Crystal Cables Discussion Thread

[IgeNeLL]

Cable is one of critical component in audio system, not only in large scale speaker system but also in small scale in headphone or portable system. Cables act like a filter, which can change the tonal balance of the output transducers or degrade sound quality by alter/add distort to the transmitting signal.

Everyone has their own preference for sound signature they want to hear, however the objective performance is more important. I'm still in my way to find the perfect cable but there is always trade off when choosing one cable and one should have to evaluate. Crystal Cable is one of out standing cable brand outside for their own style of design and cable construction among some top of the cable: Siltech, Nordost, Zensati, ...

Their philosophy "less is more", results in special looking cable appearance and construction. By focusing material, they tried to improve the sound quality not by increasing the gauss size. I'm own other top line Dream Duet and Double duet and it is the fact that the performance of Dream duet is out perform almost the cable out their in the market in term of quality aspect. I'm hoping they can think of upgrade to Double Double Duet some day.

There are some information from website.

• DUET from Crystal Cable Portable is using the visual balance of black and white, leading to powerful messaging. Black’s most common association is power, authority and strength, while white is righteous, good and peaceful. In music, both these worlds are present – DUET is translating music as pure and natural as life.
• Employing the same characteristics as Duet, Double Duet is multiplying the amount of conductors, resulting in more power, more definition and more detail in sound. Double Duet doubles the musical enjoyment, ensuring even more live-music experience with your portable equipment.
• With DREAM DUET Crystal Cable introduces our monocrystal silver technology to the portable audio market, taking our portable line to a whole new level! Using our latest conductors less really is more: less micro-distortion, less intrusive electrical effects, less mechanical interference - more music. This high-end portable cable uses 18 hair-thin strands of unique, ultra-high purity monocrystal silver per conductor and its color combination is red & black: passion & power.

I have some times with Dream Duet before and I think it is kind of special thing you can get on current hyped-price market today. Before I have tried almost all material in the market and with some searching effort, you can find the information about mono crystal silver. Even though, you still can find other normal brand with mono-crystal marketed, but the quality is the problem. For listening experience, at this level of quality, the feeling of sound stage, instrumental separation is highly extended in both frequency domain and dimension domain. The response over the hearing spectrum is insane fast and resolute( quick, thunderous, …), makes you can feel the timing or the complex/parallel melody better. The frequency extendeds in both high and bottom end compared to other cable, you can feel the clarity of brass or woodwind in the background of orchestral with topnotch tangibility. Bass layer is focus, extended, control and articulated(give strong feeling of physical attach and response on the instrumental) with deadly point point position in the rear layer of the performance. The bass cleanness is the best from I have tried(superior than other pure silver). The resolution in both frequency (harmonics structure, timber, tonal) and time progression(note envelope, wave form, viberating transform) achieve the ultimate perception of musicality and precision.

As reading from hiend topic, I remember one's impression like: "Dream Duet make the magic from the song start to end". Lets discus and give your opinion if you owns.

 

[IgeNeLL]

Here are mine, have fun
I'm start to burn new cable, which may take long time to achieve the ultimate quality.
I have IEMs integrally wired by Crytal PEF21, both are perfect synergized.

 

[Kimiifrit]

Interested in the Dream Duet, but where can i buy it in the US?

 

[IgeNeLL]

Interested in the Dream Duet, but where can i buy it in the US?

You can look for distributor in US, I buy through the distributor of Australia.

 

[MuhVNYP]

I see u bought some siltech interconnects then rebuild to iem cable, can u share how it compare to others u have?

 

[IgeNeLL]

I see u bought some siltech interconnects then rebuild to iem cable, can u share how it compare to others u have?

I have:
- Nordost Odin2 4x(23 AWG*4).
- Siltech Duchess Crown ( terminated for IEM), it is sad that it is 2nd ( old cable when I buy it).
First of all, I have to share that if you have listen to full loom of Siltech/Nordost cable then it should be easier to understand the impression. All of my cables is very new and it still needs time to get to the final state but I can share the impression in the early stage.
- Mono Crystal Cooper - Hand Made cable ( source from Navalab)

For ND Odin2 4x, I use it with my IEM( also internal wired by Odin2), which makes the combo the best synergy ever since. The combo sounds full stage, it shows the effects of full-room filling when you upgrading from Valhalla 2 to Odin2, both timber, inner detail, resolution, smoothness increase. Because the cable is solid core and you can see that the power handling capability is very superb, which mean the bass layer is articulate better texture, fuller sounding, the background/ambiance detail is clean, tangible, which make you can feel the movement/envelope of melody from the orchestral to the soloist in a concerto or better large scale combination in the symphony. I sure that, it will be an outstanding performance even if you listen to my combo. You can see that, even the tia forte noir(which is a controversial one, claim to be very excellent in sound stage(bass layer), but my combo can render more sound stage about 2 times tia forte can do on my SP2000 Gold. But this combo is very new I still have a complaint, which is it still has a strong attachment now, It will be smoother over time ( or I can use cable burning) to even give it better energy distribution and better flow movement.

Siltech Duchess Crown, to compare with the Odin2 cable, it is much different which you can refer as the signature between ND and Siltech/Crystal. Duchess Crown is monocrystal and when you break the cable you can see that its construction is quite simple while using the most advanced material. The sound color temperature can be described as azure, which can be very clean, clear, thin, and high dynamic. Signature is more space, thinner sound texture compared to ND Odin2 cable. One point I want to remind is it is old cable before remake and I think previous use still has some effects on sound. However, compared to Dream Duet, Dream Duet sound has more attach, the transient is quicker with better solidity of sound ( might be for newer ). But Duchess Crown sound more refine/smooth while can express a higher tone with more insensitivity. Kind of similar signature but more dynamic and large scale.

