Audioquest Cables for Calming treble

There are many cable brands that give you more for your money than Audioquest. Try Audience AU24 or Acoustic Zen Matrix Ref. II. These are both fundamentally neutral cables with a slight treble roll-off. Cardas Golden Reference is another one you can try, but it costs more. You can listen to many different cables by using the Cable Co's rental program. Rent applies toward purchase. I have no affiliation with them, just a satisfied customer.

I agree with Nighthawk. You can do SO MUCH better than AudioQuest with your money. I used AudioQuest for years and had great results so I paid the premiums. I was using the AudioQuest Ananconda ($1000.00 1M) and their Volcano ($2000.00 2M) and then tried the Audience AU24 interconnects ($499.00 1M) and the Speaker Wire $995.00 2M).

The Audience not only bettered the AudioQuest but it pretty much embarrassed it on my system in terms of presentation and just being more muscial. I quickly sold the AQ and bought an Apple Ipod and a CD burner with the money I saved on the Audience. You can buy the Audience for great prices here on AudiogoN.

BTW: Do not buy the Caldera. I purchased it before the Volcano and was very displeased. They discontinued it for a good reason..
I wish you luck!

KiD

Thanks for your guys help. Another issue is cost, I am seriously looking at 3 audioquest cv 6 with dbs for a great price, $500 total. If you have any suggestions of cables that would be better value please let me know. I am very interested in the Nordost solar wind too, but fear the high silver content would brighten my already bright system.

Thanks

JWH

James,

Check out www.audience-av.com. You can purchase the Conductor Series or their Maestro Series in your price range if not below. I have an Audience Conductor Cord for my iPod which sounds Awesome.

The best sounding AQ stuff is their Perfect Surface Silver which is just priced too high in my oppinion. I would not classify the CV-6 as having a warm or laid back character either. The Volcano I was using used the same PSC+ conductors. When I hooked up the Audience, everything moved back much further behind the speakers and had a more liquid and relaxed sound.

Check out the Audience Stuff, You will not be disapointed.

Good Luck.

Chris

I'm a big fan of Audience and Acoustic Zen as well.

They have the attributes I think you're looking for and don't sacrifice detail, soundstaging or dynamics in a significant manner. In fact I think they excel in those areas as well. The AZ Matrix Ref II interconnects are very full sounding, relatively detailed and very smooth. The AZ Hologram II speaker cables have similar characteristics. The AZ Silver Ref II share the same Acoustic Zen smoothness but in a silver design, so they are more revealing and project a very good soundstage.

I'm currently in the process of breaking in a pair of Ridge Street Audio Poiema speaker cables, and these seem to share many of the same positive traits as the Acoustic Zen and Audience speaker cables.

Good luck.

People seem to be swaying you away from Audioquest, which is certainly fine. I use Acoustic Zen as well (speaker cables), and would certainly consider them a viable option. That aside I do have one AQ Python cable that I think is quite OK and wanted to mention that the older Audioquest Opal cables are pretty cheap on the used market and would probably fit your agenda. I listened to an Opal interconnect that I borrowed from a dealer some time back and remember liking them quite a bit, even though I did not end up purchasing them. Good luck with your search.

Perhaps one day, cables would be discussed here for what they are in generic form. Basically, the above conversion is about the sound of solid core copper and mono crystal stranded copper with the variable of dielectric/terminations. Learn the sound of metals/dielectrics/terminations and save yourself lots of time-money.

OK Reb1208, I, for one, would like to hear a more technical explanation of why various cables sound the way they do. Could you give a description of the sound of various metals/dielectrics/terminations that you are familiar with? Also, what about geometry and shielding effects?

May I suggest that you spend some time over at AA- Cable Forum Archives first. Don't have the time right now.