Trawlerman
A British ingredient in our rockin' international gumbo.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2001
- Posts
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For those of you that do not know me, my name is Mick and I am part of the British contingent of Audiophiles here on Head-Fi. I am a long standing member and have frequented Head-Fi since December 2001. Prior to joining the madness that is Head-Fi
Today much of my listening is done with phones. Well over 90% I would suspect. I have no real hangups regarding my music, one the one hand I really enjoy my mega bucks home system but I am also quite comforatble listening to my portable equipment. The main thing for me is that I have music on tap where and when I want it. Being an audiophile is about striving for perfection in the quest for the ultimate musical experience, it's a state of mind and it's about having an overwhelming passion for music, not about how deep one's pockets are as some people think
Back in February, Head-Fi member Fiddler PM'd me and asked if I would like to try out his new Interconnect that he had just constructed. Having a spare bit of time on my hands at the moment, I was more than willing to help. One of the main reasonings behind the audition was to give it some critical listening and come up with a list of it's Strengths and Weaknesses. After a week of auditioning I sent it back with a set of notes contianing my thought on the cables. Fiddler then revised the cable and came back to me with this cable, which will presumably the finished article.
As promised I have given this cable a thorough working out to the best of my ability and i'm pleased to give this review. All opinions that have been expressed are brutally honest but they are just that, they are my opinions and your mileage may vary.
System used for evaluation.
Krell MD10 Transport
Glass Optical Cable
Theta TLC 'Jitterbuster'
Chord Prodac digital
Krell Studio DAC
Cables inserted here
Audiolab 8000q Pre-Amplifier
2 x Tube Technology Genesis Monoblock Amplifiers. (EL34 tubes running in Push-Pull Superlinear)
AKG K1000 Headphones
Sudgen Headmaster
Sennheiser HD600s (Stock)
Sony MDR-CD3000
Additonaly I briefly used a pair of BBC Style Monitor Speakers from Spendor, the SP3/1s which were driven by a pair of Rotel RB970 power amplifiers.
I would like to make a few comments on the system overall. The Krell front-end is a very high specification system. Admittedly it is not the latest in the lineup, having been around since the mid '90s but it does give superlative Redbook performance. I have yet to hear a player that has such a detailed yet seductive sound, so much so that I have yet to even consider SACD, such is the performance form the Krell.
Overall, the Krell is a very hard working piece of equipment and it demands only the best in peripheral cables if one is to get the utmost performance from it. Indeed, with lesser quality cables and poor mains it gives a pretty lacklustre performance. In this review, the usual Nordost Red Dawn cables were removed from between the DAC and Pre-Amplifier and they were replaced with the DIY 'Turq' cables
One thing that you do have bear in mind that the Krell is like an open window into the soul of a recording. The word subtle is not in it's repertoire, if it's there on the recording the Krell will show it up mercilessly, warts and all. Such is the way of Krell equipment.
Construction and Design of the 'Turq' cable.
I'll use the information directly from the Fid-Audio website for this section.
So-called due to its unique turquoise sleeve — semi-visible underneath the grey techflex— the Turq interconnects use a shielded dual twisted copper conductor design with excellent electrical characteristics suited to line-level audio. The result is a very even tonal balance with a smooth yet detailed midrange, and excellent soundstaging and imaging. The Turq brings out the attack of notes clearly without sounding brash and the bass is always tight and well defined. Considering its price, the improvement the Turq can make to a system is remarkable.
The Turq's design is inherently better than coaxial designs where the shield also carries the ground signal. The twisted conductor geometry helps reject RF interference, and additionally, the cable is shielded by a 100% coverage foil to ensure that no RF noise seeps into your system. The shield is grounded at one end, and is left "floating" at the other, allowing the foil to provide optimal shielding. Usually, it is best to connect the floating end to the amp. Hence, the floating end has been marked by its slightly longer heatshrink strain relief. Each signal conductor is isolated with a combination of air and polypropylene, an excellent dielectric, and because of the cable's ultra-low rated capacitance 12 pF/ft, the dielectric's influence on the signal is minimised. Last but not least, since quality connectors are just as important as the cabling, the Turq RCA interconnects are terminated with Deltron's gold-plated teflon-insulated plugs in order to ensure a solid connection.
How does it sound?
Throughout my listening tests I used the AKG K1000s and stock Sennheiser HD600s to give me a reference point, however I did switch to speakers briefly and used Spendor SP3/1s.
