A Cable Refresh Project

Found an hour today to play around with the 4 sets of cables.
Picked 3 tracks to play and hear out the presentation.
1. Nine Cats (Acoustic) by Porcupine Tree (Album - Insignificance); this track has a bit of sibilance
2. Nine Cats (Studio) by Porcupine Tree (Album - On The Sunday Of Life); this version has a neat double beat on the drums
3. Loan Me A Dime - Boz Scaggs feat. Duanne Allman; blues rhythm and lead guitars
Kept the track list small to keep my sound memory fresh.

Here are my observations:
1. MX cable - does bass well, vocals were good, but the highs have that sibilance; soundstage is almost flat
2. Mogami W2549 - very detailed and clean sounding, "airy" up top and widest soundstage; tames the sibiliance a bit
3. Neotech NEI-3003 - bass/drums are more pleasurable, tackles sibilance best without losing detail; not the widest of soundstage, but provides a better "illusion" of depth
4. Belden 8402 - vocals were the strong point on this one; lows and highs are good; soundstage is also nice and wide

So I ended up with 4 decent presentations that are only slightly different from each other. Some more enjoyable in bits and pieces, if one concentrates on the sound of music. Overall all the ICs perform quite well if one is just listening to the music (and not sound artifacts).

If I were to pick favorites, it would be very hard. Maybe:
- Belden for old hindi/kannada music or vocal centered music
- Mogami for overall presentation; I think it will be quite nice to hear classical (Indian or western) with this in the chain
- Neotech for relaxed presentation; it tackles that HF niggle better and suits my ears (with hearing aids)
- MX for pop/rock/metal and contemporary Indian movie music

From a cost perspective I have to admit Mogami is good VFM. For a 3 feet terminated pair they costed me:
- Mogami Rs. 1150/-
- Belden Rs. 2900/-
- Neotech Rs. 3050/-
- MX (I think I paid about Rs. 300/- in 2008)

I should say it was an interesting set of experiments to check how a cable (or set of cables) fare in my rig.
Thanks for tuning in to my rant.

Cheers,
Raghu
 
A beautiful, well-constructed speaker with class-leading soundstage, imaging and bass that is fast, deep, and precise.
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