Mini IC Cable Review

nathanm · « **on:** 31 Mar 2003, 06:26 pm »

I performed a shootout with three very exciting, albeit very different interconnect cables.

the ones I own:
Homegrown Audio Silver Lace DIY

RE Designs
Beldenator Reference XL 3422

Jena Labs
Trio Plus Ultra RCA

Shanling CD-T100---*IC*---ASL Twinhead preamp---*IC*---Norh SE-9---Norh Prism 6.6

The Homegrown Audio Silver Lace ICs I built are a wonder to behold. Silky smooth teflon covers veins of purest silver terminated to gold-plated locking RCA jacks. Eight strands of this magnificent conductive thread are braided together to form a cable that not only looks attractive, but has a firm lay and conducts electricity like there was no tomorrow. Before installing these cables in my system the sound was dark, veiled, almost inaudible. Only a quiet trebly whisper could be heard from the phono cartridge. With the HGI the room erupted with beautiful music! It was a truly "wow" reaction.

The Beldenator cables on the other hand, are not as pretty. But that's because they're all business. These cables have a can-do attitude and what they lack in visual splendor they more than make up for in their musical performance. Sure their jackets might be grey, but they aren't afraid to add a little visual flair with red and black anodized RCA barrels. It's what's inside that makes the Beldenators some of the most natural and musical cables I ever heard. The solder in which they are terminated shines like a mirror, ensuring each arpeggio comes through with full resplendence. The Beldenators are the blue collar workers of the stereo sytem. They do not add or subtract anything from the musical picture, not even if a little spit whistles a dischordant counter melody between the lips and teeth of Diana Krall. The Beldenators reveal all! The question is; can you handle the musical truth!?

Lastly we have the gorgeous Jena Labs cables. These are woven by the most skilled cable assemblers in all the land. Three thick ropes of god-like copper are encased in a translucent cocoon of insulation and braided together. Thick pieces of shrink tubing hold the cables to a set of Cardas RCA jacks kissed by the angels and wreathed in not one, but TWO rubber O-rings to form maximum gripping action. The result is an extremely stiff termination that you can push into place from a distance if space is tight at the back of the rack. These were by far the best sounding cables. When rubbed together they made a smooth thrumming sound with plenty of plastic warmth and just a hint of rhodium ring. When connected they sounded even more glorious, almost the equal match of the HG and the Beldenator. Because these cables have been cryo-treated they lend themselves especially well to "cold" wintertime music such as Immortal "Blizzard Beasts" or "A Very Special Johnny Mathis Christmas".

After numerous listening tests I could not say any of them sounded bad, it was mostly a question of what flavor of sound you are looking for. For precision and lack of artificial sweetness I would go with the Beldenator. If you want a bit of strident brightness and bass tautness I'd go with the HGs. The Jena Labs cables were somewhere in the middle, although as I said, they make you feel as if flakes of aural snow are falling gently in your listening room.

Thanks to Dan at RE and Kevin at SolarHiFi for providing their excellent wares for my evaluation. Thanks also to Homegrown for their silvery magic wires. You can't go wrong with any of these fine offerings. Never before have I experienced such an "I can hear the music!" feeling as when I used these fine products.

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #1 on:** 31 Mar 2003, 07:06 pm »

Thank you Nathan for taking the time to review the Belden #8422 cables.
d.b.

MaxCast · « **Reply #2 on:** 31 Mar 2003, 08:15 pm »

Nice review nathanm, you must be a moderate

audiojerry · « **Reply #3 on:** 1 Apr 2003, 03:34 pm »

NO WAY!!!There is an alien imposter occupying Nathan's body! Just read the prose - does all that flowery, metaphorical, gluck sound like the real Nathan?
The writing style is too pretty; ol' Nate has been abducted!

You want proof? Re-read what "Nathan" said about Dianna Krall.

Also, I am positive some of the narrative was plagerized from a porn
book. Look:

Quote

The result is an extremely stiff termination that you can push into place from a distance if space is tight

Very nicely written mini-review, whoever it is that wrote this.

Has anyone else had a chance to audition any of these cables in question?

BlackCat · « **Reply #4 on:** 1 Apr 2003, 08:02 pm »

hmmm...i was thinking that Nathan has taken a job as a reviewer at Stereophile and is just practicing.

