stuartr
Loyal member of Team Useful Post.
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- Oct 18, 2001
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Recently, head-fier Kartik graciously sent me his new Headphile XRS and BlackSilver interconnects and asked me to give my impressions. The Headphile cables are made by Head-Fi member Xanadu777. The BlackSilver interconnects are pretty much the standard affair – silver wire and RCA terminations. The XRS on the other hand, are rather unique. Instead of being terminated in RCA plugs, they are terminated in rubber molds that allow the bare wire to hookup directly to your components. The theory behind this is that without using solder and RCA connections, you should be able to minimize signal loss and degradation. The disadvantage of this style of termination is that the plugs are not quite as robust as a regular interconnect, and they usually require a bit of fiddling before all the connections are secure. Once in, I had no problem with them coming out or losing the signal. I did connect them and disconnect them multiple times during the comparison, and I think they will stand up to careful use. However, if you are someone who fiddles around with your cables all the time, these might not be the best choice.
Once I received the cables, I gave the XRS approximately 27 hours of steady burn in using some of Bach’s organ music – the intention was to bombard it with as many frequencies as possible…hence the choice of organ. I placed the interconnects between my Cary 306/200 CDP and my Maestrobator – a Melos SHA/Gold modified by head-fier carlo. I varied my headphones, but stuck mostly with the Joe Grado HP-2’s, Etymotic ER-4s and the Sennheiser HD-600 w/ cardas cable. My reference interconnect is the Kimber Select 1010, which I prefer to my Cardas Neutral Reference cable in digital sources. I tried to vary music as much as possible, while still staying in familiar territory. I listened to Chris Whitley’s Dirt Floor and Long Way Around, Stereolab’s Sound Dust, Bach’s 5th Cello suite, as performed by Mstislav Rostropovich, Tortoise’s TNT, Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, Rachmaninov’s Vespers and Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Beethoven’s Double Concerto with Oistrakh and Rostropovich, conducted by Ormandy, Toshio Hosokawa’s In der Tiefe der Zeit performed by Thomas Demenga, Ned Rorem’s Autumn Music and Bloch’s Poeme Mystique performed by Judith Ingolfsson (Ms. Ingolfsson is a special case…I have met her and heard her perform live, so I know exactly how she should sound. She plays on a 1736 Stradivarius – the tone is just otherworldly. I have never heard a more beautiful violin or a better violinist. She will be a legend. Go buy her recordings now!)
One thing I will say right out – I love critical listening; it brings me so much closer to the music. When using a good system, I can immerse myself in the music and really try to get at my own understanding of it. While I may try to focus on certain aspects of the music (how does it do highs, bass, separation etc), I still find myself really enjoying the experience of listening. In reviewing these interconnects, my main priority is to isolate which one brings me closest to what I feel is natural sound. I am a huge classical music fan, and I know what chamber music sounds like in a concert hall – this is what I look for when I evaluating components.
Well, down to business right? I should note that all the differences I am highlighting are fairly minor. If there is one conclusion that I came to, it is that all these interconnects are excellent tools for getting at the heart of the music. Off the bat I started out with the 9th song of Chris Whitley’s Dirt Floor. The song is entitled Loco Girl, and consists of gorgeous acoustic guitar, voice and foot stamp. Right away I found myself impressed with the XRS cables. They sounded detailed and musical, yet they did not suffer too greatly from the bane of silver cables – brightness. They sounded better to me than Kimber’s Silver Streak cables had. When I switched to the Kimber Select 1010’s, I noticed that the sound became significantly more open, with a wider soundstage. There was more detail in the midrange, but it lacked the umph in the top end that characterized the XRS. Indeed, the foot stamp seemed to be a bit more palpable in the XRS, and I would call it a touch livelier. In turn, the Kimbers sounded more natural to me. At the end of this song, the last note is left to decay for a very long time, and you can hear Chris put the guitar down, sigh, get up, and walk out. It was all recorded on a single mic in a ski shop in Vermont…in any case, with each interconnect I closed my eyes and listened to see how long I could hear the decay – the volume was exactly the same of course – 3 steps on the stepped attenuator using the ety’s, so no outside noise. With the 1010’s I heard decay until 3:08-9, and the XRS until 3:07. The difference could be within the margin of error, but I repeated it once with the same results.
From there I went to Tortoise’s TNT. This is post rock that is a mixture of percussion, electronic music, some guitar, and field recordings. I found that the 1010’s again had a wider soundstage. They were a tad less forward while maintaining detail and clarity. The XRS had a smaller soundstage, but they still gave the sense of being enveloped by sound. They were quite involving, and certainly rocked – on occasion, the top end detail became less than comfortable…these sections were few and far between.
