It's not that we’re unhappy with the cables we already use. But these four interconnects and one digital cable came our way, and so we did some hard comparing.

How important to the sound of your music system are the interconnect cables? Not at all, according to certain magazines whose owners are a lot richer than we are. According to them you might as well buy your cables from Radio Shack or Home Hardware.
     But riches aren't measured just in dollars. These people may have lots of loose cash, but we suspect they don't have as much fun listening to music as we have. Or as you have probably.
     So let's set the record straight, not that we haven't before. The job that an interconnect cable must do--taking the audio signal across empty space from one electronic unit to another--is tremendously important. Spend a million on the rest of the system, and poor cables can give you ten cent sound. It's no wonder those same magazines have difficulty hearing differences among CD players and amplifiers.
     It remains an unfortunate fact that the theories as to what makes a good cable are wildly divergent, and some of them actually make voodoo sound like hard science. That's because ordering cable with your name on it from a wire mill takes a lot less brain power than designing an amplifier so it doesn't catch fire on start-up. As for "scientific" white papers, they're easy to write, especially if the goal is to hide information rather than reveal it.
     As for us, we have always been convinced that high fidelity doesn't happen by accident, and we are prepared at least to listen to the theories of someone who has created a product that sounds good. That includes cables, of course.
     The wire itself is never the whole story, though. We know from experience how important the connector is. A loose connection generates so much distortion that the result can be mistaken for a damaged loudspeaker. The best connection is a connection under pressure. More on this shortly.
     For this series of tests, we used our Alpha reference system, which includes, between CD player and preamplifier, a Wireworld Equinox cable with WBT Topline connectors. It served as a point of comparison, as we listened first through that cable, and then through each of the cables under test. We used two selections for the sessions. One is the scherzo from Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 (Reference Recordings RR-81CD), about as complex and well-recorded an orchestral piece as one can find. The other is Needed Time, a spiritual by blues singer Eric Bibb and his accompanying group, which has adopted the song title as its own name (Spirit and the Blues, Opus 3 CD19401). Its delicious subtleties were to reveal some interesting differences among cables...

Actinote MA
     This is a French cable (shown at left), supplied by the distributor who lent us the Vecteur amplifier reviewed in this issue. It costs $320 in Canada for a 1 m length, just under the $365 of our own cable in the same length (we actually use a 2 m length). We don't know much about the cable itself, which is hidden behind a black mesh jacket, but the connectors were familiar. They are WBT's 0144 Midline plugs, the same ones we offer as an option on Atlantis cable. They are soldered, not crimped, but like other WBT connectors they include a collar that lets you lock it into the jack under pressure. Near each end of the cable is a small plastic box, rather like the ones used by such manufacturers as MIT and Transparent Audio. Impedance matching networks of some sort?
     (By the way, "actinote" is also a type of asbestos, and it is the name of a very small insect. We don't know which, if either, lent its name to the cable.)

Van den Hul "The First" Ultimate
     At one time A. J. van den Hul was convinced that good cables should be made of silver, the best electrical conductor known. Though he hasn't abandoned this luxury material, some years ago he adopted another material with the exact opposite characteristic: carbon fibre. By comparison with silver, copper and other metals commonly used in electronics, carbon is a terrible conductor. The first carbon interconnect (actually called "The First") had a resistance of 30 ohms per meter, hundreds of times worse than the tiny fraction of an ohm of most cables.
     So why use a material that seems manifestly unsuited for the job...which is to conduct electricity?
     Well, consider the lengths manufacturers go to in order to get the most from their metal cables. They use oxygen-free copper, to retard the tarnishing (the oxidation) of the material. And they plate contact surfaces with gold for the same reason, since gold cannot tarnish. Carbon is extremely stable. It doesn't tarnish, and in fact A. J. likes to hold a match to a length of it to show that--despite what you'd expect--it won't burn. A. J. says that a ten year old metal cable, regardless of its composition, will have changed characteristics, whereas his carbon cables will perform identically 50 years from now.
     Our point of view on this is well known. Although we use a number of Equinox cables in our two systems, our Alpha system has a Van den Hul The Second cable between preamplifier and power amplifier. It is an outstanding cable in every way.
     Well...in every way but one. The connectors are well-finished, but they were a loose fit on every piece of gear we tried them with. If it were possible to terminate this cable anywhere but at the factory, we would crimp on some WBT connectors and have what could well turn out to be the best cable in the world.
     But on to this newest product from Van den Hul, a new version of "The First" dubbed "Ultimate." It uses more carbon fibres than ever, and it isn't exactly cheap, at $600 for a 1 m pair. It looks a lot like the lower-priced "The Second," but it is pink instead of medium brown. Yes, pink. But then A. J. likes to go to shows with an amplifier painted fire-engine red, so perhaps it figures.
     The connectors? They have a metal exterior--instead of the ceramic sleeve of "The Second--all gold-plated, but in other respects they are similar. They are a loose fit once again, unfortunately...

