Cable Reviews

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Analog CornerCable ReviewsPhono Preamp ReviewsTurntable Reviews
Analog Corner # 247: Dr. Feickert Firebird turntable, Viva Fono MC phono preamplifier, AcroLink and Fono Acustica interconnects
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 11, 2024  |  First Published: Mar 01, 2016  |  0 comments
Dr. Feickert Analogue's top-of-the line turntable, the Firebird ($12,500), is a generously sized record player designed to easily accommodate two 12" tonearms. Its three brushless, three-phase DC motors, arranged around the platter in an equilateral triangle, are connected to a proprietary controller in a phase-locked loop (PLL); according to the Firebird's designer, Dr. Christian Feickert, a reference signal from just one of the motors drives all three—thus one motor is the master while the other two are slaves. (Man, today that is politically incorrect, however descriptively accurate.)
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Cable ReviewsGramophone DreamsHeadphone Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #82: IKIGAI Kangai-level cables, dCS Lina headphone amplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Feb 29, 2024  |  149 comments
Decades ago, when I was peddling million-dollar sound systems, an astute potential customer asked me: "If I buy your very expensive system, what will I get that I'm not getting with my less expensive system?" Smiling my best fatherly smile, I whispered to his ear, "Goosebumps, tears, and laughter."

With a slightly worried look, he asked, "How much did you say those silver cables cost?"

Thirty years later
Changing audio cables always changes the sound of my system, sometimes a lot but usually just a little. Typically, the sonic effects of cable changes are modest shifts in focus, tone, or transparency. But sometimes during blue moons I've seen a new set of cables turn a blah, dull, fuzzy system into a macrodynamic, microdetailed one. Or turn a cool, mechanical-sounding system into something fierce and mammalian.

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Analog CornerCable ReviewsPhono Preamp Reviews
Analog Corner #257: AJ Conti, Audio Research Reference Phono 3, TARA Labs Air Evolution cables
Michael Fremer  |  May 12, 2023  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2017  |  2 comments
As I began writing this column, the terrible news arrived that Armando "AJ" Conti, founder of Basis Audio, had died of a heart attack at 59. A talented designer of turntables and tonearms, AJ was one of the warmest and more thoughtful people in the High End. Whenever I entered the Basis room at a Consumer Electronics Show, I had to be prepared to spend the next hour or more talking with AJ—not only about audio, but about coffee, motorcycling, metallurgy, or any other of his many passions . . .
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Analog CornerCable ReviewsTonearm Reviews
Analog Corner #325: Acoustical Systems AXIOM Reference tonearm & AudioQuest Dragon Cables
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 23, 2022  |  3 comments
The AXIOM tonearm from acoustical systems (footnote 1)—the company prefers lowercase—has been on my To-Review list since I spotted it at Munich High End more than a few years ago, but for one reason or another, that never happened. Until now.
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Cable ReviewsGramophone Dreams
Gramophone Dreams #63: Cardas Beyond interconnect & loudspeaker cable
Herb Reichert  |  Aug 11, 2022  |  29 comments
I was born an obsessive reader and a compulsive tinkerer. During the '60s, I subscribed to Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Hot Rod, Car Craft, Motor Trend, Road & Track, and (of course) Stereo Review and High Fidelity. Every one of those magazines presented articles discussing the importance of upgrading stock wiring to better-quality "premium" wires, citing improved electrical performance and greater reliability.
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Cable ReviewsGramophone DreamsSolid State Preamp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #61: The Art of Cable: AudioQuest, Canare, Kondo & the HoloAudio Serene preamplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Jun 02, 2022  |  20 comments
I have this friend, a smart, good-looking young physicist from Argentina. Naturally, I call him "Gaucho." He lives in a glistening-white steel-and-glass apartment overlooking lower Manhattan. I visit him regularly, usually with a group of audio friends, mainly to compare recordings, drink wine, and talk hi-fi.
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Cable ReviewsHistoricalReference
What a Difference a Wire Makes
Ben Duncan  |  Jun 12, 2020  |  First Published: Dec 01, 1995  |  71 comments
Testing the RF transmission of Kimber Kable, up to 3GHz, at Ben Duncan Research Labs, in 2008. The resulting proof of RF rejection was published on-line by Russ Andrews Accessories in England. (Photo: Naomi Swain).

Editor's Preface: In an article in the October 1995 issue of Stereophile, Professor Malcolm Omar Hawksford used Maxwell's Equations to develop a mathematical model describing the behavior of cables at audio frequencies. Among the predictions of this model were that for good conductors there exists an optimum size of wire for audio signal transmission, and that for a wire larger than this size an energy storage mechanism would exist. In his article Malcolm described a simple experiment, the results of which appeared to confirm his hypothesis.

