Review of Headphone Lounge's new Reference OCC Silver Litz Cable
When my friend Ted Allen told me he was adding an OCC silver litz cable to his line up, I knew that I had to hear it for myself.
For those who may not know "litz" is a process where each individual wire in a cable in enameled to insulate each wire from each other. Litz wire eliminates the "skin effect" and "proximity effect" both of which reduce the loss of signal strength.
For those who are interested in the science behind litz wire, a simple explanation can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litz_wire
Now for the question of how do they sound. I have been struggling for a couple of days to describe the sonic aspects of the Reference OCC Silver Litz Cable, hereafter I will just call them Reference Cables. The questions I asked myself throughout listening to the Reference Cable is the soundstage wider, is the clarity improved and is the overall tonality across the frequency spectrum greater. The easy answer is yes but the Reference Cable is more than the sum of its parts. The only way to do justice to the sound is to analogize them to when I updated my musical library from 320kbps to FLAC and ALAC. The Reference Cables immerse you in the music without coloration and bring a dynamic to music I never knew I was missing very similar to when I upgraded my music library to FLAC files.
I own the OCC silver plated copper and OCC pure silver cables from Headphone Lounge and the Reference Cables are simply the best I have ever heard.
Equipment used:
Shure SE846
Shure SE535
iPod Touch 5th Generation as a source
RSA Protector balanced amplifier
RSA F-35 The Lightning balanced amplifier
Music used: FLAC and ALAC files.
Disclosure: The Reference Cables I reviewed were purchased from Headphone Lounge with a 10% discount available to all prior customers.