Pierre Gabriel PGI-L2
     Even to audiophiles who keep up with up-and-coming companies, Pierre Gabriel is not known as a cable maker. Its main claim to fame is its very good loudspeakers available in custom woods (see Working the Show in this issue). But this small Canadian company also makes pure silver cables. Designer Pierre Raymond believes the use of silver often serves as an excuse to push prices deep into four digits, but that this need not be. A one meter pair of PGI-L2 cables costs $549 in Canada (about $375 US).
     There are two central conductors, each made up of four individually insulated silver wires, connected with silver solder of course. Shielding is provided by a braid of copper plated with silver. Because the braid is connected at only one end (the end with the company logo), it protects the signal but doesn't carry it. This is what some manufacturers call "quasi-balancing," though that is of course a wild misnomer.
     The connectors are good ones: WBT-0144 Midline connectors, with the familiar collar to tighten the plug around and into the jack. You'll also notice a rigid tube that extends a good 7 cm behind the connector. That's for protection: silver is brittle and breaks easily. Even so, Pierre Gabriel warns against coiling the cable too tightly. The tube requires a good 15 cm of free space behind the equipment the cable is connected to.
     Like the preceding cable, the PGI-L2 sounded unlike most others...

Pierre Gabriel PGI-ML1
     It looks like a lot like the previous cable, with some obvious differences. It's bigger for one thing, which means leaving even more space behind the equipment (20 cm). The connectors look more expensive and they are: WBT-0150 Topline. They use solder connections, not crimping, because a crimped connector might well result in broken wire.
     The structure is similar to that of the L2, but with seven pure silver wires per side rather than four. A one-meter pair costs $1195 in Canada (about $815 US).
     Pure silver wire has a doubtful reputation in some quarters: it is seen as "bright," best reserved for tube electronics, whose circuitry would presumably have a mellowing effect on the music. Well, we do use a tube preamplifier but a large solid state power amplifier. No brightness on our system...just a lot of incredible detail! We listened religiously (and that's undoubtedly the right word) through Needed Time...

Prisma-Link Digital cable
     The last time we tested digital cables was in issue No. 46. It was then that we adopted our present reference cable, Wireworld Gold Starlight, the winner of that contest. It's too expensive ($500 Canadian for 1 m) for some systems, and so we cast about to find something more affordable. Only two less cheaper cables were judged acceptable: one from Straight Wire and the other from MIT, at about a third of the price of ours. Our experiences with cheaper cables ($100 Canadian or less) were not happy ones.
     Is there demand for an inexpensive digital cable? As more and more manufacturers bring out high-grade one-box CD players, the market potential of the digital cable is starting to look alarmingly like that of the buggy whip. Still, some audiophiles with decent but limited players are upgrading them by adding a digital-to-analog converter, and in many cases they are linking them with a wire we wouldn't use to bundle firewood.
     The Prisma-Link, at $99.95 (about $67.50 US) is cheaper than any acceptable digital cable we had tried before. As a bonus, it has unusually good connectors, gold-plated and Teflon-insulated...indeed they are as good as some cable makers use on their top products. The wire itself is of oxygen-free copper, with polyethylene insulation, and shielding accomplished jointly by the usual copper braid, Mylar wrap and solid aluminum foil. Installation is done with silver solder. The sleek green nylon mesh jacket makes it look more expensive than it is...

Would you like to read the full review of these five audio cables? Click here to order the print edition of UHF No. 56.