Then serendipity struck. English engineer Ben Duncan, whose writings have occasionally appeared in Stereophile, sent me an article he had written for the pro-audio magazine Studio Sound. The results of a series of cable measurements he had performed seemed to confirm the Hawksford Hypothesis. We offer them here for your delight and delectation.—John Atkinson

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Cable Reviews
Kimber PBJ interconnect
Corey Greenberg  |  Feb 14, 2020  |  First Published: Jul 01, 1993  |  49 comments
It's always a jolting, life-renewing Ka-BLAM when a new experience shatters your preconceptions of the order of things. From the moment you realize your dad isn't running right alongside you as you fly down the sidewalk on your first two-wheeler, to when you become a made man, these experiences forever alter how you view yourself and the world around you.
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Cable Reviews
Transparent Music Link Reference interconnect & Music Wave Reference speaker cable
Wes Phillips  |  Jun 03, 2019  |  First Published: May 01, 1995  |  30 comments
"They cost WHAT? A hahahahahaaa!"

Nothing is more guaranteed to amuse non-audiophiles than the subject of high-end cable pricing. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh at you, but...bwah ha ha haaa!" Who can blame them? Even in the hi-fi camp, there are those who are convinced that wires are no more than hideously expensive tone controls. "Hmmpf, cackle. Snort!"

Others hold that, differences in resistance, capacitance, and inductance aside (footnote 1), the whole high-end cable market is just an exercise in mass self-delusion. "Really, how much are they?"

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Cable ReviewsPowerline Accessory Reviews
Nordost QKore system grounding accessories
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 10, 2019  |  27 comments
As a longtime user of Nordost's cable and AC-power products, my ears opened wide when they released their three QKore Ground Units and QKore Wire at High End 2017, in Munich. While I've never questioned the importance of proper electrical grounding, to prevent problems with safety and noise—the latter including measurable noise generated by transformers, appliances, LED lighting, power supplies, and Bluetooth, WiFi, and cellular devices—I couldn't fathom what difference a passive grounding device might make in a high-end system that, in my case, is fed by an 8-gauge dedicated line with its own copper ground rod driven into the terra infirma of the fault-ridden Pacific Northwest.
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Art Dudley ListeningCable Reviews
Listening #193: Nordost Flatline cables
Art Dudley  |  Dec 31, 2018  |  46 comments
Among the many bits of audio lore that never have and probably never will be aired in public is the story of the amp that ignited the reviewer's curtains. (I assume that at least some of you hoped I was going to say "pants.") I can't tell it in any great detail, partly because the reviewer in question is a friend (though not a Stereophile colleague), and I'm not sure how much of the story he wants out there. In any event, my object here is to offer a long-overdue apology, to all concerned, for having laughed at that story over the years, because it has now happened to me—not the part about the curtains, but definitely the part about the burning amp.
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Cable ReviewsReference
Lindsay-Geyer Highly Magnetic Cables
Dick Olsher  |  Mar 08, 2018  |  First Published: Feb 01, 1991  |  27 comments
Why cable again?

Well, the obvious reason is that it has been a while since my last foray into Cableland (July 1988). Many new products have been introduced in the interim, so it appeared appropriate to once again open Pandora's Box. Those of you who still remember my speaker cable article of 2½ years ago will recollect the considerable controversy that evolved from that project.

Some of the response was quite predictable, though the venom with which it was laced was not. The manufacturers of those outrageously priced "garden-hose"–type cables that I failed to rave about were more than just perturbed.

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Cable ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsMusic in the Round
Music in the Round #90: Merging+Player PL8
Kalman Rubinson  |  Mar 01, 2018  |  6 comments
Merging Technologies' original NADAC Multichannel-8 ($11,500) is an impressive device. (NADAC is an acronym for network-attached digital-to-analog converter.) It has eight channels of high-resolution D/A conversion, and two more for its front-panel headphone jack; a cutting-edge Ravenna Ethernet input (based on the AES67 Audio over Internet Protocol, or AoIP); and, to my delight, a real volume-control knob on the front.
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Art Dudley ListeningCable Reviews
Listening #164: Luna Cables
Art Dudley  |  Jul 26, 2016  |  136 comments
I should have seen this coming: Less than a year after the last time I railed against the darkness of cable reviewing—the indignity of crawling around behind my equipment rack, the tedium of comparing one wire to another, the frustration of trying to wring from the experience some fresh and hopefully entertaining observations, the horror of dealing with manufacturers whose hunger for good publicity borders on the vampiric—I have once again invited into my home a cable manufacturer and his wares.
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Audacious AudioCable Reviews
Nordost Valhalla 2 Reference cables
Brian Damkroger  |  Jun 23, 2016  |  45 comments
It would be an understatement to say that in 2001, when Nordost introduced their original Valhalla cables, they were a revelation for me. Their focus and resolution of detail were like nothing I'd ever heard, and revealed in recorded performances a startling energy and realism. Throw in their seemingly absolute transparency, and similarly unique levels of spatial and temporal precision, and the Valhallas established a new standard of sound quality in audio cables. Although their tonal balance was cool, as I reported in my first review of them in the November 2001 issue, they were the only game in town in terms of reproducing the feel of a live performance. I immediately adopted them as a reference cable, and they remain a reference for me today.
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