Carlman · « **Reply #5 on:** 2 Apr 2003, 03:29 am »

I received Dan's cables (Beldenators?) yesterday. I just put them into my system tonight. I have 2 outputs from my CD player so, I've been A/B'ing them to my Kimber KC-1 cables. Initial impressions are that the imaging is a little tighter and the highs and upper midrange are a bit more unveiled.... but, the improvement is only 5-10% in these areas... It's not a knock-out yet but, a winner.

I'd like to keep them until my DAC gets back from being upgraded... which should be this weekend or early next week. I think the cables would make more of a difference from DAC to pre rather than CD to pre.... or at least, there would be more details to reveal to make a better comparison.

I'm looking forward to it.

-Carl

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #6 on:** 2 Apr 2003, 01:24 pm »

If you need to hold on to them a little longer that's O.K. I have another set coming back to me so if anyone else is interested please let me know.
I am beginning to like the name Beldenator. Thank you Nathan.

JoshK · « **Reply #7 on:** 2 Apr 2003, 05:23 pm »

I'd be willing to audition them fairly. What do I need to do?

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #8 on:** 2 Apr 2003, 05:51 pm »

Josh; send me your address, and when I get a set back, I will send them to you.
d.b.

Xi-Trum · « **Reply #9 on:** 2 Apr 2003, 06:30 pm »

Quote from: audiojerry

Has anyone else had a chance to audition any of these cables in question?

I got the ICs from Brad. Perhaps Brad can add a word or two on this.

Nathan, I thought I just read an excerpt from a romance novel.

Nice review!

[edit: can't spell]

Audio Al · « **Reply #10 on:** 2 Apr 2003, 09:36 pm »

Nathan... or whomever is occupying his body at this time,

Didn't know you had the ASL Twinhead in your system. I haven't read any reviews of that pre and would like to hear your impressions and comparisons to other gear. I'm also very interested in hearing about the headphone amp.

BTW, if cryo treated cables sound best on wintertime music, would heat treated cables sound best on summertime music?

nathanm · « **Reply #11 on:** 2 Apr 2003, 10:00 pm »

Oh come on people, it was a joke review! A farce! Satire! Comedy! You guys didn't believe any of that baloney did ya?

Oh wait, I guess you did... MUWHAHAHA!!!

Real review: All cables sounded the same IMO. I was not kidding about the build quality comments however, even though I delivered the message with humor\hyperbole. "Aural snow"? Come on now!

Al: The Twinhead is nice, but it's being sent back very soon. I didn't think it was worth the money. I'm gonna put the cash towards speakers and debt payments instead. Without speakers that rock it doesn't pay to have fancy tube preamps in my opinion. The Twinhead makes a lot of hum for one thing (directly heated triodes or some such) and the remote volume control is a comedy of errors! I didn't notice any big improvement with it in my system, aside from having dual outputs (logistical issue) and basically I didn't feel it was worth a grand to me. It may very well be an excellent preamp in another system, but personally it didn't rock my world.
Well, maybe that's because I was running it into the Norh SE-9 which I am told by my dealer, has a "yucky pot"

The ASL MG Head headphone amp is very nice though. Tube rolling on that actually made a meaningful difference to me, which is saying a lot! I bought the Twinhead cause I thought it had the transformer\OTL switch on it like the headphone amp, but it does not. That only works for headphones, not the preamp outs which are always transformer coupled.

So basically you've got a one trick pony preamp, and I was looking for options.

Audio Al · « **Reply #12 on:** 3 Apr 2003, 03:30 am »

I knew your cable review was way too diplomatic! No bottom line statements or conclusions to merit a real Nathan critique. Did you really not hear any difference between any of the cables?

I am curious about the hum in the ASL Twinhead. Did you rule out ground loop or change tubes on the pre side?

And what's the deal with that "yucky pot"? I think I may be developing one of those myself.

nathanm · « **Reply #13 on:** 3 Apr 2003, 04:05 am »

No, I really didn't. And you'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to buy those Jena Labs things. Sure, it's a nice cable, no doubt. Very nicely made. Nice looking. But 330 bucks? Uh, I'll make my own thank you very much. And that's one of the CHEAPER models! It goes up from there! I had a nice chuckle at the literature that comes with it though. For the money the Jena Labs should have done SOMETHING to the sound, something DRAMATIC, but no such luck. (I know others would hear a "DRAMATIC" difference though. Come on Audiojerry, cough up the review about how the Beldenators are not that good, I know it's comin'!

