Good, Neutral, Reasonably Priced Cables?

The Empress Phono Interconnects are the finest cables made. I have upgraded from the SRII cables. The Empress uses the same internal wiring; however, the shielding common to virtually all Phono ICs is a metal type shield. Unfortunately, the SRIIs are so revealing and transient rich that the metal shielding elevates record noise and blurs timing, etc. relative to the Empress ICs. The new carbon shielding is non-metallic/non-magnetic and serves the same purpose but with extremely superior results. The Empress removes all of the noise inherent in common shielding designs and provides the SRII wiring to sing music sweeter than I have ever heard. This is a revolutionary change in phono cable sound. Grover and Michael have invented the ideal phono cable (and I=ve tried dozens of brands and types over the years). Analog is king with the Empress. (Digital remains the queen of sound with the Empress unshielded ICs, it can=t outdo analog). My friends come over and salivate at the sound of my system since I upgraded to Empress cables (although they always enjoyed Grover=s ICs before). My wife agrees that her rock records have the best vocal sound she has heard recorded or live. It=s difficult not to listen for hours into the night. My advice is to purchase the line stage to amp ICs first, then the analog (if you have it), then another pair for CDs. I also purchased Empress ICs for my Alesis Masterlink CD burner-unbelievable, great CDs from all analog sources.

I feel I am providing a necessary service to all you audiophiles and music lovers out there reading this. You will feel that the biggest bargain you have made is in purchasing the Empress ICs. You will change your equipment before you will change these wires. I am an amateur musician, music lover and audiophile (without the high end gear pretensions, quality always over snob appeal).

Caveat Emptor, a truly bad recording will be just that much worse sounding with the Empress Phono ICs - you can hear the electronics used in recording and cutting records, the ICs are that revealing. I heard bad cutter head amps and noisy microphone pre-amps revealed on previously okay sounding records. Now they show how bad they really are. On the bright side, most of my 17,000 LPs sound good to great. Average sounding records which may have restricted dynamics, highs, lows, etc. are just that much more interesting with better timing, openness and transients to reveal the essence of the music. Good music is just that more interesting and musically involving.

While I can appreciate an enthuiastic review of an excellent product, the following statement is pure hokum:

"Unfortunately, the SRIIs are so revealing and transient rich that the metal shielding elevates record noise and blurs timing, etc. relative to the Empress ICs. The new carbon shielding is non-metallic/non-magnetic and serves the same purpose but with extremely superior results."

Effective EM shielding uses effective conductive materials; carbon is not an effective conductor.

I would suggest the excellent performance of these cables is due to some other physical property of the design (excellent conducting material, novel conductor geometry, etc.).

Mprime: Don't start bad-mouthing carbon or a certain manufacturer will start crying "foul" and calling you names.

It is possible that the carbon does act as a shield and at the same time, is less intrusive due to the lack of conductivity & magnetic properties. As i've mentioned for many years now, shielding is beneficial IF properly applied. Most shields are NOT properly applied. Minimizing the amount of shielding while still offering a small amount of "blocking" via the carbon might be a reasonable trade-off between a lower noise floor and a lack of dynamic amplitude related smearing. Sean
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Fair enough, Sean (though attempting to reconcile claims with physics is not bad-mouthing).

My first order understanding of shielding is akin to a Faraday cage (I have yet to see one made out of carbon). Or more precisely, shielding is a function of a material's skin depth, which - while a decaying exponential inside the material - is driven by the material's conductivity and permeability (for a given frequency). Therefore, how does an inefficent conductor act as an effective shield?

Particularly at low frequencies....

Sincerely,

"attempting to reconcile claims with physics is not bad-mouthing"

Tell that to the guys that cry every time you try to discuss "scientific facts" vs their "bold claims". Manufacturers that sell snake oil don't like facts or bright lights that expose them for what they are. After all, didn't you know that physics has no place in "high end" audio. Physics went out of date years ago : )

As far as shielding goes, the main factors are depth, coverage area and materials used. As you mentioned, one can smother a device in a given material, but that doesn't mean that material doing the smothering is actually effective as a shield. Then again, one can also use much less of another material, and if properly placed, achieve phenomenal results in terms of shielding.

These factors can be put to work for us though IF we know how to manipulate the variables properly. That is, some materials are quite effective at blocking RF but are near useless at base-band frequencies. Since we don't want our AC signals "contaminated" with RFI, and at the same time, we don't want to interfere with the normal rise and fall of the current induced magnetic field that occurs at low frequencies, it IS possible to have the best of both worlds. I'm not saying that one can do this with carbon or any other specfific material, i'm just saying that a "less efficient" shield isn't always "useless" under specific situations. Think about this as it is something that many manufacturers / DIYer's overlook. Sean
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