I had the distinct opportunity to demo the ZenWave Audio D2 Ultra and D4. I am comparing these cables to my High Fidelity CT-1 which is between my DAC and preamp. For details on the rest of my system and musical tastes, it can be found in my profile, so I won’t repeat it here. For those of you who prefer to get straight to the bottom line, these cables are very, very impressive. To understand what I mean, you first gotta know what I think of my High Fidelity CT-1’s (retail $1,600).
When I first heard the CT-1 in my system, it was absolutely transformative. There's a certain kind of smoothness the CT-1’s bring to the dance, and an incredibly palpable timbre of vocals.
OK, so let’s fast forward to the D2 Ultra. Compared to the CT-1, the D2 Ultra is a tad bit drier and not quite as detailed or cleaner. Both are equal in terms of sound stage, imaging, etc. Likewise, vocal quality is identical. However, the D2 Ultra had more emotional appeal (that’s hugely significant!). Understand that I am describing distinctions between these ICs by being hyper vigilant in an effort to identify these subtle nuances. Ninety-nine percent of listeners probably would not notice any differences at all. This speaks to the high quality sound and incredible value of the D2 Ultra. For a $1,000 less compared to the CT-1’s, you’re getting a pair of ICs that performs at a very high level.
Onward to the D4 – it has nearly the same level of clarity and detail retrieval as the CT-1, but the CT-1 is more musical. The D4 is a bit brighter than both the D2 Ultra and CT-1. However, the D4 is slightly softer in the vocals. The D4 is just as dynamic at the extremes, but there’s less dynamic interplay between the instruments and the vocals, if that makes any sense. In other words, the instruments seem to align more closely with the volume of the vocals.
I would say that in terms of clarity and detail, the D4 is the clear winner over the D2 Ultra, but not quite as good as the CT-1. Now here’s where it gets tricky – I would choose the D2 Ultra over the D4 for two reasons – lower cost and emotional connection. In spite of the fact that the D2 Ultra did not have quite the detail and clarity of the D4, I was much more emotionally absorbed in the music. This was surprising. After first hearing the D2 Ultra, I was expecting the D4 to best it. Yes, it did overall, but not in the most important category – how the music made me feel.