This will all end in tears, I just know it.
The Backstory
I don’t blind buy much these days.
Because I enjoy a certain degree of access, there’s simply no reason to risk a blind purchase. And yet, last Summer, I did exactly that. On the back of Watercooler impressions and poll results, I decided to take a gamble on the much-loved Elysian Annihilator 2023.
Shortly after my purchase - but weeks before delivery - I had a chance to intercept a tour unit… and the resulting audition gave me massive pause and regret. That tour unit shipped with a Fusion 1 cable, and nothing else, and let me tell ya, that pairing sucked.
Anni23’s vaunted treble was apparent, but almost everything else was sub par. The lower mids were very recessed, making Anni23 sound quite u-shaped. The upper mids had a splashy quality to them. And the bass presentation was annoying at best - it was both soft and bloated at the same time. It was basically too much of a bad thing.
If I had to nitpick, I could probably have found a few more flaws with that pairing. But honestly, it was bad enough that most of you would have put it down and moved on already. I was crestfallen.
The Problem
A few weeks later, my own Anni23 arrived.
While the stock Liquid Links cable acquitted itself admirably - surprisingly well actually - I was still cursed by the tour audition. You know how it is: you can’t unhear what you’ve heard. So while I quite enjoy Anni23 with its stock cable, it wasn’t perfect, and there were times when I still got flashbacks from the Fusion 1 pairing.
Since I had a reasonable amount of cable here, I decided to start rolling to see if I could erase the last vestiges of that sad, sad, sorry tour experience. I didn’t have the Cleo II OCTA that Lee from Elysian recommends, but I did have Effect Audio’s Centurion and Chiron cables, Eletech’s Sonnet of Adam and Ode to Laura cables, and a host of lower tiered offerings.
Not surprisingly, Effect Audio's brilliant Centurion came to the rescue. I can’t count the number of times Centurion has helped present an IEM in the best light, but it’s a lot. So if you have an Anni23, and a spare Centurion laying around that you can dedicate to it, that pairing gets a big thumbs up from me.
“So Warren, if Effect Audio’s Centurion addressed your concerns, then why bother rolling any other cable? You’re done, right?”
Nope.
First, and I know we're not overly price conscious here, but something about putting a $5.5k USD cable on a $3k IEM just bugs me. Proportionately speaking, that’s even more egregious than adding Ambition to Macbeth (which was a gut-wrenching decision that I did not make lightly).
Second, and more importantly, my Centurion has already found a permanent home with my Jomo Alpha Ti. That pairing is just magical, something greater than the sum of its parts. I’m perfectly happy leaving those two paired for all eternity.
So then I began the hunt for something that could perform more to my liking than the stock Liquid Links Martini, without resorting to EA’s Centurion, if such a thing was even possible.
The Objectives
Specifically, there were four things I wanted:
Preserving Anni23's Treble Quality. For me, the miracle that is Anni23’s treble isn’t a quantitative thing, but rather a qualitative thing. There’s a unique tactility, tangibility and density to its treble presentation that goes beyond mere quantity. Think of it as texture and note weight, but for treble, if that makes any sense? Anyway, I wanted that preserved. Because without that, what’s the point of Anni23 in the first place?
Lifting Anni23's Mid-Range. I'm not particularly averse to u-shaped signatures, but the deep chasm of the tour pairing left me traumatized. Besides, being a TOTL unit - and the pinnacle of Lee’s efforts (at the time) - I expected a reasonable sense of balance.
NOT Lifting Anni23's Mid-Range. Yes, I know I just got done saying I wanted more mid-range response, but I meant lower mid-range. What I definitely did not want was more upper mid-range. I didn’t want any hint of peakiness, or stridency, as I wasn’t trying to Harmanize Anni23 at all.
...and finally...
Better Bass Reponse. Quick note here, I’m not saying I wanted moar bass, or less for that matter. I simply wanted Anni23’s bass response to be better delivered: with more impact and gravitas. Out of the box, the bass response can be rather soft, pillowy and flaccid. BTW, this is why some people say there’s too much bass while other say there is not enough. The bass is there, it just doesn’t hit the way bass should.
