the Best Cables known around.

[bonzo75]

Steve, you should go back to listen at Mike's. He said it was 50% up since you had last been there. And take along your Zyx when you do. Price aside, I love that cartridge.

 

[witchdoctor]

Hi folks,

I'm standing in a crossroad for decide about some new cables for IC especially.
i am using 3X Siltech IC (Empress double crown/770i) RCA 2 RCA and now it's seem that i will switch to an all XLR (Balance) System. (i am buying a new pre amp)
i will Need to buy 3 Balance IC for all my sources. DAC (infused by Hi configure pc) , CDP/SACD and a Phono stage.
i will still keep my Siltech's for now at least (they costed me a hefty load... and maybe i will use them in the future... )
I'm using one Siltech Empress D.C XLR to connect between my preamp and power mono blocks as for now.

my system (in my signature) playing in a very small room (i know... but i live in Israel, and that what i've got for now ) and every small detail noticeable a great deal!

i was thinking to "Continue" on buying Siltech D.C... but then i was stopped myself and rethink that approach. i Love the Siltech way but maybe i was missing others?!
unfortunately we don't have any Ultra High end dealers around here who keep such HIGH$$$ cables for demoing, so i will need to rely on others experience... what i heard in my Traveling etc.

some name dropping i was thinkinging about...
Siltech Empress D.C (obvious... )
Nordost Odin (1 or 2)
Transparent...
Crystal Cables - Dream line or the Absolute...
Argento Master Flow ( i have four power cables and they Great!)
etc...

i will appriciates any input, personal experience etc.
(pleas try to avoid any Forking about snake oils, money goes away from the window and other comment regarding)

thank you!
A.

Mapleshade XLR

One look and you will see how unique they are, one listen and you will not send them back

 

[steve williams]

Thanks Mike.

 

[RogerD]

I agree Roger. That's what I search for as well

Mike, are you suggesting that the only way to reduce the noise floor is with ultimate grounding?

I ask only because I went in a different direction wrt the noise floor when I went to an all CMS rack system. My sound floor is astonishingly low based on the results I am getting with these racks

no, performance gains come from many directions....including resonance control such as your CMS or my Herzan active vibration control.

but I do strongly believe that if one has not worked on grounding in their system that there are gains in performance that are there for the finding. show me any sufficiently mature and otherwise well sorted out system, and that system has a world of opportunity for improvement from grounding.

while optimizing grounding always helps, until one gets the basics of a system resolved grounding benefits might be lost in the noise floor and other system chaos. so it's one of those 'last step' type optimization things as far as priorities.

do I think your system could benefit? absolutely. have you already found performance gains in other places? I'm sure you have. and those other system tuning changes you have made will only allow a greater degree of benefit from grounding and make it more obvious.

I think all 3 of us have done our homework and are reaping the benefits. Noise is the enemy and there are different kinds, vibration, circuit noise and current noise. Creating a large gateway path to ground is essential for a low noise floor. the better the ground structure the better the sound. Circuit noise is a little more complex as that resides in the components and design of the equipment. Probably the most eye opening discovery is vibration and how it effects the circuit noise. I think through my experience if you can reduce signal distortion by eliminating vibration,that has a major effect in high resolution systems.

As a test disc I play EMI's recording of Mahler's 8th Symphony finale by Klaus Tennstedt and see how your system performs....

 

[NorthStar]

Today is Black Friday; any good deals on the best cables? :b

 

[RogerD]

Today is Black Friday; any good deals on the best cables? :b

Lol!

 

[byrdparis]

I have no a cable agenda. most of my interconnects are proprietary; I use the 'BNC Zeel' interface with my darTZeel preamp and amp, and have 50 ohm 'zeel' interface in my tape repro.

I have a Lampizator Golden Gate dac which uses RCA's and I did go way over the top on my interconnects for that....buying the very spendy Tara Labs Grandmaster Evolution w/HFX 2 meter RCA interconnects. earlier I had purchased 1.5 XLR's of this cable for a Trinity dac I had. my comments pertain to both RCA and XLR.

what sets the Grandmaster Evolution apart from other top level interconnects are two things. first; the jackets are grounded to dual monoblock HFX grounding stations and then to the chassis of your gear. second; the Grandmaster Evolution has an air dielectric jacket yet is very flexible. and the performance of both the RCA's and XLR's in my system was astonishing. you cannot appreciate a low noise floor until you employ ultimate grounding.

I go to considerable effort to apply grounding throughout my system including Entreq and Tripoint Troy products. being able to ground a cable makes a difference.

I had used other Tara Labs cables prior which also used grounding, but the Grandmaster Evolution went to a whole new level.

thank you sir.
i was @following@ your evolution in your audio room since you build it, and know for a fact how experience you are.
thank you for your time and effort.
did you try on your system Siltech or nordost (odin for instance) across the board, since you started? (i can only imagine how much you was trying along the way...)
or did you look for cables that have a grounding system to rely on them specifically ?

grounding is another subject 'm on right now... but will attack it later on when i will saddle with everything in place.

 

[amirm]

Today is Black Friday; any good deals on the best cables? :b

Black Friday products are usually sold at a loss. They make up for it by selling you those cables at list!

Indeed the entire success of Monster and others who followed it was based on recouping the disappearing profit margins in audio/video equipment.

