Review: Pure Note Titanium Interconnect
Category: Cables
This review evaluates some of the newest thinking in cable design using palladium wire. The three brands I chose were Silversmith, RS Audio, and Pure Note. My main focus was with 2m XLR interconnects between amp and preamp (see my system below). I also compared these cables to other pure silver cables from Siltech and Pure Note that I had on hand. All cables were burned in for 400 hours and I spent around 200 hours of listening. I used LP, CD, SACD formats with music ranging from rock to classical.
First, I must say I was very impressed with all of the aforementioned palladium cables. Most impressive was the improvement of the palladium vs. pure silver cables. This in my opinion is the solution to the sonic issues of sterility heard with silver cables. Palladium has the magic in the mids and highs that other metals cannot duplicate.
The most unique cable was the Pure Note Titanium and the overall winner of this review. Instead of the typical plastic cable jacket, the Pure Note cable is wound in a titanium alloy. Pure Note used a similar jacket in their old Epsilon line a few years back but it was mostly nickel. The idea of this metal jacket is to remove yet another level of signal masking dielectric. The cable jacket is very attractive, tough, light, and reasonably flexible.
The Silversmith palladiums are also top notch but are double the cost of the factory direct Pure Notes. I did favor the Silversmiths for ultimate purity but the Pure Notes had the best sound stage and focus. The RS Audio cables were last and to my ears were thinner and more brittle sounding.
Back to the Pure Note Titaniums. I had on hand Pure Note Paragon and Pure Note Epsilon Reference silver cables to compare. The Paragons are truly excellent cables for the money and easily bested the Epsilons in purity and imaging. The Titaniums excelled above the Paragons in foundation, imaging, and focus. These differences were not subtle in my system. Most stunning is the quiet or black background of the best recordings with these cables. The Pure Note Titaniums are for folks with reference grade components and a thick wallet. Some may consider their price a bargain to many of the ‘mainstream’ boutique brands after an audition.
Associated gear
Martin Logan CLS IIz, Martin Logan Depth subwoofers
LP: VPI TNT, SDS, JMW 12.5, Benz Ruby, ARC Phono
CD: Sony SCD-XA9000ES
Audio Research vt100 mk3 amp
Audio Research SP-11mk2 preamp
Similar products
Silversmith Palladium
RS Audio Palladium
Siltech Gen. 5 Compass Lake Silver/gold
Pure Note Paragon Silver
Pure Note Epsilon Reference Silver
