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Hi-Fi+ Awards: Cables

Hi-Fi+ Awards: Cables

Digital Audio Cable

Clearer Audio Silver-Line Optimus Reference 75

, Hi-Fi+ Awards: Cables

This pure 75 ohm digital interconnect cable (£975/1.5m as tested) is a coaxial design, featuring a central 6N (99.9999%) OCC silver central conductor, and micron-thick silver-plating over a 6N PC-OCC copper in two of the conducting braids (for the return path and the shield). It’s insulated by a foamed polyethylene dielectric, with an additional dual-layer active copper foil shield, and a passive silver-plated Nylon braid shield, Clearer Audio’s ‘Super Suppressor’ ferrite rings at both ends of the cable, and then terminated with WBT 0152 Ag Pure Silver nextgen RCA plugs. 

This impressive specification is backed up by equally impressive sound quality. Hi-Fi+ Editor Alan Sircom was especially taken by the way that, “everything really worked in harmony. Instead of that knife-edge between too flat and too edgy, the cable helped create more of a balanced platform of digital audio.” He concluded that “Silver-Line Optimus Reference 75 is more than up to the task and is certainly more than good enough to let any good digital audio shine.”

See: hifiplus.com/articles/clearer-audio-silver-line-optimus-reference-75-digital-cable/

Interconnect cable

Cardas Audio Clear Beyond

, Hi-Fi+ Awards: Cables

Building on the strengths of Clear interconnect cable, and the improvements brought about moving up from Clear to Clear Beyond loudspeaker cable, it was a logical choice for Cardas Audio to try to see what improvements could be made to Clear interconnects by giving them the Beyond treatment. Like Clear, Beyond is made of strands of Cardas’ own copper (Cardas has its own smelting furnace)… just more of it. These are wound into a quartet of 26.5 AWG copper conductors, individually insulated using an enamel coating, and then arranged in a star-quad geometry.

Hi-Fi+ Editor Alan Sircom felt Beyond “gives the listener all the things they like so much about Clear, and adds a little more separation, detail, microdynamics, and image depth, without any sacrifices in performance elsewhere.” He also felt it “manages to better combine the two goals of ‘sounding good’ and ‘sounding accurate’ even better than Clear. This is no mean feat, as Clear was one of the few that did this without falling into the ‘warmth’ trap.” Outstanding!

See: hifiplus.com/articles/cardas-audio-clear-beyond-interconnects/

 

Personal Audio Cable

Nordost Heimdall 2 headphone cable

, Hi-Fi+ Awards: Cables

Nordost’s Heimdall 2 headphone cables feature a seven-strand Litz configuration, with both 32AWG 7/40 conductors and ones that are formed from an even purer (99.99999% pure) grade of oxygen free copper. Heimdall 2 cables use Nordost’s Micro Mono-Filament technology, with the company emphasising that the cables employ “mechanically tuned lengths, which reduce internal microphony and high-frequency impedance resonance.” The Heimdall 2 cables sport attractive translucent red outer jackets. It can be supplied in a range of terminations. 

In our test, Hi-Fi+ Publisher Chris Martens felt “Heimdall 2 cables yielded several worthwhile sonic improvements, including more tautly defined but no less impactful bass, an across-the-board and evenly balanced increase in resolution, and a really impressive quality of top-to-bottom harmonic integrity,” and concluded that “The key, here, is that the Heimdall 2s deftly impart touches of heightened vividness, textural richness, and—above all—a sense of harmonic completeness, to everything they touch.”

Reviewed in Issue 145

Kimber Kable Axios

, Hi-Fi+ Awards: Cables

Kimber Kable’s Axios Axios headphone cables use a braided topology that harks back to the design of Kimber’s very first commercial products: namely, the braided 8-wire 4PR and 16-wire 8PR speaker cables. However, it also features a very flexible OFHC copper wire braid comprised of 16 FEP-insulated 24 gauge stranded conductors in a precision hand-braided process, and can be configured to fit myriad headphone terminations. 

It’s hard not to be impressed by the performance uptick Axios brings. Hi-Fi+ Publisher Chris Martens feels Axios offers the listener, “considerably finer resolution of low-level transient and textural details in the music, more focused and coherent rendition of layering within recordings (sometimes to the point of exposing low-level layers that had not been discernable through standard cables), superior bass control and pitch definition, and across-the-board improvements in soundstaging.” An award was almost mandatory!

See: hifiplus.com/articles/kimber-axios-headphone-cable/

 

Loudspeaker Cable

QED Supremus

, Hi-Fi+ Awards: Cables

QED was the company that gave us the ubiquitous 42-strand and 79-strand loudspeaker cables that were used almost universally in 1980s/1990s audio systems. Supremus aims for a more upmarket audience. At £1,160 for a 3m pair, Supremus hardly registers on the super-cable meter in price terms, but delivers a surprisingly cogent performance sonically. 

The Supremus design uses 16 silver-plated, 99.999% pure oxygen-free solid-core copper conductors, creating a 10AWG wire, with a cross-sectional area of 6.2mm2. The design of the cable itself uses QED’s AirCore technology to keep inductance low. In audition, the cable helped give the amplifier better control over the loudspeakers, with the sort of mid-band coherence, and glare-free treble that normally marks out more expensive speaker cable systems. But its overall sense of balance most impressed Hi-Fi+ Editor Alan Sircom, who said “QED’s Supremus gets tantalisingly close to being that One Cable To Rule Them All.”

See: hifiplus.com/articles/qed-supremus-loudspeaker-cable/

Power Cord

IsoTek EVO3 Ascension

, Hi-Fi+ Awards: Cables

IsoTek is perhaps best known for its power filters and conditioners, but in fact it has long made mains cables, often highly prized for their performance-to-value ratio. But, although it has long had the wherwithal to go for a more up-market design, it’s only now – with the launch of EVO3 Ascension – that the brand shifts into higher gear. This is not simply a ‘wingman’ mains cable, that one might buy because of the high performance of other devices, EVO3 Ascension is a fine power player in its own right. 

Ascension uses deep cryogenically treated silver-plated Ohno continuous cast copper conductors, wrapped in a dielectric of air, with partial FEP contact, with a secondary extruded FEP sleeve. Each conductor assembly is wrapped in Mylar with a further OFC shield before being given a slight rotational twist with FEP tubes of air. We were the one of the first outside of the IsoTek secret design bunker to have a chance to experiment with the EVO3 Ascension, and after 24 hours of running in, it can really deliver the musical goods. This £2,750 cable really lowers the noise floor and lets the soundstage breathe!

Review pending

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