumenWhite is a well established HIGH end brand. Dont tell me you guys have never heard of them.

I mean PUHLEASE. If you are so sophisticated, you would KNOW. If not, go do some research and come back when you are ready for serious discussion. They are pioneers in many areas.

If Wilson Audio made cables and someone made an analogy to DIY basement manufacturing, what would YOU say?

I am NOT trying to convince you of anything, i am merely correcting a BASIC misrepresentation of facts.

LumenWhite in no way, shape or form can be disrespected as a DIY startup. Is this a joke or what?

Look, I'm not inferring that LumenWhite is a garage operation. My point was that just because a company sells expensive products doesn't give them instant credibility for making great products.

 

[wisnon]

Wisnon, I want to step in here...why, because I do understand where mep is coming from ( never thought I would say that, LOL). The reason that he is so seemingly skeptical is because as he says, it does NOT take a great deal of skill or for that matter knowledge, to cobble up a speaker cable in one's garage. We have seen this many times before...( heck, just last week a guy calls me and wants to sell me some hyper priced cables that he is making south of the border from me....in a little town called Tijuana! After some quizzing it comes out that he isn't making the cable himself, simply employing a few Mexican laborers to add the connections to what he claims is silver wire).
Now Lumenwhite is a known entity to many of us here on this board ( I have heard their speaker's...they did NOTHING for me, BUT that is irrelevant to this discussion). The question that I have is this...what makes you believe that the designer's of this particular cable are qualified to actually design the product? Your answer seems to be...1) The designer works for a well known (to a small group of a'philes) company and therefore they are competent and b) the price that is being asked for the cables insures that they are good.... At least this is what I am understanding from your post(s). Therefore, it would seem to me that your logic needs a little more explaining...IF you don't mind.

Hi DaveyF,

Reasonable request, but please note that the ONLY qualitative statement I posted was this:
These cables are hand made with no short cuts and designed by the LumenWhite team.

Barbara and Anton Suter have taken on quite a challenging task to produce these
cables, the puristic design of which cant be realized with all those short-cut means at the base
of more the 95 % of current cable production (like shrink wraps , premanufactured sub-assemblies and industrial wires)
and truly deserve a positive market reaction for this bold effort.

The actual design concepts are spelled out in the white paper at their website. The target performance level was the sought after vintage Western Electric cables so popular in Japan for example. I said nothing about the price of the cables. I referenced prices for speakers and a TT only.
I never even said they were "good". I said that they are no DIY outfit and they manifestly are NOT. My only subjective comment is that GIVEN the demands of the design concepts, they could not use popupar construction short cuts and outsourcing and thus have build them the hard, labour intensive way and that alone deserves a positive market reaction.

My logic so far is perfectly fine…

Now as to an opinion, read the review and see what Matej thinks…whether you agree or not on his many points.

Like in all things, time alone will be the ultimate judge. I do predict they will do well.

I hope I have answered you sufficiently.

 

[wisnon]

Look, I'm not inferring that LumenWhite is a garage operation. My point was that just because a company sells expensive products doesn't give them instant credibility for making great products.

I can agree with that Mep, but you said this BEFORE you knew who they are. If I didnt reply, you and perhaps others would have been misled to think this is a garage DIY offering! Besides, not because something is a garage offereing means that they dont have high performance! Genius knows no such restriction. What Tesla could do from his garage, MIT scientists still cant replicate…LoL

 

[mep]

Hi DaveyF,

Reasonable request, but please not that the ONLY statement I posted was this:
These cables are hand made with no short cuts and designed by the LumenWhite team.

Can you explain what that means? Cables are made by machines and are usually terminated by real people, sometimes with the help of machines.

Barbara and Anton Suter have taken on quite a challenging task to produce these
cables, the puristic design of which cant be realized with all those short-cut means at the base
of more the 95 % of current cable production (like shrink wraps , premanufactured sub-assemblies and industrial wires)
and truly deserve a positive market reaction for this bold effort.

Again, you need to explain the marketing hype. Very few cable companies in the world actually manufacture their own cable vice buying bulk cable (custom ordered) and then terminating the cables. You can't manufacture and insulate cables by hand-machines have to be involved to draw the wire and install the insulation. Do you really think for one second that copper and silver come out of a mine and are made into cables by hand? You need machines to draw/extrude the metals into cables. You need machines to wind the strands. You need machines to add the insulation. The majority of work done by human hands is stripping off the outer jacket and insulation materials and terminating the cables with whatever connectors are necessary.

The actual design concepts are spelled out in the white paper at their website. The target performance level was the sought after vintage Western Electric cables so popular in Japan for example. I said nothing about the price of the cables. I referenced prices for speakers and a TT only.
I never even said they were "good". I said that they are no DIY outfit and they manifestly are NOT. My only subjective comment is that GIVEN the demans of the demand concepts, they could not use popupar construction short cuts and outsourcing and have build them the hard labour intensive way and that alone deserve a positive market reaction.

I thought they were a "DIY outfit" and they did everything themselves according to your earlier remarks. The rest of your paragraph I'm going to leave alone because I would hardly know where to start.