) Anyway I would rather take Dan's lead and get me some Belden cable and make my own. I would just add some Flexo PET sleeving to make it look dressy that's all. I already blew my money on the Homegrown Audio cable$, so my interconnect buying days are over until I get my HT going.

I'm not going to argue wether or not cables make a difference. They very well might. But I do know they don't make a $300 difference to THIS listener! That much I am fully convinced of.

Ground loop wasn't the issue in the Twinhead. There are two dials on the amp labeled, amusingly enough, HUM! You turn them until the hum is as quiet as possible. (Or hell, as loud as possible if that's your taste!) I wouldn't say the hum was overly distracting and with music playing it was a non-issue, but just the idea of it kinda bugged me. The quieter you get the room the more you notice those things too. It wasn't a "head up to the driver" hum, it was a hear-it-from-anywhere kinda hum.

I don't know what a yucky pot is myself. I know what a scratchy pot is, but I am not sure if that's the same as "yucky" or not! Heh! Whatever it is, it was totally ruining my musical experience, apparently.

Ahh but I kid Mr. W... I am going to be getting my ASL Wave 8s back from the 'shop' soon so I'm eager to see how they sound with my new Tannoy DMT 10 monitors. Speakers...now there's something worth comparing!

bubba966 · « **Reply #14 on:** 3 Apr 2003, 04:20 am »

Quote from: nathanm

I don't know what a yucky pot is myself.

Yucky pot is when you've got too much leaves & stems and not enough buds...

OBF · « **Reply #15 on:** 3 Apr 2003, 05:17 pm »

Quote from: bubba966

Quote from: nathanm
I don't know what a yucky pot is myself.

Yucky pot is when you've got too much leaves & stems and not enough buds...

Spoken like a true native of the great Northwest

KevinW · « **Reply #16 on:** 11 Apr 2003, 04:54 pm »

Nathan,
See what happens when you buy a house, and take a breather from the audio obsession? You miss a beautiful review with an egregious error requiring instant correction. The term I used to describe the pot was "icky", not "yucky". Sheesh! Glad I found your error, and I hope it was in time.

I have found that adding a Dact stepped attenuator makes for a huge upgrade in sound quality over a carbon-based potentiometer. For $399, I would suspect that the Norh SE9 uses a cheaply made carbon pot. For $140, installing a Dact is a great value upgrade in any preamp or integrated.

nathanm · « **Reply #17 on:** 14 Apr 2003, 06:18 pm »

My apologies, indeed it is claimed to be "icky" not "yucky" according to Kevin. I am sorry to have misquoted the epithet in question. Personally I find the SE-9 pot to be quite smooth and the knob itself has fine knurls which help to prevent catastrophic hand injuries.

At $140 I would hope and expect said DACT pot to be superior, and not 'icky' in the least, nor 'yucky' for that matter! But personally I like to control the volume by turning everything up all the way and varying the number of pillows and blankets piled in front of the speakers.

JoshK · « **Reply #18 on:** 24 Apr 2003, 12:26 am »

Yo Brad!

PM me your address so I can send you the IC's.

My review:

Keep this short and simple. The Beldenators versus my bybee NITROs (that should make Dan cringe). I am an investment strategist so naturally I have an iron stomach, I make and loose tens of millions every day, so I can take it if a $40 IC whomps my $500 IC. It didn't.

The Beldenator is a great IC. The place a newbie should start for sure, and possible stop. One must ask themselves if the additional $460 is worth the additional 2.5%. For me it is, so I will sleep soundly tonight.

The differences really come down to this. The Beldenators are slightly rolled off at the extremes versus the Nitro's. The have a bloated midbass and the midrange is more smoothed. The Nitro's have a more detail, more depth to the soundstage, cleaner bass, image slightly better but don't have the tube-like warmth in the midrange that the beldenators possess.

Of course the differences are subtle and easily missed by casual listener. My wife who usually thinks most of my tweaks are signs of early dementia even noticed the differences between the two IC's and also preferred the bybee nitros. We are not talking night and day here but it is noticeable.

As always, YMMV,

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #19 on:** 24 Apr 2003, 10:04 am »

Josh: Thanks for taking the time to review the cables.