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With three complete wiring harnesses and three speaker systems—Zu, Arkana and Absolue looms; soundkaos Wave 40 speakers with FirstWatt SIT1, Boenicke Audio W5se with Goldmund/Job 225, EnigmAcoustics Mythology M1 with Crayon Audio CFA-1.2—two things happened. One, cabling's role as gestalt setter on the performance or presentational flavour became super overt. Two, playing musical hardware chairs diluted persnicketism (going all specific over things that don't translate) to arrive at qualities which, for each loom, remained constant from system to system.


Whilst specific dovetailing or special effects from unusually fortuitous match-ups are what end users strive for to make cable rolling such an endless story, those FX don't migrate to other users. In my mind a proper cable review considers complete looms to have a singular design philosophy and execution dominate the overall sound; and runs through multiple systems to condense interactive permutations down to an essence that'll be in place no matter what (or as close to in place as such things can reasonably get).

Assigning probable cause to audition observations doesn't concern us. It'd be guess work at best. Here I had a pure silver or silver-over-copper loom from Zu; undisclosed pure (not alloyed, mixed or plated) rare earth metals from Arkana; and silver-plated copper from Absolue. How and why these various ingredients, their respective treatments and geometries influenced the sound is for cable designers to explain. They go through an iterative process of elimination before arriving at a design. Theirs is the deep end of this (cess) pool. We jump into the shallow end. Again, comparing loom to loom across various systems made it very clear how a consistent wiring system imposes on the sound a quickly recognizable feel or personality. That's the distilled essence which should exert itself on any system where a total loom is employed.

By contrast to the others my resident Zu Cable Event loom played it somewhat dry and damped, very articulate, dimensionally well sorted but somewhat compact, harder/sharper on transients, less elastic on the decays, lit up but a bit stark and in general taut and controlled. The grey Arkana loom was exceptionally concrete. It played it the most robust, dense and dynamic. Contrast between sound and silence was highest. It was also slightly mellow on the leading edge, a bit bassy and concomitantly soft on top. The general feel was very organic and pumped up on materialized presence. The Absolue IN-TIM loom was decisively different from either. Texturally it was fluffiest and airiest as though some whipped cream had been injected into the mix. This played it a bit soft on the attack, slightly warm but dimensionally very enhanced particularly on width. It was also the most generously elastic and buoyant on decays to feel the most fluid and with the strongest focus on "I can hear space" as though the RT60 time had gone up

In terms of how negative feedback varies the sound of amplifiers with such adjustments, the Zu loom had the most, the Absolue set none. In terms of how small and big amps of otherwise shared topologies and output devices impact the sound, the Arkana wiring displayed the most horsepower. It sounded beefiest on impact, biggest on dynamic contrast. On matters of amplifier classes, Zu's relative dryness, articulation and highest subjective detail density reminded me of Bruno Putzeys' Ncore. That would make Arkana into a very powerful push/pull valve amp of top Octave caliber. Absolue would become a premium 45 valve SET playing properly matched speakers.


As you'll appreciate, all of these are nothing but pointers. Whilst marginally influenced by perhaps very minor shifts of tonal balance, this really wasn't about the usual bass/mid/treble trinity. None of these cables behaved as tone controls. If they did, I'd call them broken. Their effects were on the other not so usual subjects which in measurement-centric reviews always get short shrift but whose contributions are just as audible, weighty and important.