The Epiphany
I won’t delve into the tedium of my many, many cable trials over the course of this past Winter. I tried cables from all price points, all the way down to an Ares S 8W. Thankfully, those sessions did bear fruit. Here’s my top four after all of that cable rolling:
- Effect Audio Centurion
- Eletech Raphael
- Liquid Links Martini
- Eletech Ode to Laura
Ode to Laura should really be tied with the Liquid Links Martini there. The Martini had softer bass, while the Ode to Laura has more upper mids. It was a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other. So if you’re considering either of those, that’s the difference.
But the one cable that surprised me was Eletech’s Raphael. I didn’t even intend to try it out initially, because it’s from their entry level line. How good could it be? As it turns out, it addressed almost every single issue. It preserved Anni23’s treble, lifted the lower mids out of obscurity, and it didn’t spike the upper mids. The only area where it let me down was the bass, which stayed soft and subdued. So while it’s a pleasant listen, it can be a bit polite and thin at times.
And that’s when my dim bulb lit up…
The Experiment
If an Eletech Raphael 4W almost gets me there, then maybe - just maybe - going 8W might get me all the way there?
Me: “Okay, real question Eric, would it be possible to commission a one-off Raphael 8W?”
Eric (Eletech): ”Anything, if physically possible is possible… Depends on who's asking.”
Me: “Me! Literally me that's asking.”
Eric (Eletech): ”Ok!”
At this point,
@emdeevee jumps in without even knowing what the heck is happening: “Sign me up for one!” And shortly after that, we realized that if we didn’t tell
@timeslip and
@NJoyzAudio about this, they’d hate us for life. So at the end of the day, the four of us had committed to ordering a cable that nobody has ever heard. Why is that bad? Because contrary to popular belief, simply going from 4W to 8W isn’t automatically a good thing. This could easily become the worst sounding thing we’ve ever ordered.
Only, it wasn’t.
The Happy
That is my new Raphael 8W, one of only four in existence, and at long last I am happy!
@emdeevee advised me to burn-in the cable, but I didn’t do that. I’ve been waiting for this thing for a long time now, so I wasn’t about to fuss with even more waiting. If that lack of burn-in bothers you, whatevs, this is my story. But even out of the box, it does what I had hoped it would.
It easily meets all four of my objectives above, and by rights it should now share the top Anni23 pairing spot with Centurion in that regard. There is a bit of a difference between the two of course. Centurion will give us that last bit of air and space at the very top end, where upper harmonics ascend to heaven. But Raphael 8W gives us satisfying bass weight and impact at the low end. I’d be happy with either presentation so again it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. What's important is that neither do to Anni23 what Fusion 1 did.
Now, at the very beginning of this post, I quoted Marvin by saying that this will all end in tears. I fully expect that it will, because this is not a real product. It's not even a prototype of some future product. Eletech neither makes it (outside of the four commissioned units), nor do they sell/offer it, so I have no idea what anybody would do if they wanted one. You’re not getting mine, that’s for sure. You can have mine when you pry it from my cold dead ears.
I guess if you really wanted one, you can convince
@Eric Chong to make one? After all, as he himself says, anything is possible.
EDIT (Apr 9, 2025): After inquiring with Eric Chong at Eletech, I regret to report that this was indeed a one-off experiment -- and that they have no plans to produce, much less offer, more of these Raphael 8W cables any time soon. Apparently, even the one that I have here was largely made just to shut me up. On top of that, I was also saddened to see Centurion officially pulled from Effect Audio's site. Its
product page now states: Product not found! As such, I'm forced to revise my Anni23 cable upgrade rankings based on what's actually available:
- Eletech Raphael
- Liquid Links Martini
- Eletech Ode to Laura
And since there's only one cable that sits above the stock Liquid Links Martini - that being Eletech's Raphael (4W) - I suppose that's my official upgrade recommendation for now... or at least until I decide to re-visit this topic, which I don't imagine will be any time soon.
! 
You might have give me some time on that. I think our next local meet up is two months away, so I won't have access to Victoria 8W until then.
