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
Kitch29, I suspect it would destroy the coherence of the pacing. I am getting very boring on PRAT I know, but happen to believe that many audiophiles get lost in failing to distinguish between the sound and the music, and that this is the reason why so many keep getting dissatisfied with their systems soon after being blown away by the last change they made.

I am also getting boring on reporting changes in the sound, but yesterday and today there was a surprising (to me)change that stripped the unwanted warmth I have referred to before out of the picture altogether, and the bass came up into better balance at low volumes - I have no idea whether this will continue.

To be honest, almost regardless of how these cables end up sounding in a tonal sense, I am going to find it difficult to go back to anything else, because the PRAT is outstanding, and what is keeping me enthused through a sometimes ugly burn-in process.
Kitch29 - I will eat my hat now because I think you are right. I took the OTA speaker cables out and put in my Wireworld Golden Eclipse III cables and something sounded more right about the whole thing. Listening some more I was not happy with the smearing I was now hearing from my panels (I drive Martin Logans with tubes), but the powerful bass of the OTA interconnects was great to hear. The OTA as an IC works very well in my system. The bass may be a wee bit dry, but otherwise is very powerful and tight, and goes way down. Bothered by the reduction in resolution up top I put the OTA back on the panels but left the Wireworld on the bass, and then for another permutation used a double run of the Wireworld on the bass (which improved things in a variety of ways including eliminating the dryness). It is clear to me now that the OTA as a speaker cable between my tube amps and the woofers was strangling things. I will have to listen to this some more, but there is no loss of pacing as I had feared. What is odd is that the panels sound better now than when I had the OTA on the bass. This suggests to me my tube amps were just not liking something about the OTA speaker cable on the bass and its performance in the upper frequencies was being affected.

Boy, does the system boogie now.
Kiwi, so you presently have OTA everywhere BUT the woofers. The set-up being, tube-to-tube to the Logans / analogue & digital sources?
Pls excuse *my* confusion -- nothing to do with your postings.
Thanks!
Greg
Just digital sources, but otherwise correct Gregm.

From what I can tell, some of the other guys trying this cable (but who are wisely keeping their powder dry) are liking it but not necessarily getting the same results. I find as an interconnect the OTA is vivid, fast punchy, even forward, with room-filling sound, but possibly slightly recessed on top. In particular the bass is stunning - incredibly fast, firm and extended - maybe a bit dry. On the panels of my MLs the sound is wonderfully resolved and vibrant. No other speaker cable I have gets even close to resolving cymbals and sibilance, and having it on the panels cures the sense of reticence on top. But with the OTA on the woofer of my MLs there is good and bad. The bass is fast - drums in particular are very life-like (I suspect because it handles transients so well), but other bass sounds can be a bit uneven. I don't think this is a burn-in issue but it might be. Therefore I am taking the OTA woofer cables off my system and putting it on my daughters' system, and I will just leave it there for a month before retrying it. Right now the results with garden hose on the woofers sounds better - interestingly, in the upper mids and lower treble as well.