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Reviewer: Edgar Kramer
Financial Interests: Click here
Source Digital: AMR CD-77.1 CD player, MacBook with BitPerfect player and AIFF ripped files
Preamplifier: Supratek Sauvignon with NOS RCA and Bendix tubes; NuForce P9, NuForce P20 [in for review]
Amplifier: NuForce Reference 18 monoblocks; Cymer Audio Southern Star SE-35 monoblocks; Ancient Audio Single Six monoblocks; Musical Fidelity kW500 2-box integrated
Speakers: Wilson Audio Specialties Sasha W/P
Cables: Digital - Cerious Technologies; Harmonic Technology Magic; NuForce digital cables; analog interconnects - Bocchino Audio Morning Glory; Cable Research Laboratory (CRL) Gold with Bocchino XLR and RCA; Cerious Technologies; DanA Digital Reference Silver; Eichmann eXpress 6 Series 2; Harmonic Technology Magic and Truthlink Silver; MIT Giant Killer MPC; PSC Audio Monolith AG; PSC Audio Pristine R30 Ribbon; NuForce IC-700; speaker cables - Cerious Technologies; MIT Giant Killer GK-1 loudspeaker cables - NuForce SC-700; power cords - Cerious Technologies AC; Eichmann eXpress AC power cables; Harmonic Technology Fantasy; PSC Gold Power MKII; Shunyata Research Diamondback
Stands: SGR Signature Hi-Fi racks
Acoustic treatment: Fonic Designer panels
Sundry accessories: Burson Audio Buffer, Bright Star Audio IsoRock Reference 3 and BSA IsoNode feet; Bocchino Audio Mecado isolation diodes; Black Diamond Racing cones; Stillpoints ERS paper in strategic positions, Shakti On Lines; Densen CD demagnetizer; Auric Illuminator CD treatment
Room size: 6.4m wide by 7.1m long with high ceiling and narrow cavity behind speakers. Room has been professionally measured and was found to be extraordinarily flat and neutral.
Review component retail: AU$986 for 1m IC and AU$885 for 2.5m speaker cable

Bullet proof. The tyranny of distance our Antipodean shores have suffered has somewhat shrunken now in this age of instantaneous communication and accessibility on a global scale. Australian industriousness and artfulness attained over many generations – perhaps as a result of natural challenges and the isolation faced by early settlers – has seen many important and outstanding contributions in the medical, scientific and artistic fields. Equally valuable headway has been made in the audio sphere where among many triumphs (and there are plenty more on the horizon) one of the most successful and conversely simplest products to have cracked the shackles of long-distance trade is the Eichmann Bullet plug. It’s an elegantly straightforward RCA connector (later followed by sockets, speaker posts, banana plugs etc) that has impressed for its performance*, affordable price and while at it helped create a whole new category of minimalist socketry with sonic purity as a priority.
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* It in fact forced WBT to author their related NextGen plug to remain competitive – Ed.

Eichmann the man has moved on but his legacy has given rise to ETI Research (Eichmann Technologies International since 1999), a company dedicated to continuing its own agenda in the field of high-quality cabling and audio accessories. Reasonably recently the company launched its flagship Quiessence range of which the Reference is the topmost and subject of this review where I’ll check out both interconnect and speaker versions. Other than the Reference you’ll find another three Quiessence cables for both IC and speaker of lesser cost and below that the great value-for-money eXpress range, of which I reviewed the top model back in April 2004 here. In fact back then Rob Woodland was running the company. I'm told that his work and that of Keith Eichmann has resulted in the Quiessence Reference design as a followup from the Keith Eichmann era.