Price Isn't Always Indicitive of Quality or Performance
I had spent over $1000 on a Synergistic Research Cable. The Atmosphere Level 1 level, to be exact. I was using this as my main source cable to my powered speakers. It was absolutely DE-MOL-ISHED by Lavricables' Grand line for a mere $500. It isn't that the SR cable wasn't good. I was impressed with it and it was a major upgrade over their Foundation line and a phenomenal upgrade over Audioquest's Yosemite cable.
SR and Lavricables use similar tech, but only Lavricables uses pure silver practically throughout.
Here is the over all make up of the $1000 SR Atmosphere cable:
4 conductors.
Conductor: Silver/Copper matrix. Or....silver and copper wire twirled together. Purity unknown. Actual wire gauge unknown.
Dielectric: Teflon
Source Connector: gold plated copper, cryo treated and has graphene applied.
Speaker Connector: Silver plated silver, cryo treated and has graphene applied.
Has a silver-plated copper mesh as a floating shield.
Uses a Tesla Coil to burn the cable in (quantum tunneling) prior to shipping out.
Now...Lavricables' $500 cable:
4 conductors.
Conductor: 20 awg 6N pure silver. Each group is laminated separately in Teflon before being encased in Teflon dielectric insulation. Graphene is applied at key points through out the cable. The cable was cryo treated.
Dielectric: Teflon
Source Connector: Trillium Copper plated with gold. Cryo treated and has graphene applied.
Speaker Connector: AECO ARP-4055 Pure Silver RCA Connectors. Cryo treated and has graphene applied.
The unbelievable sound quality from pure silver was so immense and powerful. It was no longer like listening to music as it was more like experiencing the music. The music was pushing into you. Similar to going to a concert and having the music beat and play in your chest. There were songs that had distortion at either loud, high pitched, or at peak cacophony that I attributed to being part of the recording. The Lavricables proved that it was simply that the SR cable was incapable of reproducing those notes. WHAT!?! I mean, how do you engineer a cable to fail at $1000? I guess so it doesn't out perform or come too close to your $10,000+ cables. In Lavricables, the Grand line is tops; there is nothing higher. They pour *ALL* their knowledge, best materials and techniques in the Grand line.
I thought long about this and I think I figured it out. It isn't that Synergistic Research is necessarily trying to rip anyone off. It's the cost of doing business in the United States. Lavricables are located in Latvia. Synergistic Research and Audioquest are based out of California. The average MSRP markup on goods in CA is 3000%. To compare, Texas's MSRP markup is 300%. So the cost of materials will be higher to make the same product in CA than it would in TX. Synergistic Research and respectively Audioquest, has to charge what they do to maintain living and operating out of CA. But in Latvia? It is clear to me that the materials, tech and know how isn't that expensive there. So it can be surmised that the cost of living and operating out of Latvia is less expensive, which means they can offer the highest grade product at a much lower cost than if the same cable were made here in the United States.
I am thinking of replacing *ALL* my cables. O_O
With regard to the discussion earlier today about balanced isolation transformer power cable needs. Here’s Lavricables description of the Grand power cable. ”New carefully braided 30 core pure silver mains cable. Charles |
In case anyone may be interested, I received my Lavricable power cables. They underwent a 150-hour burn-in process prior to shipment. To get straight to the point , these are excellent and I'm very happy that I decided to give them a chance. I do not know exactly how power cables contribute to affecting sound quality, but they do. I have been using Coincident power cables purchased new 13 years ago. They are very high quality 6N pure multi strand copper and shielded, very well made. They sound terrific in my audio system. Due to my success with silver IC/SC I became curious about silver power cords. The only way to solve that curiosity was to try some, so here I am. Lavricable Grand power cables do not blow away the Coincident nor is there a "night and day" difference. The Grand cable is at this early stage as clear and transparent as the Coincident. But right away I noted distinctions between them. The Grand is fuller and a bit warmer in tonality (Meat on the bone effect). Instruments has more body, weight and presence. More reach out and touch tactility. They dig deeper into the nuance and subtleties of the music. They reveal more of the harmonics and intricacies of jazz guitar chords for example, More awareness of a drummer's brushes on cymbals and skin of the drums. Uncovering more of the growl of the tenor or baritone saxophone etc. They provide more of an open 3-D space with increased apparent density of the individual performers. The thing is the Coincident did all of these various things quite well. The Grand takes this further. I love the combination of very high resolution with a very tactile natural sound. Not a hint of a clinical, sterile dry or analytical character, just very natural. I'm very happy with what I'm hearing and will keep these silver unshielded cables. They have very similar impact as when I placed the Ocellia Silve Reference IC/SC in my system. Fuller bodied tone, increased harmonic overtones awareness and better exposure of the micro detail/nuances. I just have not encountered the thinness or brightness that others have complained about silver wire. I do not know what accounts for my different outcomes but that's my listening experience thus far. @guakus thanks for starting this thread. I doubt that I would have come across Lavricables otherwise. Charles |
@charles1dad |
