zdogg
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
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It’s rare that a piece of gear, particularly something like a “simple” interconnect, so improves the musicality of my system that I feel obliged to blather in detail about it. I’ve sorta stood on the fence for too long now, and I thought I should give some of my impressions of the latest cables from Oritek, in particular the X-1 and the new X-2 (which not too many people have heard yet). There’s been a lot of talk on Head-fi about these cables and similar ones in this price range, and I feel like I oughta weigh in now that I’ve had experience with the entire line of Oritek cables.
Here’s some background:
I’ve recently been drifting a bit from my K-1000-based headphone rig to a living room speaker rig with DAC1 as source, Pathos Classic One Mark II as amp, and a pair of 91db-sensitive Triangle Antal ES speakers. My cables include a Signal Cable Digital power cord for the DAC1, Grover UR3 RCA interconnect between DAC1 and Pathos, and Paul Speltz Anti-cable speaker wire.
After much tweaking, toeing in, and pulling out of hair, I felt I had a decent sound with a beautiful wide and deep soundstage. Still, I was constantly tweaking around, rolling tubes, and generally fiddling…a sign that something wasn’t satisfying me (seemed more than a simple recurrent case of Audiophilia Nervosa
). So trolling around the boards I learned of this guy Ori and his cables…
I dropped him an email; his response was fast and courteous, but filled with what I felt was the usual “greatest cable ever” hyperbole I’ve heard from others. What was interesting was his offer to bring the cables to my house (we both live in the Bay Area) and let me hear for myself.
I didn’t want to drag him to my place (and I have an irrational fear of letting strangers I meet on the internet into my home
), so I went to his place. I’m a big time skeptic, and have learned to my loss that hype on discussion boards in particular can cost you lots of time and money; there’s just no substitute for listening carefully yourself.
So go to listen I did. Ori is a fascinating character; smart, experienced, and a humongous music fan…one immediately gets the feeling that everything he does is in the service of enjoying music. He builds cables, amps, and audio gizmos of all sorts. He has one of the least expensive-looking and yet most musical systems I have ever heard, with a colleciton of thousands of CDs and vinyl…we spent three hours spinning tunes (and oh, yeah, auditioning cables…). I left better for the experience and ready to hit the record store to snag some great new music I heard. But I digress…this is a cable review after all. We listened to some cables…wow. But why discuss my impressions of a foreign rig with strange new cables and new music? Let me tell you what I heard in MY rig when I heard these at home.
I auditioned an X-1 ($199 for a meter I think), a new X-2 ($649/meter, $449 for 0.6 meter), a balanced X-1B ($269/meter), and an 8.5 foot length of S-1 speaker cable ($469). I directly compared these to a Grover UR3 (RCA) and my Speltz Anti-cable speaker wires. I had a Grover UR5 balanced cable on hand, but these weren’t burned in so I don’t want to give my impressions here.
Ok, first off, the Grover UR3s are a fine sounding cable. Prior reviews have been posted about these, and newer versions have since sprouted up. I haven’t heard these newer versions. The UR3s have outstanding detail and resolution, pinpoint soundstaging, and a taut/controlled bass; they are a great cable when compared to others in their price range. I’ve heard Nordost Valhallas, Tara Lab’s high end cables, and some other $$$ cables at local high-end stores that clearly sound superior, but they had BETTER for that much cash.
Now here’s the thing…I put the X-1s in my system, and holy…
I’m not so hot with audiophile descriptions, but let me try to put some fumbling words on it. The immediate impression is that a choke has been removed from the line feeding music through it, and everything opens up as a result.
To break it down, I like to remind myself of what constitutes reproduced music (which is ultimately an often feeble attempt to mimic the real live experience). There’s a “soundstage” with images floating in it, there’s the reproduction of treble, midrange, and bass frequencies with resultant impressions of texture, timbre, etc., and there’s an overall sense of forward momentum, rhythm, and dynamic contrast.
Soundstage:
With the X-1’s in place, the soundstage suddenly goes from relatively flat to startlingly three-dimensional. Every instrument develops a remarkable sense of depth. I found this particularly true with large instruments like stand up bass and drum kits. They simple sounded more natural, like the music was being produced right there, rather than being RE-produced. Both the Grovers and the X-1s produced sharp images in the sound field, but the X-1s simply sounded more real. There was space around the instruments that gave them room to bloom.
