The first thing to disclose is that I was given this cable to review by another head-fi member.
The first thing that really grabs you when you see this cable is the build quality - the shielding, thickness of the cable and quality of the connectors is immediately obvious even through the well presented packaging.
When you take the cable out of the box it doesn't disappoint - it's fairly hefty, feels pretty weighty and is a very solid cable. It feels like it will last for years and years!
I have the 30cm version and I am using it to connect a Chord Mojo to 2 different laptops, a Samsung S6 Edge (with OTG adapater) and a Sony NX100 (with WM Port - Hi Res adapter) and I find the length pretty much perfect. None of those combinations is small enough to be pocketable for me so this goes in a bag and is brought out on my desk or the train table during the commute.
So putting that to one side - what are my overall thoughts on cables? Since a blind listening that I did in my local hi-fi shop in the mid 90s where the sceptical shop assistant heard a large difference that he wasn't expecting between different interconnects I've been a believer in cables. I had a similar experience with digital cables where I thought that all optical cables would be the same but found that there can be a difference there too (look at the compatibility comments on the Mojo thread if you want to see evidence of this for yourself).
However I wasn't expecting to find a big difference in the USB cable due to the fact that USB works on a high frequency anyway and data transfers quickly and accurately on it. The first thing to note is that I didn't hear a big difference - I thought that it sounded slightly clearer and thought that I could reliably hear the difference but a couple of times I was actually listening to a different (high quality, short) cable when I was convinced it was the QED one. However... I did find that it was much better at shielding radio interference from my mobile phones than the other cable.
So what is my conclusion?
Well... I am using it as THE cable for my Chord Mojo - the shielding and quality make it a cut above other cables that I have. Would I personally have spent £59.99 on it? Good question - probably not - but then again I am not looking to upgrade above my Oppo PM3 or Sennheiser HD600 headphones. To me the listening environments that I use it in make smaller incremental games a waste of money in my world (the train and a noisy family home) but to someone chasing that last ounce of performance - well that's your decision!!
The first thing that really grabs you when you see this cable is the build quality - the shielding, thickness of the cable and quality of the connectors is immediately obvious even through the well presented packaging.
When you take the cable out of the box it doesn't disappoint - it's fairly hefty, feels pretty weighty and is a very solid cable. It feels like it will last for years and years!
I have the 30cm version and I am using it to connect a Chord Mojo to 2 different laptops, a Samsung S6 Edge (with OTG adapater) and a Sony NX100 (with WM Port - Hi Res adapter) and I find the length pretty much perfect. None of those combinations is small enough to be pocketable for me so this goes in a bag and is brought out on my desk or the train table during the commute.
So putting that to one side - what are my overall thoughts on cables? Since a blind listening that I did in my local hi-fi shop in the mid 90s where the sceptical shop assistant heard a large difference that he wasn't expecting between different interconnects I've been a believer in cables. I had a similar experience with digital cables where I thought that all optical cables would be the same but found that there can be a difference there too (look at the compatibility comments on the Mojo thread if you want to see evidence of this for yourself).
However I wasn't expecting to find a big difference in the USB cable due to the fact that USB works on a high frequency anyway and data transfers quickly and accurately on it. The first thing to note is that I didn't hear a big difference - I thought that it sounded slightly clearer and thought that I could reliably hear the difference but a couple of times I was actually listening to a different (high quality, short) cable when I was convinced it was the QED one. However... I did find that it was much better at shielding radio interference from my mobile phones than the other cable.
So what is my conclusion?
Well... I am using it as THE cable for my Chord Mojo - the shielding and quality make it a cut above other cables that I have. Would I personally have spent £59.99 on it? Good question - probably not - but then again I am not looking to upgrade above my Oppo PM3 or Sennheiser HD600 headphones. To me the listening environments that I use it in make smaller incremental games a waste of money in my world (the train and a noisy family home) but to someone chasing that last ounce of performance - well that's your decision!!
