5 speaker cables, reviewed in UHF

Everything we’ve said about interconnects also applies to speaker cables, but there’s more. Speaker cables must carry many watts of current, not mere milliwatts or even microwatts. Because the operating impedance is so low), the cable must have very low impedance itself. This isn’t as easy as it looks
On our Omega system we played four LP’s. We listened to all four with our reference, a Wireworld Eclipse III. Our Suprema speakers are biwired, but the connectors of the top part and the subwoofer bass are far apart. The Eclipse cable can be pulled apart to reach, but the other cables couldn’t. So we kept the Eclipse cable for the subwoofers. However the test cables handled everything from 50 Hz up.

Pierre Gabriel L3

   We know the company’s work, since we use some of its superb ML2 interconnects in our reference systems, but we had never tried its loudspeaker cables.
     They’re expensive, yes. Pierre Gabriel (the “Gabriel” is for the archangel) doesn’t just order wires from an overseas wire mill. It buys fine silver filaments, insulates them individually, and assembles them inside a large protective sleeve. Or actually two sleeves...one per conductor. There is no attempt to spiral them together or to mount them coaxially -- each travels separately. The company’s interconnects are also built this way, but with very fine strands, since resistance is not a factor. In a speaker cable it is, so it takes a lot of those strands to make it up.
     You get a choice of WBT-0645 angled bananas, or WBT-0660 auto-locking spade lugs. Ours came with the bananas, which we prefer.
     We opened the session with Trittico, the energetic title piece from the Dallas Wind Symphony’s blockbuster LP (Reference Recordings RR-52). “This cable sounds very different from our reference cable,” said an almost breathless Reine. “The brass is really bright, the way real brass is supposed to be, and there’s a lot of great impact to the percussion.” The complex orchestral sound had superb coherence. The top end was smooth, but without loss of even a modicum of detail. Albert praised the ample and open sound, though he noted that the Eclipse cable was no slouch in that department either.
     We continued with Walton’s Façade (RR-16), whose multitude of well-recorded instruments is a test for pretty much everything. We were struck by the sheer amplitude of the opening segment (we had not, of course, touched the volume control). It was easy to separate the instruments of the Chicago Pro Musica, because the timbre of each seemed more naturally itself. That made for a clearer stereo image. The improvement was musical as well as technical, with trills and counterpoints rendered vividly. The piece’s sense of fun came across wonderfully.
     The performance on Lady Be Good from Jazz at the Pawnshop was remarkable. All of the instruments, from piano to vibraphone to string bass, had extra body, but with no compromise in naturalness of tone. We were better able to follow the sometimes clashing melodies of the musicians, as though we were present. Even the applause seemed a little more natural. The only complaint came from Gerard: “Some of the drunks in that pub won’t shut up,” he grumbled, “and with this cable you can hear them even more clearly.”
     We were also impressed with the improvements on Eric Bibb’s Needed Time from the LP version of Good Stuff (Opus 3 LP19401). From the first chords we were struck by the “rightness” of the instrumental sound. Indeed, the two guitars, one of them a bottleneck, were easier to distinguish during their complex interplay. Bibb’s voice was detailed, but without the coolness of tone that sometimes accompanies extra detail. “There was nothing missing with our reference cable,” said Reine, “and yet this one somehow recovers more.” Gerard noted the minor percussive effects, which were clearer yet in perfect balance with the rest. Albert was impressed with the depth and image. “You don’t notice the depth that much on this recording,” he said, “but there really is more of it.”
     This is the first and only time we have heard any cable outperform our Wireworld Eclipse, but the victory is achieved at high cost. The 2.5m long L3 costs a whopping C$3500 (about US$2200). And that’s for a single cable -- you need two to biwire. The Eclipse, which is biwire ready, if outfitted with the same connectors would have cost “only” C$2320 (US$1460), a third of the price.
     Can the L3 be worth that? In the context of an expensive system, certainly. We are in fact buying it for our Omega system. But we're not getting two -- the subwoofer sections of our speakers will be driven by Wireworld Polaris cables, the single version of the Eclipse. Our existing Eclipse moves to the Alpha system.
     But we wondered about the other Pierre Gabriel cable we had on hand. Could it sound even half as good?