 

[mauidan]

Byrdparis,

Suggest you listen to the Audience Au24 SX cables, here's a recent review:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0816/Audience_Au24_SX_World_Class_Cables_Review.htm

 

[Mike Lavigne]

thank you sir.
i was @following@ your evolution in your audio room since you build it, and know for a fact how experience you are.
thank you for your time and effort.
did you try on your system Siltech or nordost (odin for instance) across the board, since you started? (i can only imagine how much you was trying along the way...)
or did you look for cables that have a grounding system to rely on them specifically ?

grounding is another subject 'm on right now... but will attack it later on when i will saddle with everything in place.

thank you for the kind words.

no; I have not tried other 'uber' cables recently in my system since I had the Transparent Opus MM rca's 7-8 years ago. the darTZeel 'zeel' cables supplanted my need for any of those until the recent additions of the Golden Gate, and the Trinity dac before, caused me to look for a tip-top cable and so the Tara Labs with it's grounding approach caused me to investigate that. I did observe that Audiocrack, a member here, was using the same Tara Labs cables and had tried some of those other current 'uber' cables.

my experience with the Odin2 and Transparent Opus MM V5 are only at shows and anecdotal; no head to head. while they are very good, even super, to my ears.......I don't hear the degree of low noise and dynamics with those I hear from the Tara GME with grounding. take my input as a data point.

best wishes on your efforts with grounding. it has taken my system to a point further out there.....

 

[steve williams]

Mike


When I get my MB cables we should do a home and home visit to compare the virtues of both our cables.

 

[Folsom]

Well all good power amplifiers and all good DAC's should sound exactly alike but then, there a lot more design engineering challenges than in cables.
******************************************
Cables that sound alike:
Canare LV-77S
Belden 1505F
Blue Jeans Cable LC-1

So I should buy cables based on theoretical wishes, landing on those shitty cables? Believe me I tried, I've got BJC cables laying about. They eat the plating off of your jacks and sound worse than just about everything. I would use them for home theater, or whatever I don't really care about just because they're cheap and custom sizes are available. For music? Bleh I don't have that kind of apathy in my bones for music.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike


When I get my MB cables we should do a home and home visit to compare the virtues of both our cables.

Steve,

I'm happy to try the MB any time. but shipping out my Tara Labs is not likely a choice I would make. and if I switch dacs to one that uses my 'BNC Zeel' connectors the Tara will likely have to go to help fund stuff (it's $31k list price).

'I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that'

I do think Tara Labs likely has demo's one can acquire to try......or 'The Cable Company'.

 

[jep123]

I have used Crystal Dreamline, Argento and many other cables. At the moment I am using very happily the top of the line cables from Gutwire, Canada. Speaker, IC and USB. Not the most famous of brands, but they are of exeptional quality. Highly detailed, organic sounding and with a very low noise floor. Build quality is also very good.

To recommend cables to others is almost impossible and the perfect cables does not exist.

rgds
JP

 

[steve williams]

Steve,

I'm happy to try the MB any time. but shipping out my Tara Labs is not likely a choice I would make. and if I switch dacs to one that uses my 'BNC Zeel' connectors the Tara will likely have to go to help fund stuff (it's $31k list price).

'I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that'

I do think Tara Labs likely has demo's one can acquire to try......or 'The Cable Company'.

I'm suggesting I come visit you with my cable and you do the same to me with your cable or does your have a Zeel connector which makes it unusable in my system

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I'm suggesting I come visit you with my cable and you do the same to me with your cable or does your have a Zeel connector which makes it unusable in my system

my Tara's are RCA, the BNC's are the top-of-line Evolution Acoustics BNC 'zeels' that are currently unused I had for the Playback Designs MPS-5. my plan would be to use those and sell the Tara's if I end up with a dac with the 50 ohm zeel interface.

I'm not in the market for cables, and not curious enough to do my side of the traveling with a large box of cables, and always avoid tear-down and shipping my gear when I can avoid it. and the Tara GME are not small cables and with the air dielectric jackets and grounding are more delicate than many other cables to ship. same with my Absolute Fidelity power cables Gary Koh made for me. those power cables are not UL approved.....you have to be careful not to step on them. some cables (such as all my Evolution Acoustic cables) can be run over with a truck and you can't hurt them, others not so much.

 

[steve williams]

Missing the point Mike

I will bring my equivalent of the cable you use from the DAC. No tear down is required.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Missing the point Mike

I will bring my equivalent of the cable you use from the DAC. No tear down is required.

ok, then......I'm a little slow this morning.

bring the MB's on up when you can. it will be fun.

 

[NorthStar]

...And I will read the comments then with great interest.

 

[Leif S]

If you're familiar with Siltech, several of my customers have gone to my cables (D4 IC and SMSG SC) over the Siltech silver/gold cables, making money in the process of upgrading... that doesn't happen often! My silver/gold wire is OCC and will be more neutral and resolving vs Siltech.

Steve's suggestion for MB is good, but I've A/B'ed my D4 vs mid-line MB and no contest, not even close. My IC cables are far more resolving, totally different leagues. The newest and most expensive MB are probably more competitive with my cables, but lots of $. I'd bet anything my cables will be very close at ~1/10th the price.

My D4 XLRs have been preferred over top end Acrolink and Pranawire last week, my customer could have bought either at 50% off but chose mine at full price... this is a recurring theme, many people in the industry will choose my cables at full price over brands they can get at wholesale. My D4 ICs have been preferred over Stealth, Shunyata, Nordost, High Fidelity, Tara, Kubala Sosna and many more top-tier brands in the $5k+ range. If you want a neutral cable with the best resolution and most realistic timbre, my D4 is darn close to as good as it gets and price is direct-sale, very reasonable. I do offer free demos as well, you just pay shipping.

Hello Dave,

Hey just out of curiosity, where did you get a chance to A/B your cables against MasterBuilts. Especially MB's mid line cables.

Leif