Tonal Reproduction:
Ask Ori what he uses to make his cables, and he answers “Who cares? Does it sound good?” I simply can’t argue here. Copper, Silver, Plutonium, who knows? The end result is a beautiful balance of highs, mids, and lows; the highs are way extended and yet sweet and refined, the mids have a fine texture that allows the detection of subtle timbres in vocals that I simply couldn’t hear with the UR3s, and the bass is controlled, extended, ample, and most importantly well integrated. In fact, I think the biggest improvement I hear is a coherency between the frequency bands. They all melt together into a continuum. I very carefully a/b’d X-1 with UR3 to listen to bass in particular because I thought the Grovers might have a slightly more impactful bass. What I realized, however, is that the bass stands out more with the UR3s, more in contrast to the rest of the frequency range than in harmony with it. This is not necessarily unpleasant, but it simply doesn’t sound as musical or natural in comparison with the coherency of the X-1. The tonal balance of the X-1s just sounds right.
One of the most prominent treble-range tonal facets I heard with the X-1s was the inclusion of otherwise missing upper harmonic content. The harmonics riding above piano notes and violin strings, for example…you don’t know these are missing until you hear them back in place, which I did when I swapped in the X-1s. Again, natural sounding music is the result. It’s really remarkable…don’t take my word for it, listen yourself.
Dynamics and Musical Flow:
This is an aspect of musical reproduction that I’ve only recently come to truly appreciate as essential…if the toes don’t tap and the music doesn’t “flow”, forget musical nirvana. Many parts of a system will go into making this happen right. When I plugged the X-1 into the chain, again, it was like a choke was taken off. Music just flowed better. Hard to describe, and I’m not good at it. Micro and macro dynamics were outstanding. The UR3 does a great job with macro dynamics as well, but I found detail and microdynamic shadings to be better resolved with the X-1.
The Spouse Test:
Ok, I’m gushing like every other “budget” cable review that’s come before. Maybe I’m a victim of the dreaded placebo effect. Nice cable man plays me music, offers me candy, lends me cables…I go home with a happy smile in a good mood and put a smiley mental spin on what I hear. Possible? Sure. I heard these improvements in Ori’s rig, and even bigger improvements in my rig, and I found myself enjoying music more and more with the X-1s…and after hearing the X-2s (more below) I shelled out and bought ‘em without hesitation (despite the higher price). Still, I could’ve drunk the proverbial cool-aid and have this all wrong.
Not believing that such improvements could be real myself (remember, I’m a physician and a born skeptic…a wire is a wire, right?
), I boldly asked my audio-hobby-hating wife to humor me with a little experiment. I had her listen to a song she likes, not telling her what I was doing or why. First I played her the tune with the UR3s in. Then I played it with the X-1s (she had no idea what I was doing and probably still doesn’t). She immediately said, “What did you do, that sounds much better.” How so, I asked? “I don’t know, more natural I guess, like real music.”
Intrigued, I randomly switched back and forth between the UR3 and X-1. She called her preference as X-1 every time. To throw a loop in, I tossed a balanced UR5 in the mix; she felt it was very similar to the sound she liked less (i.e., the UR3). She has outstanding hearing and is always telling me to “turn it down,” but she has no interest in audio gear, just the sound of good music. This single-blind spouse test had me thinking I may not be crazy after all, this cable really is that much more musical, more natural-sounding.
OK, OK, the X-2:
The X-1 is an amazing cable, and for $199 it is simply a no-brainer. It would be a no-brainer for $1299 as far as I'm concerned. I was going to be perfectly happy buying one and calling it a day; I probably could live with this cable forever. It is really that good (again, listen yourselves
).
But then I heard the X-2, Ori’s latest invention. Again, he won’t say what’s in it (except that it’s not silver), but he will say that it takes him a nearly a whole day to make one and that it is a different design entirely from the X-1. Who cares? This thing takes everything the X-1 does…and does it even better!
There is no radical change in the “signature” of the sound; it is simply that everything I considered a hallmark of the X-1’s great sound (upper harmonic detail, coherency, extension, musical flow, etc.) is done even better. Even deeper soundstage, more extension on both ends, even more impactful/controlled bass…a/b’ing X-1 to X-2 is like going from bliss to plain nirvana. The X-2 is the end of the road for me; I bought one and that’s that. Done.
I’ve blathered on too long, I’m sorry.