(That is an entire section from the full set of five reviews). Parts of the other reviewes follow. To read the whole thing, just order issue 63 at our secure server.)

Pierre Gabriel L2
     This cable, also nicely made, with WBT connectors, is substantially cheaper, at C$2500 (US$1575). Even so, it is more expensive than our Eclipse reference cable.
     We’ve never really figured the company’s method for naming cable models, but suffice it to say that this cable, with construction similar to the L3, has fewer silver strands.
     We were surprised by the sound of Trittico, as will anyone who associates silver wire with bright, “forward” sound. The instruments of the Dallas Wind Symphony seemed more distant, even muted. Still, there was lots of detail, and transients were quick. The bottom end was solid, the textures rich. Not bad...but could “not bad” be good enough?

Van den Hul Inspiration
     If you read our review of the van den Hul Integration interconnect cable in UHF No. 62, you already know a lot about the Inspiration. Both are made the same way. Copper, zinc and silver are vaporized in a vacuum in a powerful magnetic field. They are cooled within a fraction of a second to form amorphous metal, with no crystals. A. J. van den Hul says crystal barriers become significant at very low signal levels.
     We had two samples of the Inspiration, one for biwiring (shown above), the other for single wiring. They are the same cable, with the double one separated into two distinct bundles. The prices are the same. For the reason already mentioned, we used the single one.
     The session began with Trittico, and we were impressed with what we heard. There was lots of power and impact, without shrillness. Larger brass instruments had body, and the higher ones shone brightly. The bell in the opening sequence rang convincingly. This was a good cable, we agreed, but different from our reference. Which was right...if either?

Harmonic Technology Pro-9
     Instead of no crystals, like the Inspiration, Harmonic Technology uses single crystal wires. The technique is the same as that used for the interconnect reviewed in this issue.
     The Pro-9 uses a bundle of four wires billed as 9AWG (pronounced “nine gauge”). It’s actually a bundle of 16 smaller single crystal wires, varying between 20AWG and 24AWG. They are individually insulated with foamed polyethylene. The rest of the 2.5 cm outer jacket is filled with air.
     Our sample came with locking bananas with a striking resemblance to those of WBT, though different in color and trim. They locked effectively into our binding posts. The cable is also available with spade lugs which -- like the cable itself -- is cast into a single crystal (that isn’t the case of the banana, which is larger and more complex). Like the van den Hul, the Pro-9 can be terminated as a biwire pair or as a heavier single cable.

Eichmann eXpress
     Here’s a cable more likely to find its way into affordable systems. Like the interconnect from the same Australian company, reviewed in this issue, it is inexpensive: C$149 (equivalent to US$93) for a 2.5m length. At that price it comes with spade lugs, or -- like our sample -- with bananas.
     Those bananas are as metal-free as they can be made, and the wire is just slipped in, without solder. The rather stiff wire itself has two conductors of unequal size, conforming to Keith Eichmann’s “Eichmann ratio.”
     Let us mention again, for the benefit of those who dozed off during the first part, that not all cables sound the same. In particular, large inexpensive cables, despite their size, tend to sound downright toxic. They’re a poor way to save money. We should add that you can also get those miserable results having spent thousands of dollars...in the wrong place. But hey, that’s why we’re here!