Currently, the feel the Double Duet is out of the league now. However, more strands make it have more power handling than Dream Duet, but the range of precision is less than Duchess and Dream Duet. In the high octave, you can feel the pitch difference with every note with Dream Duet but Double Duet makes it quite the same.

Mono Crystal Cooper - Hand Made cable ( source from Navalab), which is very interesting to hear. The background is deep dark when the noise floor is very low, the tone is consistent, the note/border is solid/clear. Despite the size gauss is a small, solid core, power handling is good. Tonal is neutral. Note shaping is very solid. The start/stop of note is instantly(what I wondering is good or not). However, the representation of complex tone ( violin, vocal, choir is not good). I think there is a correlation between the instantly fast impulse response vs kind of DR compression ( when LOUD and small-signal transfer through very small (might around >30AWG) cable).

To sum up, I have ground-truth to believe that, monocrystal is actually very high performance besides OFC, OCC, Lizts, ....

 

[MuhVNYP]

Do u have any iem cable from EA or PWAudio? have u compared to those n the other known brands? What iem is it that u change the internal wire?. How do u make those interconnect cables to iem cable? Did u change the internal wire urself?.

 

[IgeNeLL]

Do u have any iem cable from EA or PWAudio? have u compared to those n the other known brands? What iem is it that u change the internal wire?. How do u make those interconnect cables to iem cable? Did u change the internal wire urself?.

PW 1960 2x, 4x, EA not( but my brother on the canjam show has prove to Eric(when he still) that all his cable is inferior to Brimar Grand Master).
I have listened to Plussound.
Lakable pandora, Lakable titan Au, Ag, ...
I have Brimar Grand Master 8x, which is be best cable among Singapore, Hong Kong (Brand), their most expensive cable is 10K and I think they have reasons.

Many others. I going to try Brise Audio Yatono and DHC.

For IEM, I use the product from my local engineer, then I can make him use the cable for internal wiring as I expected.

 

[MuhVNYP]

Is the others u mentioned sounds inferior to brimar too?
Then how about ur bespoke with siltech n crystal cable compared to brimar?

For IEM, I use the product from my local engineer, then I can make him use the cable for internal wiring as I expected

Product(?), so do u just gave ur engineer a cable then he strip the cable n put the wire inside ur iem?.

 

[IgeNeLL]

Is the others u mentioned sounds inferior to brimar too?
Then how about ur bespoke with siltech n crystal cable compared to brimar?

Product(?), so do u just gave ur engineer a cable then he strip the cable n put the wire inside ur iem?.

To summaries, for quality of conductor like: cleaness, tone/timber, siltech and Crystal is ahead much.

Brimar cable provide two thing: dynamic + warmth, so they are so different other than other brand.

You have to build new IEM, replace is impossible !

There are some picture, very stiff, it is insane though but I have to do to know what limit is still out there

 

[MuhVNYP]

You have to build new IEM, replace is impossible !

Can u elaborate this?.

I definetly curious about this all, im hoping i could maximise my setup too, but theres none of ppl who seem to strive for that direction, instead they always change setup. and i still only know so little n didnt have any resources. Hope u going to share ur experiences in the future.

Im curious why u use sp2000 n not try sony wm1x series bcs its possibility to modified, n ibasso too.

 

[IgeNeLL]

Can u elaborate this?.

I definetly curious about this all, im hoping i could maximize my setup too, but theres none of ppl who seem to strive for that direction, instead they always change setup. and i still only know so little n didnt have any resources. Hope u going to share ur experiences in the future.

Im curious why u use sp2000 n not try sony wm1x series bcs its possibility to modified, n ibasso too.

Utilization is very hard thing like optimization. Might be you have to experience more to build you background then choose how to maximize or improve point you need. In the audio system, there always be the bottleneck when you solve it, you will have a big improvement.

I have SP2000, Hugo2.
Hugo2 is much more power handling than every dap.
But transfer the digital signal from SP2000 to Hugo2 is not an easy problem to solve, no companies build enough good custom cable for this use case ( I have tried up to ND valhalla2 USB cable, using the adapter, however, the sound experience is superior to my current cable but it is still compressed by adapter).

SP2k still the best DAP for transparency and usability(UI, UX), detail retrieval, sound stage, ...
Imagine you have about 500 GB to 1TB library, SP2k can handle it smoothly.
For other brand: Hifiman sound is high dynamic but the sound stage and micro detail is the problem.
Ibasso: they should improve much on build quality and SQ. I think DX220 has more power handling than SP2k but you need to compromise, I will get it someday and using in parallel.
Sony: I think they are the wrong way from top-down ( manager, chief engineering), despite they have good in build quality. The sound quality is ...

 

[MuhVNYP]

So, what IEM u have actually?

Yea, sony house sound is definetly unique, n many ppl like it, but it can be possible to mod so tinkering wirh the hardware could be interisting. I think dx220max could compete with sp2k in SQ tho(n it could be modded too), n for the price it is a steal, tho i havent tried sp2k, bcs how expensive it is.

 

[mikel]

Hi
Not sure I understand all your statements above.
How to best describe the the double duet cable? I understand they use good material and everything but is the material really so advanced?
I plan to use it for Focal Utopia.

 

[IgeNeLL]

Hi
Not sure I understand all your statements above.
How to best describe the the double duet cable? I understand they use good material and everything but is the material really so advanced?
I plan to use it for Focal Utopia.

The sound signature is clean, tight, the flow, movement of sound, envelope of note is good.
You can feel the flow of instrument better.
Double duet is Silver Gold alloy, which use gold to fill the gap of crystal boundary to reduce micro distortion. Dream Duet is mono-crystal silver, which provide more precision sound over top and bottom end. The attach, form of sound, envelope is still better.