Review: Acoustic Zen Absolute Interconnect


Category: Cables

I was looking forward to audtioning Robert Lee's new highest reference Acoustic Zen interconnects & speaker wires which he calls the Absolute. They represent his latest thinking regarding the state of the art in his house of wires. About two years ago I had gone through a lengthy audtion process, which included five highly regarded sets of wires from well known companies, untill I decided to replace all my wires with AZ Silver reference II & Matrix reference II and Satori speaker wire. I'm a great fan of AZ for two major reasons;1) They offer great "bang for the buck" out standing performance for the cost ratio.2) They have,for me, a wonderful combination of tight/powerful bass,great details,transparency,dynamics,natural timbres, along with being musical and a smooth "sense" of ease. The process of audtioning the Absolute began with inserting a Absolute interconnect between my DAC and PRE-AMP along with putting the Absolute speaker wire in. Since I bi-amp there are four sets of interconnects so I put the Absolute interconnect at the front of the system. Well, it turned out to be a very gratifying experience! It not only tremendously improved the above stated virtues but added the following;1) A giant soundstage with excellent layering of players in a sense of real space.2)A sriking sense of air/three-dimensionality around everyone in the soundstage.3)Much improved/natural timbres.4)The new cables added that wonderful "organic/musicality" that I think we all strive for in our systems. It strongly reminded me of the experience I had when I audtioned my Pass Labs-350.5 to my then current amp an Edge NL-10. The Edge, which is still a great amp with many reference level characteristics, just kinda sounded sterile compared with the musicality of the 350.5. I know thats a very subjective way of explaining my experience, but its hard to use objective language at times to explain why a component just sounds more like the experience of real music. These wires are not inexpensive(2000.00 for the interconnects and 2800.00 for the speakers wires) but offer so much without any apparent shoutcomings that I think they are very fairly priced and compete with many reference level wires at a much lower price.So I think Mr. Lee has done it again, great sound at a reasonable price! As a final note I want to mention, even though we all know it all ready, that important factor of system matching and synergy long with your personnal taste make home audtioning a must for us serious audiophiles! I highly recommend you try these wires out if your a fan of AZ or looking to upgrade you wires in your sytem.

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TJ, the Acoustic Zen site indicates the Absolute cables to be made from a Silver Copper Hybrid. Does this mean that some strands are made from copper and others from silver, or that copper strands are silver coated, or that a Silver/Copper alloy is employed?
Rsbeck, I think you took my comments out of context in my review. What I would call the house sound of Acoustic Zen cables in general is very musical and yet detailed etc.,so the Absolute cables are an evolution towards the standard of real music. They take what the original AZ cables provided to a higher level plus adding that sense of organic/musicality that gives a sense of ease and flow that real music seems to have. So the original AZ cables are still pretty damn good,not inferior,but the new Absolute cables are just that much better. As far as your question about what Robert Lee did from a technological prespective to get these improvements I don't have that type of expertise, but I believe if you call AZ and ask Robert what he did he would share this information with you. He's really a great gentleman and fun to talk to.
Guidocorona, that's a great question which I cannot answer.In my response to Resbeck,I shared I don't have that type of technique information but that being the type of gentleman that Mr.Lee is, he has always taken the time to talk to me on the phone and answer any questions I have had in the past and I'm sure he would do the same for you. He's really a pleasure to talk to. I was told he will back at his office this coming monday, why don't you give him a call and see what he says and be nice enough to share what you found out after talking with him.
>>plus adding that sense of organic/musicality that gives a sense of ease
and flow that real music seems to have.<<

Okay, so if this is true, and if this cable indeed added that sense of organic/
musicality, it must not have been present in the original cable, right? Do you
suppose this is a problem with the rest of your components, or was this just a
problem with the previous cables? I'm also curious, how do you suppose the
new cable adds that sense of organic/musicality? Aren't you curious about
that? Didn't you ask the manufacturer?

>>but the new Absolute cables are just that much better.<<

This doesn't add up. For one to be "that much better," the other
has to be, "that much worse." What do you suppose was wrong
with the original cables, or why do you suppose your system was lacking this
quality without these new cables?
Wow Rsbeck, it seems to me you want to pin me in an either/or position on the older AZ cables in comparsion with the new Absolute wires. Either there was something wrong with the previous AZ cables or the Absolute wires are qualitatively different. That type of logic excludes gradients and degrees of change or improvement. I prefer sometimes/and as a logical position. In this case the new Absolute cable takes the virtues of the older AZ to a higher degree and adds new wonderful characteristics to the sonics. So the older AZ cables did not have to be inferior for the new Absolute reference to sound better. Finally, I hope I'm not getting defensive but if you take a look at my total system it has pretty good pieces from the digital front end all the way through to the speakers. So I don't think there was anything lacking in the overall sound of my system,to be quite honest its one of the best home systems I have ever heard,but the Absolute brought the total sound to even a higher level.One last note,I am curious about what Mr.Lee did on the mechanical level to produce these new great cables,but first only care about finding out about their sound signiture to see if I like them and later on about inquiring about the specifics of the technology.