Anyone tried Shunyata's Antares interconnect yet ?

Hi Mika,

No, my high end dealer did not carry Transparent's top of the line models so I was not able to compare them in my bake-off. I know they are highly regarded. It will be interesting to get some feedback from Dgad on that score. All I can say is that I continue to be very happy with the Shunyata's.

I just compared the Shunyata Antares, to Transparent Reference w. XL tech as interconnects between a VTL 7.5 preamp & MB 750 amp. I used different CDs/SACDs for the comparison & did it by switching cables back & forth repeatedly. I am very familiar w. both cables but the Shunyata have about 100 hours on them, maybe more. The transparent were in my system for years & now have been sold to a friend. The comparison did more to prove similarities than differences. If you were to just say what percent difference they have between each other I would say they are maybe 30% different. They are both excellent cables and do some very special things.

The Transparent has more weight in the bass & more dimensionality to images. The treble is a little dry / brittle. The body of the instruments and the sense of space is well communicated. The sense of space of the recording is well communicated.

The Shunyata Antares has a tad more speed but just a tad. The treble is more natural and has a sweetness that compares to silver in many ways. The instruments are a little smaller and the bass is a little lean - but just a little.

On the whole I would say I prefer..... probably the next level up in Transparent w. the MM tech. I might not have noticed all of the benefits of the Shunyata cables in my system as my speaker cables are Transparent Reference XL w. MM tech. It might have limited certain aspects of the reproduction. My system is full range so I can hear full bass delineation etc.

As for Transparent, the newer line w. MM tech has improved treble and a more natural sound. Taking into account the differences between my MM tech speaker cables compared to the earlier versions I would expect the upper level Transparent to be very very good.

Now for the final question, just how do Siltech and Purist compare at the top end. After that I am done w. my shoot outs and settle on final choices. If you choose the Shunyata you get one of the world best cables, especially for the price. Transparent gets component specific at the upper levels. Something I don't like as it stops my endless merry go round of component switching, or at least complicates it. On a final note, I still feel power cables make more of a difference than interconnects. At least in my system.

I have now listened Shunyata's antares/orion cables few days in my system. I'm almost ready to buy them. They are great cables. They are really special in many things. Maybe the only thing that is bothering me is the bass. It is very fast and detailed, which are absolutely great things, but maybe little lean (as Dgad also noticed). But on the other hand, maybe shunyata is just offering more natural bass and other top cables I have used produce just unnaturally full bass. I don't know. What I do know is that shunyata offers bass that has more resolution and details than any other cable I have tried (Transparent, Siltech, Cardas, Analysis plus ..). Maybe it is the fastness and high resulution that causes the phenomenon that sounds of some bass instruments don't have that weight and dimensionality they ideally could have. Well, I still have 4 days time with antares/orion cables, so maybe I know more after that time.

But on the other hand, maybe shunyata is just offering more natural bass and other top cables I have used produce just unnaturally full bass.

Mkilpi, this is the conclusion I've come to. With the Atma-Sphere MA-1s running Shunyata power cords, Andromeda spkr cables, and Antares IC from the preamp, the bass is neither lean nor boomy, bloomy, or smeary. For classical, try the 'wolf hunting' bass line that opens the second movement of Sibelius' Second Symphony with Barbirolli on Chesky. Or listen to the massive bass drum whacks at the end of Shostakovich's 'Festive Overture'. Air moves. The fundamental is the there, the harmonics(!) are there, the quick dampening of the drum by the percussionist is there. I wonder if what we may think of as weight is a smearing of harmonics - the more weight the more tonally undifferentiated the bass?

Cheers,
Tim

Mkilpi,

After extensive listening to the Shunyata cables I came to the conclusion that while initially they seem to be "lean" on the bass side, that really they are producing an accurate sonic picture of the original event. In other words, I believe most other cables overweight the bass (kind of like a built in loudness switch).