On Rachmaninov’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the XRS sounded heavenly. This is Russian Orthodox Church music, and it consists of a large male and female choir. Ukrainian basses reach deeper than almost any other singers, while the sopranos go very high. The tone that the XRS displayed was equal to the 1010’s, while the choir sounded a bit wider left to right on the 1010s.
In the next piece, I decided to put the XRS to the true test – Toshio Hosokawa is a contemporary classical composer who makes judicious use of grating notes and atonality. In his In der Tiefe der Zeit, he uses cello and accordion to create a dissonant theme. The cello is playing only a few inches from the end of the fingerboard…this would be high for a violin, let alone a cello. The music is grating for all the interconnects. The XRS, which reveals the most upper end detail, made this the most painful – the BlackSilver was less so – about the same as the 1010s.
I then tested instrument separation. I used the first track of stereolab’s Sound Dust. In this song, sounds are added one by one until there are twelve different simultaneous themes. The layering is very difficult to follow, except for the best systems. The difference between the 1010 and the XRS was extremely subtle. I think the 1010 was a bit better at separation, but this might just have been because it has a smidge wider soundstage. Overall, it was too close to call – both interconnects allowed me to follow and separate the 12 themes admirably well.
Overall, I found that the Kimber Select 1010 was the superior interconnect, though the XRS was very close behind. The kicker here is that the Kimber retails for 500 dollars for a 1 meter interconnect, while the XRS is 150 dollars. For this difference, I think that unless cost is no object, the XRS is an excellent choice. Yet, I actually found an even better position for it – between my phono stage and amp. The XRS seems to be closer to the Cardas Neutral Reference to me than to the Kimber, and many of the issues I have with the XRS I had with the Cardas – I find that they are much happier in analog setups where digital brightness is not a factor. For digital sources, I found that I preferred the BlackSilver over the XRS. I found it had a bit more bass, and it lacked the top end resolution that occasionally got the XRS in trouble. Build quality for both cables was very good. Both cables are fairly narrow gauge, yet they are finished nicely. My only suggestion would be to put red and white markers on the rca plugs on the BlackSilvers – the black and silver are difficult to see in low light, which can be a nuisance. I will note that the Kimber's build quality is to a standard that is not reproducible by small manufacuturers -- the cable is a bit thicker, with a tech-flex like substance and copper highlights. A wooden piece holds the cables together and indicates the signal flow...the RCA jacks are heavy WBT jacks. They give the cables to you in a penguin waterproof hardcase (normally used for camera's etc)...none of this has anything to do with sound of course.
I want to give my thanks to Kartik for giving me the chance to hear these cables and to Xanadu777 for creating them to such a high standard. They are excellent interconnects, especially for their price. I hope these impressions can help guide people in their purchases.
Stuart
Once I received the cables, I gave the XRS approximately 27 hours of steady burn in using some of Bach’s organ music – the intention was to bombard it with as many frequencies as possible…hence the choice of organ. I placed the interconnects between my Cary 306/200 CDP and my Maestrobator – a Melos SHA/Gold modified by head-fier carlo. I varied my headphones, but stuck mostly with the Joe Grado HP-2’s, Etymotic ER-4s and the Sennheiser HD-600 w/ cardas cable. My reference interconnect is the Kimber Select 1010, which I prefer to my Cardas Neutral Reference cable in digital sources. I tried to vary music as much as possible, while still staying in familiar territory. I listened to Chris Whitley’s Dirt Floor and Long Way Around, Stereolab’s Sound Dust, Bach’s 5th Cello suite, as performed by Mstislav Rostropovich, Tortoise’s TNT, Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, Rachmaninov’s Vespers and Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Beethoven’s Double Concerto with Oistrakh and Rostropovich, conducted by Ormandy, Toshio Hosokawa’s In der Tiefe der Zeit performed by Thomas Demenga, Ned Rorem’s Autumn Music and Bloch’s Poeme Mystique performed by Judith Ingolfsson (Ms. Ingolfsson is a special case…I have met her and heard her perform live, so I know exactly how she should sound. She plays on a 1736 Stradivarius – the tone is just otherworldly. I have never heard a more beautiful violin or a better violinist. She will be a legend. Go buy her recordings now!)
One thing I will say right out – I love critical listening; it brings me so much closer to the music. When using a good system, I can immerse myself in the music and really try to get at my own understanding of it. While I may try to focus on certain aspects of the music (how does it do highs, bass, separation etc), I still find myself really enjoying the experience of listening. In reviewing these interconnects, my main priority is to isolate which one brings me closest to what I feel is natural sound. I am a huge classical music fan, and I know what chamber music sounds like in a concert hall – this is what I look for when I evaluating components.