 

[Lee]

Only one thing? Audio cables have to be the easiest cables on the planet to design for real cable engineers. In the grand scheme of electronics, designing for the audio bandwidth is a cakewalk compared to designing cables for the MHz and GHz bandwidths. Audio cables aren't going into a satellite that will be parked in space. How many cable companies were started by some guy living at home with his parents fooling around with stuff he bought at Home Depot and he liked what he "designed" better than what he could afford to buy and now he is a cable genius?

Hmm, knowing Chris Sommovigo (Stereolab, Black Cat) and his journey in building better cables, I would politely differ. Cable design is very complex and requires much experimentation to get the right design and then implement it well.

 

[wisnon]

http://www.hifibernd.ch/highendhifi/herstellerportraetsundlinks/schweiz/swisscables.php

and http://www.swisscables.com/whitepaper/whitepaper.pdf

 

[wisnon]

a visit to swiss cables in empty
swiss cables
The Swiss Cables GmbH is a manufacturer of audio and power cables, the high-end class. Furthermore, Swiss Cables is active as a distribution of various high-end hi-fi brands. In my summer holiday in 2013 I was able to pay a little visit to the company.

The end of July we went by train to Lucerne, where I at the station of Anton Suter - was greeted friendly and picked up - CEO of Swiss Cables. After about a half-hour drive, we arrived at the nearby Entlebuch. There, in the small community of 3,200 souls, I was greeted by his wife Barbara, who is also active in the operation.

portrait
Mr. Suter has been for many years in high-end hi-fi active and can look back on a long career in terms of sales as well as in the development and manufacture. He was and is always cared about the sales of high end components, which have been made by particular concepts and an exceptional musicality a name in the industry. In the development he was, among other things involved in the hi-fi cables from Vovox. In March 2012, Anton Suter founded together with his wife Barbara Swiss Cables because he pursue new and unconventional methods in the audio and power cables and wanted to be independent. While Mr. Suter is responsible for the development, marketing and finance, his wife Barbara looks after the export.


Swiss Cables sells in Switzerland Brand Master Sound (tube amplifiers from Italy), Calyx (converters and amplifiers from South Korea), Shun Mook (acoustic tuning elements from the U.S. in direct sales) and of course their own audio and power cables Swiss Cables. Furthermore, Swiss Cables sells in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the Memory Player, Mr. Suter also actively involved in its development.

audio and power cord highest goodness
As already mentioned, the company name is Swiss Cables audio and power cable also the same for the specially produced high-end. The range of the two product lines evolution and Reference are unshielded and shielded RCA cable, balanced XLR Cable, Digital Cable AES / EBU and S / P-DIF, speaker cables, bridges and power cord.

Production of cable is done mostly in-house. Soldering are partially performed by additional personnel. The main market is Asia - a very critical clientele, as commonly known. Germany and Switzerland are also very important markets. In Germany, Swiss Cables is also represented with a webshop.


As Dielektikum is set when the Swiss Cables on air. And although the cables appear to be quite thick, at first glance, they are still very easy: because the conductors are encased in a textile-lined plastic tube exposed. This is one of the factors which has a significant share of the outstanding features of the Swiss Cables.

Crucial for a good cable is the transition between conductor and connector: This important sticking point at which there are glaring weaknesses concept with many competitors, has been paid a lot of attention in the development of the Swiss Cables. Because of imitators, but the corresponding solution remains understandably a closely guarded company secret. The opening of a finished audio cable from Swiss Cables at this point would also useless as a shame, because in this process, the connection between the plug and cord is destroyed.


As head jacket comes in the Reference line a non-flammable natural fiber used, which offers very good elektirsche insulation values. With the slightly cheaper evolution line you bet on cotton. In the shielded RCA cables in addition comes a copper jacket between the tube and the fabric cover. The wooden version of the Reference connector is made of Swiss walnut and is purchased from an external supplier.


The plug of the power cable are specially made with cast contacts from OCC copper.

farewell

During the tour of the company, the interesting discussions, the audiophile music listening and copious Photographing the time went by very quickly. Especially in between still a very tasty strawberry cake was served with coffee. So was followed by an exciting afternoon of departure. At this point I would like to thank both Mr. Anton Suter and his wife Barbara.

Website: www.swisscables.ch

© 2013 hifibernd.ch by Bernd Zumoberhaus

 

[mep]

Hmm, knowing Chris Sommovigo (Stereolab, Black Cat) and his journey in building better cables, I would politely differ. Cable design is very complex and requires much experimentation to get the right design and then implement it well.

Comparatively speaking, audio cables are easier to design than critical application cables used in non-space (think aircraft, ships, and medical equipment) and space environments at MHz and GHz frequencies. Have some companies tried to elevate the design of audio cables to rocket science status? Absolutely. If you are going to charge outrageous prices for audio cables, you need to be able to make outrageous claims for their performance. We have now elevated the common power strip to the status of a power generating station. How else can you justify $9K for a power strip? And please don't infer that I don't think quality cables are vitally important in a good system because I do. All I'm saying is the level of complexity for designing audio cables is not that high relatively speaking and most engineers would have considered the problem solved many, many years ago.

 

[egidius]

What's your interest?

@Wisnon: What's your interest in these cables?

And:

Following this thread reminds me much of the one with the Trinity Dac; where the engineer got apprehensive before any critical questions actually did arise - of course they did immediately afterwards.
I feel, it is only fair to counter a veiled ad with a critical response.

Egidius

a visit to swiss cables in empty
swiss cables
The Swiss Cables GmbH is a......