Complete articles from this issue:
Soundproofing, Big Screen TV's to Stay Away From, Passion A11, State of the Art

Excerpted articles from this issue:
Comparing the Incomparable: Listening in the Store, Antique Sound Lab Leyla, Vecteur Espace, Two Interconnects, Five Speaker Cables, Four Power Cords


		(Reprinted from issue 63 of UHF Magazine. To purchase the issue, click here. Or click here to subscribe to UHF) Five Speaker Cables A good speaker cable can help your system sound its best. Or it can make you think you should have bought Enron stock instead.
If you like what you see in these sample articles, get all of UHF by subscribing Do the concepts of high end hi-fi give you a headache? Take 20 minutes for the UHF Hi-Fi Course. Trying to reach UHF? Our contact page tells you how to find us.
		Everything we’ve said about interconnects also applies to speaker cables, but there’s more. Speaker cables must carry many watts of current, not mere milliwatts or even microwatts. Because the operating impedance is so low), the cable must have very low impedance itself. This isn’t as easy as it looks On our Omega system we played four LP’s. We listened to all four with our reference, a Wireworld Eclipse III. Our Suprema speakers are biwired, but the connectors of the top part and the subwoofer bass are far apart. The Eclipse cable can be pulled apart to reach, but the other cables couldn’t. So we kept the Eclipse cable for the subwoofers. However the test cables handled everything from 50 Hz up. Pierre Gabriel L3 We know the company’s work, since we use some of its superb ML2 interconnects in our reference systems, but we had never tried its loudspeaker cables. They’re expensive, yes. Pierre Gabriel (the “Gabriel” is for the archangel) doesn’t just order wires from an overseas wire mill. It buys fine silver filaments, insulates them individually, and assembles them inside a large protective sleeve. Or actually two sleeves...one per conductor. There is no attempt to spiral them together or to mount them coaxially -- each travels separately. The company’s interconnects are also built this way, but with very fine strands, since resistance is not a factor. In a speaker cable it is, so it takes a lot of those strands to make it up. You get a choice of WBT-0645 angled bananas, or WBT-0660 auto-locking spade lugs. Ours came with the bananas, which we prefer. We opened the session with Trittico, the energetic title piece from the Dallas Wind Symphony’s blockbuster LP (Reference Recordings RR-52). “This cable sounds very different from our reference cable,” said an almost breathless Reine. “The brass is really bright, the way real brass is supposed to be, and there’s a lot of great impact to the percussion.” The complex orchestral sound had superb coherence. The top end was smooth, but without loss of even a modicum of detail. Albert praised the ample and open sound, though he noted that the Eclipse cable was no slouch in that department either. We continued with Walton’s Façade (RR-16), whose multitude of well-recorded instruments is a test for pretty much everything. We were struck by the sheer amplitude of the opening segment (we had not, of course, touched the volume control). It was easy to separate the instruments of the Chicago Pro Musica, because the timbre of each seemed more naturally itself. That made for a clearer stereo image. The improvement was musical as well as technical, with trills and counterpoints rendered vividly. The piece’s sense of fun came across wonderfully. The performance on Lady Be Good from Jazz at the Pawnshop was remarkable. All of the instruments, from piano to vibraphone to string bass, had extra body, but with no compromise in naturalness of tone. We were better able to follow the sometimes clashing melodies of the musicians, as though we were present. Even the applause seemed a little more natural. The only complaint came from Gerard: “Some of the drunks in that pub won’t shut up,” he grumbled, “and with this cable you can hear them even more clearly.” We were also impressed with the improvements on Eric Bibb’s Needed Time from the LP version of Good Stuff (Opus 3 LP19401). From the first chords we were struck by the “rightness” of the instrumental sound. Indeed, the two guitars, one of them a bottleneck, were easier to distinguish during their complex interplay. Bibb’s voice was detailed, but without the coolness of tone that sometimes accompanies extra detail. “There was nothing missing with our reference cable,” said Reine, “and yet this one somehow recovers more.” Gerard noted the minor percussive effects, which were clearer yet in perfect balance with the rest. Albert was impressed with the depth and image. “You don’t notice the depth that much on this recording,” he said, “but there really is more of it.” This is the first and only time we have heard