(part two)
The listening was done over about a week, once all the other variables (settling on the Goertz for umbilicals, etc.) were eliminated. I would make sure to listen to the playlist, then within about a 3-4 minute period I could change the cables and relisten once. I then let the new set settle in for a day (while running signal on repeat) and do the same. So each time I would get a cable broken in vs a newly installed cable, and then back again the following day.
Air Around Instruments
The two big winners here are the Reality Cables and the Tesla, with SR’s active design leading by an electron or two. In Rickie Lee’s cut the guitar solo at the beginning echoes off the recording wall to the left, and with the Satori it was not evident.. Once I introduced the Tesla I was floored with this detail and air, and early on assumed the Reality would collapse this back down. It didn’t. I could discern almost the same size of space, with only slight reduction in air movement and reverb. On the wonderfully recorded Kalman Olah (Three Blind Mice XRCD) the sense of venue was overwhelming with both winners, with the Reality being slightly more natural sounding; the Tesla took the space and expanded it beyond the speaker boundaries slightly. This is a matter of taste, really.
Deep Tight, Musical Bass (can all three exist at once)
All three shake the deep recesses of the chest cavity. There was a slight difference in quality or tone, so I realized I had to measure and evaluate how controlled, tight and musical the bass frequencies were being handled. I chose some of the cuts for these impressions, and it was here that I had the toughest time deciding which attribute of low frequency energy that I treasured the most. My usual answer, “all of them”, wouldn’t work here, cuz each cable had it’s strengths. The Satori, however, is fatally flawed, at least in my setup, in this area. It has a pretty subtle but discernible midbass hump that, until I learned to hear and distinguish it, thought it was room node issues. When I used a BlueJean XLR cable set from pre to amp it must have had a thinness here, cuz the synergy was acceptable. But now that the very smooth and balanced Soundstring cables are the foundation, the hump is evident with Satori, and nowhere present with the other two speaker cables. The Reality set is extremely proficient at bass, period. It knows bass, can distinguish the subtle hues when acoustic bass is presented, and handles deep drum thwacks and synthesized midbass pressure quite easily. The Teslas, however, allow one to feel the onset of the wave, the air movement that precedes the chest caving in. When Tony Levin (one of my top three bassists of all time) plays the solo at the beginning of Duende, the Satori sounds muddled and loud, the Reality sounds quick and powerful, and the Tesla sounds like Tony’s in the room. Jennifer Warnes’ Way Down Deep goes…yes…you guessed it. And the Reality and Tesla wake the neighbors. The Tesla goes one further by having a singular focus on the deep thwack, like it’s coming from a laser beam (probably the damn electrons). On Eberhard Weber’s wonderful Endless Days cd, the Nuit Blanche cut has a great interplay between piano and electric synth bass, and both Tesla and Reality separate the harmonics nicely, allowing each to decay at its own pace. The Tesla goes slightly longer, slightly more harmonic structure, but not enough to notice without several a/b’s, frankly.
Female Vocals
Some say male vocals are harder to reproduce, and therefore a better barometer of quality, but I’ve always used female vocals to evaluate tone, texture and things like sibilance, etc. Plus, I happen to be a female vocal fan, and I’m writing this review, so there. Cassandra Wilson albums are perfect evaluation specimens because they are consistently well-recorded, include incredible session players, usually involve eclectic production techniques, and all of them have Cassandra’s wonderfully difficult vocals to deal with. She can be raspy, quiet, boomy, and usually all three. A bad cable, IC or speaker, can destroy Cassandra Wilson’s texture and reduce it to gravel. All three cables here do a splendid job (I would never have bought the Satori if it failed here). Where they differentiate is in the soundstage depth. The Satori is front row, while the Reality and Tesla are fifth to seventh rows, the perfect seat frankly. With Margo Timmins sultry voice, the Tesla proves to be the most detailed, while the Reality has the best balance of detail and midrange bloom. On the Pop Pop track from Rickie, the Tesla and Reality cables sound identical vocal-wise, and the Satori leans towards a bit sibilant…but not enough to bother.
Dynamic Swings
Here, the powered Tesla has some big advantages, and likely because it’s active shielding allows for break-in in a matter of hours or days, rather than weeks. However, the Reality cables swing wayyy more than they should, given that they’ve been in and out of the system for only 48 hours…and they stomp the Satoris in dynamics, which are two years ahead dielectric-wise. I use almost every cut on the Junkies Whites Off Earth Now to measure dynamic swings and the “you are there” feeling. Rx8man called it “Marshall amp” syndrome. This cd allows for such nice unlimited swings that each cable was able to reproduce it, but the Reality and Tesla took it further. The static energy of the recording space; the feeling that the amps were sitting in your room, charging the air, those feelings came through best with the Tesla, while the differences between loudest and softest was won by the Reality cables.
Tone (acoustic guitar)
I don’t play guitar, and couldn’t tell you the difference between a Martin and a Lewis, er, Taylor sound. But I do know what an acoustic guitar sounds like, generally, and I like to hear the “wetness” of the rosin in the strings. The Satori is very very good at this (until the midbass hump takes over). The Reality cables hold their ground against the AZ’s very well. Robbin Ford’s classical guitar on Rickie’s Pop Pop album (along with the great Charlie Haden on acoustic bass) is well-reproduced by all the cables. The Tesla adds the most “wetness” and combined with the air, stands out here as the winner, but both Reality and Satori shine here too. I realized these cables made my finals list for good reason…they excel at this tone, and they go deep. Kewl.
Ok, so what do I do. Well first, I buy the Reality Cables because they are the classic no-brainer. If I don’t use them in my main stereo pair it’s only because I got a great commission check and blew it on the Tesla’s, at 7X the price. Then the Straley Reality become my cables for the rest of my system (center, music surrounds). Without that “cost is relatively no object” approach, the Reality cables are my new reference. The Gregg Straley Reality speaker cables are the best speaker cables, under $1000, that I’ve ever heard, (and they’re wayyyy under a $1000), and beat almost any other cable over $1000 that I've heard in the past two-three years (i.e have any memory of). As Danny and others have said, it seems Gregg has found the secret sauce, the right sweetspot, with a combination of materials, design and cryogenic treatment. How he does this for a couple hundred bucks is beyond me. Well done, Gregg, well done