Well, down to business right? I should note that all the differences I am highlighting are fairly minor. If there is one conclusion that I came to, it is that all these interconnects are excellent tools for getting at the heart of the music. Off the bat I started out with the 9th song of Chris Whitley’s Dirt Floor. The song is entitled Loco Girl, and consists of gorgeous acoustic guitar, voice and foot stamp. Right away I found myself impressed with the XRS cables. They sounded detailed and musical, yet they did not suffer too greatly from the bane of silver cables – brightness. They sounded better to me than Kimber’s Silver Streak cables had. When I switched to the Kimber Select 1010’s, I noticed that the sound became significantly more open, with a wider soundstage. There was more detail in the midrange, but it lacked the umph in the top end that characterized the XRS. Indeed, the foot stamp seemed to be a bit more palpable in the XRS, and I would call it a touch livelier. In turn, the Kimbers sounded more natural to me. At the end of this song, the last note is left to decay for a very long time, and you can hear Chris put the guitar down, sigh, get up, and walk out. It was all recorded on a single mic in a ski shop in Vermont…in any case, with each interconnect I closed my eyes and listened to see how long I could hear the decay – the volume was exactly the same of course – 3 steps on the stepped attenuator using the ety’s, so no outside noise. With the 1010’s I heard decay until 3:08-9, and the XRS until 3:07. The difference could be within the margin of error, but I repeated it once with the same results.
From there I went to Tortoise’s TNT. This is post rock that is a mixture of percussion, electronic music, some guitar, and field recordings. I found that the 1010’s again had a wider soundstage. They were a tad less forward while maintaining detail and clarity. The XRS had a smaller soundstage, but they still gave the sense of being enveloped by sound. They were quite involving, and certainly rocked – on occasion, the top end detail became less than comfortable…these sections were few and far between.
On Rachmaninov’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the XRS sounded heavenly. This is Russian Orthodox Church music, and it consists of a large male and female choir. Ukrainian basses reach deeper than almost any other singers, while the sopranos go very high. The tone that the XRS displayed was equal to the 1010’s, while the choir sounded a bit wider left to right on the 1010s.
In the next piece, I decided to put the XRS to the true test – Toshio Hosokawa is a contemporary classical composer who makes judicious use of grating notes and atonality. In his In der Tiefe der Zeit, he uses cello and accordion to create a dissonant theme. The cello is playing only a few inches from the end of the fingerboard…this would be high for a violin, let alone a cello. The music is grating for all the interconnects. The XRS, which reveals the most upper end detail, made this the most painful – the BlackSilver was less so – about the same as the 1010s.
I then tested instrument separation. I used the first track of stereolab’s Sound Dust. In this song, sounds are added one by one until there are twelve different simultaneous themes. The layering is very difficult to follow, except for the best systems. The difference between the 1010 and the XRS was extremely subtle. I think the 1010 was a bit better at separation, but this might just have been because it has a smidge wider soundstage. Overall, it was too close to call – both interconnects allowed me to follow and separate the 12 themes admirably well.
Overall, I found that the Kimber Select 1010 was the superior interconnect, though the XRS was very close behind. The kicker here is that the Kimber retails for 500 dollars for a 1 meter interconnect, while the XRS is 150 dollars. For this difference, I think that unless cost is no object, the XRS is an excellent choice. Yet, I actually found an even better position for it – between my phono stage and amp. The XRS seems to be closer to the Cardas Neutral Reference to me than to the Kimber, and many of the issues I have with the XRS I had with the Cardas – I find that they are much happier in analog setups where digital brightness is not a factor. For digital sources, I found that I preferred the BlackSilver over the XRS. I found it had a bit more bass, and it lacked the top end resolution that occasionally got the XRS in trouble. Build quality for both cables was very good. Both cables are fairly narrow gauge, yet they are finished nicely. My only suggestion would be to put red and white markers on the rca plugs on the BlackSilvers – the black and silver are difficult to see in low light, which can be a nuisance. I will note that the Kimber's build quality is to a standard that is not reproducible by small manufacuturers -- the cable is a bit thicker, with a tech-flex like substance and copper highlights. A wooden piece holds the cables together and indicates the signal flow...the RCA jacks are heavy WBT jacks. They give the cables to you in a penguin waterproof hardcase (normally used for camera's etc)...none of this has anything to do with sound of course.
I want to give my thanks to Kartik for giving me the chance to hear these cables and to Xanadu777 for creating them to such a high standard. They are excellent interconnects, especially for their price. I hope these impressions can help guide people in their purchases.
Stuart
