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Sakura Systems OTA Cable Kit

Has anyone tried this "minimalist" cable kit? After receiving a recommendation from someone with similar musical values to myself, and whose ears I trust, I could not resist ordering one. I will report on how they sound in a few weeks, but am interested in others' opinions too.

For those that have not heard about them look at www.sakurasystems.com for an interesting read. The cable sounds as if it is very close to the specification of the conductors in Belden Cat5. So I may have spent around 100 times what the kit is worth. We shall see.

If you have not heard this cable, please don't bother posting your opinions of how it MUST sound here. Nor am I that interested in hearing how stupid I must be to order this kit - it's my money and you are free to make different decisions with yours. Sorry for this condition, but I am bored with those that have nothing positive to offer on this site, and post their opinions based on deductive logic rather than actual experience.
redkiwi
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,354 posts
 
I have approx. 250 hours on both the IC's and the speaker cable at this point and have been running it in 7 hour stretches with an hour or so of rest between them. The sound has been fairly stable past 200 hours and I wonder if the deviation that I am hearing is just my regular electrical fluctuations being somehow more noticeable due to the clarity of the cable. I am going to give it another week (150 hours) to see if this is the case before posting. This is by far the best that the system has ever sounded though and I have already switched out IC's a couple of times for a reality check.
asa
662 posts
 
You know guys, everything you've said - and its all very good (thank you...) - sounds very familiar to my reactions to Kondo's AudioNote cables. They are also bare wire connected and use thin strand conductors. Sound? Also "vibrant", extremely "dynamic" without "smearing", pressurize a room with sound that is not necessarily from the lowest octaves, etc etc. Hmmmm... After many years of audio psycho-pathology, I too am past the need for "substantial connectors". Any comments on Kondo/Sakura comparison? Do you think its simply a coincidence that both designs emanate from minds that see their designs in terms of Zen-like simplicity? Most professional, knowledgable, well thought out thread I've seen here, by the way.
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,354 posts
 
Asa: Please include your detailed observations on the Audio Note cable and we can, at least, compare the cables in this thread for a start. If it is of a similar design (the OTA is .4 mm, or 26 gage solid core copper wire with a thick Teflon, I think, insulation and retails for $600.00US with 50 meters of cable and enough RCA's to make up 3 sets of analog IC's) then the information will make a nice addition, I feel anyway as it will be more like comparing apples to apples. I also wonder how the OTA compares to the Mapleshade Double Golden Helix speaker cable which I was considering before going with the OTA kit (which offered better value for me as I can equip two systems with both speaker cable and IC's from the kit).
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,354 posts
 
I just received a flyer from Maplshade and they now have improved versions of their speaker cable (drat).
kublakhan
717 posts
 
get back on the merry-go-round, dekay. we're all still riding it.
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