I listened to the balanced X-1B as well; briefly, this comes very close in sound to the X-2 single-ended (may partly be due to the superiority of the balanced outs on my DAC1 and true balanced circuit on my Pathos amp). This cable is probably the best bargain of the bunch if your rig does balanced.
I’ll save a review of the S-1 cables for another time…
Conclusions:
I’ve never been so moved to write such a ridiculously long commentary on anything audio before. I just feel that y’all should listen to these cables and judge for yourselves. The X-1 is simply that good. That musical. And the X-2 simply takes what the X-1 does really well and does it that much better. Enough "that’s" for ya? Audition these cables STAT!
Here’s some background:
I’ve recently been drifting a bit from my K-1000-based headphone rig to a living room speaker rig with DAC1 as source, Pathos Classic One Mark II as amp, and a pair of 91db-sensitive Triangle Antal ES speakers. My cables include a Signal Cable Digital power cord for the DAC1, Grover UR3 RCA interconnect between DAC1 and Pathos, and Paul Speltz Anti-cable speaker wire.
After much tweaking, toeing in, and pulling out of hair, I felt I had a decent sound with a beautiful wide and deep soundstage. Still, I was constantly tweaking around, rolling tubes, and generally fiddling…a sign that something wasn’t satisfying me (seemed more than a simple recurrent case of Audiophilia Nervosa
I dropped him an email; his response was fast and courteous, but filled with what I felt was the usual “greatest cable ever” hyperbole I’ve heard from others. What was interesting was his offer to bring the cables to my house (we both live in the Bay Area) and let me hear for myself.
I didn’t want to drag him to my place (and I have an irrational fear of letting strangers I meet on the internet into my home
So go to listen I did. Ori is a fascinating character; smart, experienced, and a humongous music fan…one immediately gets the feeling that everything he does is in the service of enjoying music. He builds cables, amps, and audio gizmos of all sorts. He has one of the least expensive-looking and yet most musical systems I have ever heard, with a colleciton of thousands of CDs and vinyl…we spent three hours spinning tunes (and oh, yeah, auditioning cables…). I left better for the experience and ready to hit the record store to snag some great new music I heard. But I digress…this is a cable review after all. We listened to some cables…wow. But why discuss my impressions of a foreign rig with strange new cables and new music? Let me tell you what I heard in MY rig when I heard these at home.
I auditioned an X-1 ($199 for a meter I think), a new X-2 ($649/meter, $449 for 0.6 meter), a balanced X-1B ($269/meter), and an 8.5 foot length of S-1 speaker cable ($469). I directly compared these to a Grover UR3 (RCA) and my Speltz Anti-cable speaker wires. I had a Grover UR5 balanced cable on hand, but these weren’t burned in so I don’t want to give my impressions here.
Ok, first off, the Grover UR3s are a fine sounding cable. Prior reviews have been posted about these, and newer versions have since sprouted up. I haven’t heard these newer versions. The UR3s have outstanding detail and resolution, pinpoint soundstaging, and a taut/controlled bass; they are a great cable when compared to others in their price range. I’ve heard Nordost Valhallas, Tara Lab’s high end cables, and some other $$$ cables at local high-end stores that clearly sound superior, but they had BETTER for that much cash.
Now here’s the thing…I put the X-1s in my system, and holy…
I’m not so hot with audiophile descriptions, but let me try to put some fumbling words on it. The immediate impression is that a choke has been removed from the line feeding music through it, and everything opens up as a result.
To break it down, I like to remind myself of what constitutes reproduced music (which is ultimately an often feeble attempt to mimic the real live experience). There’s a “soundstage” with images floating in it, there’s the reproduction of treble, midrange, and bass frequencies with resultant impressions of texture, timbre, etc., and there’s an overall sense of forward momentum, rhythm, and dynamic contrast.
Soundstage:
With the X-1’s in place, the soundstage suddenly goes from relatively flat to startlingly three-dimensional. Every instrument develops a remarkable sense of depth. I found this particularly true with large instruments like stand up bass and drum kits. They simple sounded more natural, like the music was being produced right there, rather than being RE-produced. Both the Grovers and the X-1s produced sharp images in the sound field, but the X-1s simply sounded more real. There was space around the instruments that gave them room to bloom.
