Has anyone heard the Shunyata Cables?

I use both the Aries and the Andromeda in my system (CAL CL-15 cd player and Linn Twin Klimax with Martin Logan Prodigys) and I have to say it is some pretty fantastic cable. Perhaps its biggest downfall is that it is very honest. In the fashion of Nordost, it is quite neutral and fast, but doesn't have the bleached out sound of Nordost (my previous cables). The first comment I made after having listened to the interconnects broken in was that they have an 'organic' sound to them, and have since heard similar comments made from others using these cables. The amazing thing is they are quite inexpensive compared to so many other products which don't even measure up to their performance. I even compared them once with Transparent Reference Balanced ($4000/meter) and I can't say I had any desire to change. In regards to the comment one writer made about break-in time, I will have to agree. The Andromeda took well over 100 hours to fully 'get right'. Nonetheless, when they did, they were right!

Hermespan:
I also got a pair of the Andromeda speaker cable recently and I find them closer to "invisible" than other cables I've had.
What's more, they do not "plane" the textures (as in shave the edge of textures) from instruments, so the instruments sound more complete, or, organic, as you put it. My old Transparent Reference speaker cable WAS transaparent, but it limned the textures from instruments, too. That, to me, is NOT neutral.
The Andromedas, and, by extension, the Aries, do NOT have a rising high end, as suggested by someone else. I would suggest that the writer is hearing another component in his system and 'blaming' the interconnect for it. It's not unusual for us to get a superior component and not appreciate it because we have other defects in our system.

By the way, I have the Andromedas hooked up to the Antique Sound Lab Hurricanes. The amps have around 20 hours on them and the music coming from the system is truly lovely. Not 'awesome,' except in how natural it sounds overall. also have a March A400s amp, and yet, the Hurricane makes the Marsh (which is an excellent amplifier) sound congested and electronic -- which the Marsh is most assuredly NOT! Nonetheless, I think unless we have a top-notch system, the weaknesses of our cables and other components hide the flaws until something better comes along and reveals the problems. I'm sure much of what we like depends on other components we've previously selected. Accuracy is not the lottery ticket most of us seek; we want the system to 'sound' the way we want it to. The Shunyata line delivers the music first - and the 'sound' along with it.

What are the sonic differences between the Lyra and the Phoenix or Andromeda speaker cable. All the reviews I have read were on the Lyra and Aries.There are actually several recent rave reviews on this combo.

Gbmcleod, since you are referring to my post I'd like to clarify my remarks. To be more precise, I think the Aries has a bump in the lower to mid treble area. The extreme highs don't seem to be affected. I came to this conclusion after having evaluated over 2 dozen different high-end ICs in my system over the past year. It may be related to a component I have, but I don't think so. Other highly regarded ICs like Nordost Valhalla, Kimber Select 1130, Nirvana S-X, Siltech SQ88Gen5, Synergistic Res. Ref, etc. don't exhibit this behavior in my system. I also may be more sensitive to brightness than you. We each have our preferences. I agree it is a very "organic" sounding cable with lots of overtones. I think it is better suited to a tube-based system than a SS one.

NightHawk is correct. We learned that there were consecutive trials where the cables exhibited this behavior, and a subsequent test at the cable company affirmed this.

We requested the Aries cables return after this and we noted the same issue NightHawk describes. After discussion with the principles at the cable company, we learned that the Aries they had were extensively burned in on a cable cooker prior to being shipped out. for trials.

For most cables this would not be a problem, but the Aries uses a micro-thin litz conductor design that does not respond well to "cooking" or, especially over cooking. After 100 hours of continuos play the characteristics we noticed, and as described by NighHawk, subsided and confirmed our suspicions. We provided new sets of interconnects to the cable company and the issue noted by NighHawk and confirmed by us did not reappear.

I am aware this may raise an eyebrow in propeller-head land but there are a number of people who noted the before and after differences. The cable cooker products can be very effective, but it is wise to under, rather than over do the process.

I hope this helps support that NightHawk did indeed have an accurate impression of what he heard.