Back with some more cables
My traveling plans got delayed for another week, so I ordered a few more cables to audition, to keep me busy in the meantime.
Today I received the Synergistic Research Designer's Reference interconnect cables with active shielding and I put it up against the Valhalla. Its a nice looking cable with a little blue toy light, which comes on when the cable is hooked up to the active shielding, to make it more fancy looking, if you know what I mean.
To make a long story short:
Yes, the active shielding improves the sound when compared to the cable not hooked up to the shielding.
The bass performed with more authority, the midrange opened up and the top octaves had a nice and clear sound to it.
But again, the Valhalla is the better cable. Its more musical, a better defined bass and the clarity and richness of sound is just amazing. When I listen to the Valhalla in A-B with the Designer's reference, I feel that the Valhalla sounds just *right* That is how I want a cable to perform. Everything seems almost perfect in place and I can fully concentrate on the music, whereas with the Synergistic research, you just do not have that feeling that everything is *in order* Here a little issue, there a little issue, I hope you know what I mean.
Pricewise the Synergistic Designer reference cable is in the same league, both interconnects can be bought at around $2000, so in my system, I would not go withe the Synergistic cable.
I was not able to get the squared Designer's Reference cable, but it is twice the price, so I can only hope, that this cable will be twice as good as the Valhalla, which I seriously doubt. Not even the Siltech Compass Lake is twice as good as the Valhalla and for the price of a squared Designer's reference, you can almost buy a pair of the Siltech, when we talk street prices here.
I will also get the XLO Limited and just for the fun of it, a pair of the Van den Hul The First Ultimate.
I keep you posted