Cable Reviews

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Cable ReviewsGramophone DreamsPhono Cartridge Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #87: Deejay Coolosities, AudioQuest Yosemite tonearm cable, Nagaoka MP-110 phono cartridge
Herb Reichert  |  Jul 31, 2024  | 
SME’s Kathryn "Kat" Ourlian deejays a turntable shootout. Photo by Michael Trei.

One August night in 1965, I parked in the driveway of my best friend Derf Marko's house and let myself in the back door. As I entered, I could see to the bottom of the basement stairs, where I observed a loud pulsing darkness with plumes of agreeably acrid smoke floating up through the stairwell. Back in the darkness, I heard Derf/Fred and another person making declarative statements in loud unintelligible bursts. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Marko's basement rec room looked like a trashed-out tiki bar illuminated by a single red Christmas light hanging just above a Dual turntable. The room was dark to a point where it was impossible to walk without stepping on records or to make out who was there and what was going on. I slouched on a couch, closed my eyes, and let my mind follow the sounds of rock drummers wailing like angry cats.

Soon it was obvious: Marko was frantically playing one drum solo after another while some crazy old dude kept hollering for the next solo before the last one finished. The revved-up stranger kept slapping his knees, muttering, and drumming along with each different drummer. Stacks of unsleeved LPs littered the linoleum floor and pink wool couch I was slumping on. But unbelievably, Marko adeptly—without cursing, fumbling, or hesitation—located every solo he wanted.

I found out later that the crazed "old guy" was Ginger Baker!

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Cable ReviewsGramophone DreamsHeadphone Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #82: IKIGAI Kangai-level cables, dCS Lina headphone amplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Feb 29, 2024  | 
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 ReviewsTonearm Reviews
Analog Corner #325: Acoustical Systems AXIOM Reference tonearm & AudioQuest Dragon Cables
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 23, 2022  | 
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  | 
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  | 
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 ReviewsPowerline Accessory Reviews
Nordost QKore system grounding accessories
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 10, 2019  | 
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  | 
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 ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsMusic in the Round
Music in the Round #90: Merging+Player PL8
Kalman Rubinson  |  Mar 01, 2018  | 
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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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  | 
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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Art Dudley ListeningCable Reviews
Listening #164: Luna Cables
Art Dudley  |  Jul 26, 2016  | 
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  | 
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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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  | 
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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Analog CornerCable ReviewsMiscellaneousStand and Rack Reviews
Analog Corner #244: TARA Labs cables, Synergistic Research accessories, Stillpoints ESS rack
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 03, 2024  |  First Published: Dec 01, 2015  | 
Does everything produce an improvement?"

My skeptical visitor, to whom I'd just pointed out some of the acoustic treatments and other accessories in my listening room, wasn't trying to push my buttons. He just wanted my opinion.

"No," I said. "Some things make the sound worse—way worse—but after all these years, I'm convinced that just about everything that can be done to a room or a system produces an audible difference, for better or worse."

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Cable ReviewsThe Entry Level
The Entry Level #38
Stephen Mejias  |  Jan 28, 2014  |  First Published: Feb 01, 2014  | 
Last month, I wrote about Light Harmonic's use of Kickstarter to fund the final production and packaging of their Geek Out portable USB DAC–headphone amplifier. The campaign raised $303,061 from 2146 backers. That success led Light Harmonic to create a new division dedicated to mass-market products: LH Labs. The Geek Out would be its first product. (Pre-orders are still being accepted.) LHL's second product would be the Geek Pulse, a "pure class-A" desktop integrated amplifier–DAC capable of handling 32-bit/384kHz PCM files, as well as decoding native DSD64 and DSD128 files.
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Cable Reviews
Audience Au24 SE interconnect
Brian Damkroger  |  Dec 20, 2013  | 
A reader once noted that I tend to stick with the same reference gear longer than most reviewers. In addition to Audience's Au24e interconnect, I've been using Nordost's Valhalla, Nirvana's S-X, and Stereovox's SEI-600II for many years. They're ancient in audiophile terms, and, other than the Audience cables, have long since been discontinued or replaced. However, they are still excellent, and conveniently define a continuum of qualities that I use to assess cables. At one end, the Nordost Valhalla is sharply focused and excels at reproducing transients. At the other end, the Nirvana S-X strips away electronic grunge, and beautifully conveys the continuity of the space and musical flow. The Au24e and Stereovox are near the middle and share many—but not all—of the others' strengths.
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