The overall sound of the cable is neutral. That is, I could detect no particular area that the cable was imparting on the overall sound. Sometimes, it even sounded a little lean like cables from the likes of Chord and Naim. It's a pretty wide open cable and with a nicely extended bass and treble performance.
On the subject of Bass. It's performance was commendable but certainly not the deepest that i've heard. Bass heads may want to look elsewhere as it seemed to be missing the bottom octave? At first I thought that this could be due to the K1000s but listening to the same tracks with Sennheiser HD600s gave the same results. Personally, I welcomed this as I'm not a big bass head and often find too much bass to be uncomfortable (literally). Overall I was happy with it's bass performance.
The Midrange on this cable is very natural. One area that I particularly like are Female vocals and it showcased Alison Krauss' voice to great effect on "Every Time You Say Goodbye". One area that I particularly loved about this album was the fiddle and the dobro. It's such a seductive sound. Being a great lover of the midrange - I personally use Stax 'phones and BBC Monitors which are famed for a particularly lucid midrange - at one point I switched to the Spendor SP3/1s and became instantly lost in very evocative yet heartbreaking vocals of Lucy Kaplansky's loving tribute to 9/11, with the track "Land Of The Living". Although Female vocals were a strong point, the sound of James Taylor's "Caroline In My Mind" was equally as good.
The only area that had any concern for me is the Treble. When listening to Trish Murphy on "Date With An Angel" (think of a graveley voiced Sheryl Crow that can actually play guitar!) the treble could be a little strident but i'm sure that extended burn-in would sort this out. NOTE: additional tests with the Sennheiser HD600 show that the K1000s highlight this more than expected
Stereo seperation and SoundStaging was superb with the 'Turq'. Right to left positioning was quite impressive and the sound was quite solid with perhaps just a touch of smearing in places but certainly nothing to worry about.
Dynamically this is a reasonably capable cable. Both, Macro and Microdynamics were quick, and accurate but overall they could possibly do with a touch more 'oomph'? I mentioned this to Fiddler before, I feel that the sound is a touch compressed - I believe this is a trait of the cable used in the manufacture of the product. This compression that I mention may not even be evident on other systems. Regardless, comparing the 'Turq' with my reference Nordost Red Dawn's it's easy to tell them apart but for an OFC cable it gave a decent performance none the less.
I'd say that the one great strength of this cable, the one thing that stands out above all else is it's sheer musicality. Sure, there are other cables that dig deeper into the mix to bring out hidden detail and others that provide a gut-wrenching bass but that's missing the point. The music needs to be musical to be enjenyod to it's utmost and this cable gives you that.... in spades.
Considering it's up against my reference cable, the Nordost Red Dawn at £180 for an equivalent length the Turq is a pretty special cable.
So what's the verdict?
Overall, I like the cable. It's a quality cable that has been lovingly constructed with quality parts, of that i'm very sure. It's definitely more than the sum of it's parts. The 'Turq' is suitable for all systems and would certainly not be out of place even in high-end systems. If this cable was sold on the high street i'd expect it to retail at over £100, it's performance is that good. As I mentioned earlier, for the listening tests it replaced my reference Nordost Red Dawn and to be honest i've not had any deep yearnings to go back to it .... yet.
To my ears this is a cable that quite simply makes music. This is the real deal people. Give this cable time in your system and it will grow on you. I anticipate a great demand for this cable once the word gets out.
If you want a cable that has been treated with Snake oil, Cryogenically Frozen, Hand made by nude Balinese maidens or is 99.9999% BS (Bangraman knows what I mean
On a more serious matter, please note that the pair I received had already been partially burned in by Fiddler but I found that further burn-in with the XLO Test/Burn-In cd proved to be a very worthwhile exercise. In particular the strident treble that I experienced first off cleared up nicely after further burn-in. I suspect that they would sound even better after futher use/burn-in.
Some of the recording I listened to were:
Refernce Recordings - XLO Test/Burn-In
Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder
Alison Krauss - Every Time You Say Goodbye
Alan Parsons Project - The Definitive Collection
Lucy Kaplansky - The Red Thread
Trish Murphy - Trish Murphy
AC/DC - Who Made Who
Natalie Cole - Ask A Woman Who Knows
The Peter Mallick Group featuring Norah Jones - New York City
Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez - Let's Leave This Town
James Talor - Greatest Hits
Gram Parsons - Greivous Angel (featuring Emmylou Harris)