Tonal Reproduction:
Ask Ori what he uses to make his cables, and he answers “Who cares? Does it sound good?” I simply can’t argue here. Copper, Silver, Plutonium, who knows? The end result is a beautiful balance of highs, mids, and lows; the highs are way extended and yet sweet and refined, the mids have a fine texture that allows the detection of subtle timbres in vocals that I simply couldn’t hear with the UR3s, and the bass is controlled, extended, ample, and most importantly well integrated. In fact, I think the biggest improvement I hear is a coherency between the frequency bands. They all melt together into a continuum. I very carefully a/b’d X-1 with UR3 to listen to bass in particular because I thought the Grovers might have a slightly more impactful bass. What I realized, however, is that the bass stands out more with the UR3s, more in contrast to the rest of the frequency range than in harmony with it. This is not necessarily unpleasant, but it simply doesn’t sound as musical or natural in comparison with the coherency of the X-1. The tonal balance of the X-1s just sounds right.
One of the most prominent treble-range tonal facets I heard with the X-1s was the inclusion of otherwise missing upper harmonic content. The harmonics riding above piano notes and violin strings, for example…you don’t know these are missing until you hear them back in place, which I did when I swapped in the X-1s. Again, natural sounding music is the result. It’s really remarkable…don’t take my word for it, listen yourself.
Dynamics and Musical Flow:
This is an aspect of musical reproduction that I’ve only recently come to truly appreciate as essential…if the toes don’t tap and the music doesn’t “flow”, forget musical nirvana. Many parts of a system will go into making this happen right. When I plugged the X-1 into the chain, again, it was like a choke was taken off. Music just flowed better. Hard to describe, and I’m not good at it. Micro and macro dynamics were outstanding. The UR3 does a great job with macro dynamics as well, but I found detail and microdynamic shadings to be better resolved with the X-1.
The Spouse Test:
Ok, I’m gushing like every other “budget” cable review that’s come before. Maybe I’m a victim of the dreaded placebo effect. Nice cable man plays me music, offers me candy, lends me cables…I go home with a happy smile in a good mood and put a smiley mental spin on what I hear. Possible? Sure. I heard these improvements in Ori’s rig, and even bigger improvements in my rig, and I found myself enjoying music more and more with the X-1s…and after hearing the X-2s (more below) I shelled out and bought ‘em without hesitation (despite the higher price). Still, I could’ve drunk the proverbial cool-aid and have this all wrong.
Not believing that such improvements could be real myself (remember, I’m a physician and a born skeptic…a wire is a wire, right?
Intrigued, I randomly switched back and forth between the UR3 and X-1. She called her preference as X-1 every time. To throw a loop in, I tossed a balanced UR5 in the mix; she felt it was very similar to the sound she liked less (i.e., the UR3). She has outstanding hearing and is always telling me to “turn it down,” but she has no interest in audio gear, just the sound of good music. This single-blind spouse test had me thinking I may not be crazy after all, this cable really is that much more musical, more natural-sounding.
OK, OK, the X-2:
The X-1 is an amazing cable, and for $199 it is simply a no-brainer. It would be a no-brainer for $1299 as far as I'm concerned. I was going to be perfectly happy buying one and calling it a day; I probably could live with this cable forever. It is really that good (again, listen yourselves
But then I heard the X-2, Ori’s latest invention. Again, he won’t say what’s in it (except that it’s not silver), but he will say that it takes him a nearly a whole day to make one and that it is a different design entirely from the X-1. Who cares? This thing takes everything the X-1 does…and does it even better!
There is no radical change in the “signature” of the sound; it is simply that everything I considered a hallmark of the X-1’s great sound (upper harmonic detail, coherency, extension, musical flow, etc.) is done even better. Even deeper soundstage, more extension on both ends, even more impactful/controlled bass…a/b’ing X-1 to X-2 is like going from bliss to plain nirvana. The X-2 is the end of the road for me; I bought one and that’s that. Done.
I’ve blathered on too long, I’m sorry.
I listened to the balanced X-1B as well; briefly, this comes very close in sound to the X-2 single-ended (may partly be due to the superiority of the balanced outs on my DAC1 and true balanced circuit on my Pathos amp). This cable is probably the best bargain of the bunch if your rig does balanced.
I’ll save a review of the S-1 cables for another time…
Conclusions:
I’ve never been so moved to write such a ridiculously long commentary on anything audio before. I just feel that y’all should listen to these cables and judge for yourselves. The X-1 is simply that good. That musical. And the X-2 simply takes what the X-1 does really well and does it that much better. Enough "that’s" for ya? Audition these cables STAT!
