I have not dived into the megabuck range of cables (Odin, Zensati, Transparent Opus, Acrolink) but have had considerable experience with not-so-cheap range of cables (aka below $3k). ASI Liveline is one of them, they do something really special in bringing that aliveness to the music but they can get expensive if one would like to wire the whole system with Liveline reference. Mogami is very nice if one is strictly on budget. There is one manufacturer though who is a sleeper but all his cables are outstanding for the money and much more. The manufacturer is from Germany with a company called Stereo-lux. He doesnt have an website. His name is Heiko Wingender and can be contacted at [email protected]. He is very well known among tonearm manufacturers because many high end tonearms use his tonearm cable for internal wiring. I have used his tonearm cable and speaker cables, both are phenomenal, I havent been able detect a signature sound of his cables. They just tend to sound neutral and correct. Heiko focusses a lot in designs which keeps signal's time and phase correct. He would not talk about soundstage and such. He uses high quality terminations everywhere. In the end I find it to be a super deal because they cost 1/3rd of a typical liveline cable and sounds as good or sometimes better than liveline. I would say it is more neutral than liveline. It is one of those cables that one can fit and forget about upgrades. |
