Harmonic Technology CyberLight Wave & P2A interconnects Manufacturer's Comment

Manufacturer's Comment

Editor: We want to thank Michael Fremer for his stunning subjective description of CyberLight cables in his system. We deeply appreciate his willingness to express so deeply what he has heard. We also want to thank John Atkinson's willingness to take our product into the lab. JA's measurement has put our engineers under stress; they can't understand how it differs so much from their own. We will examine our cable carefully and, if we may, ask Mr. Atkinson a few questions about his test setup so we can duplicate conditions. It is an honor for us to have a review in Stereophile, no matter how controversial. Thank you.—Jim Wang, Harmonic Technology

I got word of bad measurements from these cables from independent sources before JA did his, and I could have lobbied for [the review's] withdrawal in order to avoid embarrassment and possible damage to my reputation. However, I chose to let it go, whatever the consequences. I stand by what I heard, and I still like what I hear. If I chose sources based on measurements, I'd have chucked my LPs and switched to CDs a long time ago. I'm glad I didn't, and I stand by my belief that LPs sound much more like real music than do CDs.

However, just as I wouldn't use LP test records as measurement tools when we have CDs that do a better job, I will continue to use the CyberLight cables, though mostly only for pleasure listening. When reviewing equipment, I will rely more on conventional cables, just as I listen to both LPs and CDs when reviewing nonsource components. If readers lose trust in my listening abilities because of the disparity between what I heard and what JA measured, those are the breaks.Michael Fremer

My test setup was the simplest possible: Audio Precision System One signal generator set to a source impedance of 50 or 600 ohms driving the balanced interconnect, which was looped back into the System One's input, this set first to a 100k ohm load, then to 600 ohms. So disturbed was I by the measurements of the balanced samples HT had sent me that I measured one of the unbalanced sets that MF had been using. The result was no different. I then repeated the tests on the unbalanced samples using a completely different set of test equipment, the Miller Audio Research QC Suite, which is based on a National Instruments generator/analyzer PC card. The results were again identical.John Atkinson

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