any cable outperform our Wireworld Eclipse, but the victory is achieved at high cost. The 2.5m long L3 costs a whopping C$3500 (about US$2200). And that’s for a single cable -- you need two to biwire. The Eclipse, which is biwire ready, if outfitted with the same connectors would have cost “only” C$2320 (US$1460), a third of the price. Can the L3 be worth that? In the context of an expensive system, certainly. We are in fact buying it for our Omega system. But we're not getting two -- the subwoofer sections of our speakers will be driven by Wireworld Polaris cables, the single version of the Eclipse. Our existing Eclipse moves to the Alpha system. But we wondered about the other Pierre Gabriel cable we had on hand. Could it sound even half as good? (That is an entire section from the full set of five reviews). Parts of the other reviewes follow. To read the whole thing, just order issue 63 at our secure server.) Pierre Gabriel L2 This cable, also nicely made, with WBT connectors, is substantially cheaper, at C$2500 (US$1575). Even so, it is more expensive than our Eclipse reference cable. We’ve never really figured the company’s method for naming cable models, but suffice it to say that this cable, with construction similar to the L3, has fewer silver strands. We were surprised by the sound of Trittico, as will anyone who associates silver wire with bright, “forward” sound. The instruments of the Dallas Wind Symphony seemed more distant, even muted. Still, there was lots of detail, and transients were quick. The bottom end was solid, the textures rich. Not bad...but could “not bad” be good enough? Van den Hul Inspiration If you read our review of the van den Hul Integration interconnect cable in UHF No. 62, you already know a lot about the Inspiration. Both are made the same way. Copper, zinc and silver are vaporized in a vacuum in a powerful magnetic field. They are cooled within a fraction of a second to form amorphous metal, with no crystals. A. J. van den Hul says crystal barriers become significant at very low signal levels. We had two samples of the Inspiration, one for biwiring (shown above), the other for single wiring. They are the same cable, with the double one separated into two distinct bundles. The prices are the same. For the reason already mentioned, we used the single one. The session began with Trittico, and we were impressed with what we heard. There was lots of power and impact, without shrillness. Larger brass instruments had body, and the higher ones shone brightly. The bell in the opening sequence rang convincingly. This was a good cable, we agreed, but different from our reference. Which was right...if either? Harmonic Technology Pro-9 Instead of no crystals, like the Inspiration, Harmonic Technology uses single crystal wires. The technique is the same as that used for the interconnect reviewed in this issue. The Pro-9 uses a bundle of four wires billed as 9AWG (pronounced “nine gauge”). It’s actually a bundle of 16 smaller single crystal wires, varying between 20AWG and 24AWG. They are individually insulated with foamed polyethylene. The rest of the 2.5 cm outer jacket is filled with air. Our sample came with locking bananas with a striking resemblance to those of WBT, though different in color and trim. They locked effectively into our binding posts. The cable is also available with spade lugs which -- like the cable itself -- is cast into a single crystal (that isn’t the case of the banana, which is larger and more complex). Like the van den Hul, the Pro-9 can be terminated as a biwire pair or as a heavier single cable. Eichmann eXpress Here’s a cable more likely to find its way into affordable systems. Like the interconnect from the same Australian company, reviewed in this issue, it is inexpensive: C$149 (equivalent to US$93) for a 2.5m length. At that price it comes with spade lugs, or -- like our sample -- with bananas. Those bananas are as metal-free as they can be made, and the wire is just slipped in, without solder. The rather stiff wire itself has two conductors of unequal size, conforming to Keith Eichmann’s “Eichmann ratio.” Let us mention again, for the benefit of those who dozed off during the first part, that not all cables sound the same. In particular, large inexpensive cables, despite their size, tend to sound downright toxic. They’re a poor way to save money. We should add that you can also get those miserable results having spent thousands of dollars...in the wrong place. But hey, that’s why we’re here! Complete articles from this issue: Soundproofing, Big Screen TV's to Stay Away From, Passion A11, State of the Art Excerpted articles from this issue: Comparing the Incomparable: Listening in the Store, Antique Sound Lab Leyla, Vecteur Espace, Two Interconnects, Five Speaker Cables, Four Power Cords [TABLE OF CONTENTS] [BACK HOME]