ECKHUAAA
100+ Head-Fier
They are hand made and may take two to three weeks, but they are worth the wait.
Arctic Cables Discussion Thread
- Thread starter interweb-tech
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OM hawk
100+ Head-Fier
UnfetteredWandering
Head-Fier
I paid for an Magnus extension on May 20 and received a shipping label notification this morning.
OM hawk
100+ Head-Fier
I randomly selected the Amphenol 1/4 inch plug, which turned out to be the biggest 1/4 inch plug I've ever seen. It looks perfect on such a massive cable.
mortcola
100+ Head-Fier
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I'll second that. I have a review or two to come - Ingens and Opera - but a preview is this: Yes, the Opera and Ingens are pure luxury goods, technically remarkable and aesthetically very pleasing. The Ingens belongs to my Abyss 1266 Phi TC, and the midrange and subjective sense of richness very noticeably improved over the Abyss/JPS Labs Superconductor I'd been using. Ive decided that obeying this century's opprobrium for exploring and describing meaningful differences between wires is an utter waste of time. Deferring to a narrow set of positivist principles in matters of beauty and love - no more. I'm here to experience, not to subject my experience to an outside rigor-inspector. It's very freeing, and far less confused and bogged down in shame over the untidiness of emotional surrender to music. But I digress. The Ingens don't simply sound great - and they do, consistently more engaging than the equally costly JPS cables. Ingens is a neatly woven beast, beautiful to look at in its spiraling iterations of copper and silver. And, yes, it's very pleasant to touch, and the surface and the drape of it makes its mass palpably no big deal, even comfy.
The Opera are a kind of discovery. I'd been fascinated at what mysterious benefit a low-conductivity metal plating like palladium over first-rate silver provides. I can smell a new theoretical approach, and a broader paradigm which can incorporate pending discoveries in metal boundaries and signal probation, and their dynamic relationship with the human auditory-synthetic-interpretive Hat Trick. I hear cool things. But I can't prove a damn thing. And I have no idea if what I just wrote is more than gibberish. I can tell you that Val at Arctic described the Opera as having most of the virtues of the Aeris' pure silver, but that the palladium combination confers a harmonic completeness and holographic qualities of space and physicality, or some such.
And the nice thing is, the 3.5mm pins they use perfectly fit both my Final D8000 Pros (my current headphone crush - there's a truly seductive quality to them, almost beyond words to describe) and my Susvara. Val let me know that the Final pins would fit the Susvara but also make a deeper connection than the Eidolics on another brand of flagship cable... which enabled me - with more of Val's assistance, to diagnose a slippery intermittent signal as being the fault of another flagship cable, saving me from having to bundle the Susvara back to Hifiman for an unnecessary warranty checkup and repair.
Beautiful, sublimely performing cables, good guidance with the selection process, and technical help with an issue having nothing to do with his product.
Customer service doesn't get much better than this.
This beautifully-made cable, woven delicately, slender yet substantial, does indeed bring out a clarifying, 3 and 4D specificity to the stage and the palpable presence of players and their instruments. And it may not emphasize speed or slam, but it does not suppress them either. The Opera's dynamic range is immense, and it is sufficiently textureless to be effectively liquid. Combined with the Holo Bliss KTE's signal and the May KTE conversion. My first audition of thees cables was an ear opener. Yup, expensive headphone cables. I'm sure there are diminishing returns, and modest correlation between price and improvement at best, and that expectation bias among other leanings might have influenced my listening and conclusions. But, again, I'm not here to defer to the hegemony of positivist, 20th century principles.... even if they're correct. I'm here to have experiences, and share and question them.
Oh - and Val has gone out of his way to help me solve problems and make choices on his cables, of course, but also on matters barely related to his products. This is personable, quick, generous customer service, and it matches the classiness of the cables themselves.
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OM hawk
100+ Head-Fier
Finished burning in my Talos cable for my Rad-0s. So in this case, even though Arctic Cables copper is designed to be, (and advertised as) neutral rather than smooth and bassy, it seems that the Rad-0 stock cable may have been a bit analytical as copper cables go (meaning bright rather than neutral). Also, the stock cable may have had some harshness, or simply lack of refinement when viewed under the honest clear lens of my Hugo 2.
In comparison, this Talos cable sounds significantly more musical, pleasant, and even euphonic. I think the detail and clarity has increased just slightly, as well as the size of the soundstage, but I believe those qualities were pretty strong in the stock cable. What it lacked really was musicality, at least in my case, coming directly out of a mercilessly accurate Chord DAC/amp. I am now struggling to find anything in my music collection that "needs" the ultra euphonic, forgiving bassy warm smoothness of my Sendy Peacock.
The Rad-0 has a reputation for being "a little too gentle," but with the stock cable I found it a bit analytical and unforgiving for my taste. With the Talos, I'm getting slightly more detail and soundstage, but a LOT more enjoyment from my music, because it seems to have smoothed over all the rough edges that the stock cable was polluting the music with. I remember distinctly that Devil's Plaything by Danzig sounded sort of cold and sterile with the stock cable. Similarly, Million Dollar Baby by Ava Max was clearly lacking the warmth it needed to sound alive and fun.
It's such a triumphant feeling when you throw everything you have at a headphone, trying to get it to sound bad, and it just won't. VICTORY!!
Pharmaboy
Headphoneus Supremus
This post was fun to read!
I'm a cable 'ho from way back, but the Ingens & Opera neighborhood is out of reach. Still, I enjoy reading about them.
banani4000
New Head-Fier
I've got a used Magnus but with the "wrong" size endpiont (6,3 instead of 3,5 - going to be used with Mojo 2). Is there a reasonable way of re-terminating them to the proper size connector? I'm based in the EU.
banani4000
New Head-Fier
OR, are there HiFi-grade adapters anyone can inform me about?
You can send back to Val at Arctic Cables. I can't speak for him, but I suspect he would only charge for the parts.
For adapters, I recommend this one https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/jack...eadphone-adaptator-635mm-to-35mm-p-12028.html
raydenray
Head-Fier
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New Opera version 2 in the house!
Has anyone tried the Talos with the Meze Liric? Looking for a cable upgrade with a sound that leans smooth (can find the Liric's treble a bit sibilant/hot at times). Saw some comments about the Magnus potentially having good synergy with the Liric earlier itt...
Magnus a bit too smooth/mushy for Lirics IME. I would recommend OCC silver cables or maybe silver/copper combo.
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