Family cable shootout
Two weeks ago, I performed a little interconnect shootout in my own system. I have made a lot of changes to my system over the spring/summer, and wanted to find the best cable to use between my CD player and preamp. It was my brother - in - law's birthday, so my family was together for a celebration. As a music lover, he was really into listening to my system. We spent two hours playing whatever he wanted to hear.
Along with us, were three other members of my family. As I have not totally dialed in the cables I should use, I have a pile of interconnects laying around the system. My brother - in - law inquired about it, so I told him that I will try to pick the best "one of these days". That's when the "wire is wire" comment came up. My position was that people can hear differences in cable, but that some people take it to the point of silliness. He and my fiance wanted to hear the differences, if any, and help me decide which would be the winner. So here was the perfect opportunity to do the evaluation. I especially welcome the opinions of non - audiophiles, as I think they often bring the right perspective, not being prejudiced by brand names, cost, etc. They wanted to see if wire sounded different.
The players were AlphaCore Goertz Copper(loaned from a friend), AudioQuest Emerald, Coincident CST, HomeGrown Audio Silver Lace, HomeGrown Audio Super Silver, Musical Fidelity NuVista, and Stealth SCR.
As I don't want to name names right now, I will just use an anonymous name for each cable as I go through a description of what we found.
Cable A sounded a bit fuzzy, and destroyed the speed and detail that my Atma Sphere OTL amps have infused into my system. Cable B retained the speed and detailed, but was thin, lightweight in the lower frequencies, and sounded a bit zippy. Cable C showed fine detail and speed, but did not offer the weight of the best cables. Cable D was similar to the Cable C, but a tad zippy. Cable E sounded smooth and relatively clear, but incoherent, disconnected, and not especially extended, particularly in the treble.
The two best were Cable F and Cable G. I feel that the reason was that these two cables were able to extract the most detail and speed, without sounding white. Both were extended at both ends of the frequency spectrum, along with a very natural midrange. Air was impressive. Dynamics were special.
In the end, everyone except for my brother - in - law had already given up the ghost. Listening intently to 30 seconds of a song 3X, followed by the same thing with another cable is laborious. Often, the differences are quite subtle, and need a very great effort to discern differences. But, we both felt the overall winner was Cable G. It edged the Cable F due to more impactful bottom end, and more detailed overall.
I will like to say that I would probably be happy with most of the cables in this group. But, two seemed to be more right than the rest. And, it was interesting to see the reactions of "normal people"; how none of them could say after that that "wire is wire".
