Category: Cables
I was looking forward to audtioning Robert Lee's new highest reference Acoustic Zen interconnects & speaker wires which he calls the Absolute. They represent his latest thinking regarding the state of the art in his house of wires. About two years ago I had gone through a lengthy audtion process, which included five highly regarded sets of wires from well known companies, untill I decided to replace all my wires with AZ Silver reference II & Matrix reference II and Satori speaker wire. I'm a great fan of AZ for two major reasons;1) They offer great "bang for the buck" out standing performance for the cost ratio.2) They have,for me, a wonderful combination of tight/powerful bass,great details,transparency,dynamics,natural timbres, along with being musical and a smooth "sense" of ease. The process of audtioning the Absolute began with inserting a Absolute interconnect between my DAC and PRE-AMP along with putting the Absolute speaker wire in. Since I bi-amp there are four sets of interconnects so I put the Absolute interconnect at the front of the system. Well, it turned out to be a very gratifying experience! It not only tremendously improved the above stated virtues but added the following;1) A giant soundstage with excellent layering of players in a sense of real space.2)A sriking sense of air/three-dimensionality around everyone in the soundstage.3)Much improved/natural timbres.4)The new cables added that wonderful "organic/musicality" that I think we all strive for in our systems. It strongly reminded me of the experience I had when I audtioned my Pass Labs-350.5 to my then current amp an Edge NL-10. The Edge, which is still a great amp with many reference level characteristics, just kinda sounded sterile compared with the musicality of the 350.5. I know thats a very subjective way of explaining my experience, but its hard to use objective language at times to explain why a component just sounds more like the experience of real music. These wires are not inexpensive(2000.00 for the interconnects and 2800.00 for the speakers wires) but offer so much without any apparent shoutcomings that I think they are very fairly priced and compete with many reference level wires at a much lower price.So I think Mr. Lee has done it again, great sound at a reasonable price! As a final note I want to mention, even though we all know it all ready, that important factor of system matching and synergy long with your personnal taste make home audtioning a must for us serious audiophiles! I highly recommend you try these wires out if your a fan of AZ or looking to upgrade you wires in your sytem.
Associated gear Click to view my Virtual System
