Whatever strip search on noise Samuel's crystalline packing performs, it works wonders on the power plane. Is that because here we really want to pare down our AC signal to be nothing but? Be that as it may, the effects of dimensional increase, enhanced scale and greater directness all translated on this AC treatment. Meanwhile on music signal amplified by wide-bandwidth circuits then transformed into sound by low-distortion incisive linear speakers, the same piezo or pyroelectric action also removed body and fullness. These are things to keep, even grow, not dilute or throw out. For possible cause, consider this extract from an interview with Paul Kaplan of Waveform Fidelity Cables. It was conducted by Laurence Borden of Dagogo.com.

Wood barrels, hollow silver pins. Few makers go all out to craft their own connectors!

"Like other vendors, I use EMF-reactive compounds in my products and have been developing their applications for six years... What is, I believe, unique to my approach is that it incorporates my observation that the amount and mixture of 'optimal' crystals for a given application are dependent upon the connectors used as well as the length of the cable in the chosen geometry. When I build a specific cable of arbitrary length, I begin by entering its length into my spreadsheet. This calculates the amounts of reactive crystal using a regression-derived formula for each type of cable so that each and every cable type sounds the same regardless of length... For an arbitrary cable configuration and associated connectors, that optimum amount of minerals is clearly related to the cable’s length. For cables whose difference is only its length, plotting those 'optimal' treatments yields a logarithmic function amenable to regression techniques that will yield yet another better set of length-dependent optimums. In the case of my interconnects, those amounts must be accurate to +2 milligrams as measured on my Swiss Mettler jeweler's scale... Whether it’s the power cord, interconnect or speaker cable implementation, that formula is a monotonically increasing concave function with respect to length and amount of optimal EMF-reactive compounds. While this does not provide causation, it does consistently provide correlation that it does work."

To paraphrase this heady stuff, Paul insists that more isn't merrier. His control agent is tambourine tonality. It's a sound he's intimately familiar with from playing weekly in a 20-strong Balkan ensemble. He is firm. If administered wrong, EMF-reactive crystals compromise tonality. Might this apply also to Samuel's crystalline packing method? Was that why insertion of his 6-metre XLR from DAC/pre on the sidewall to power amp on the front wall veered off the cliff when his power cords and speaker cables were in place already? With so many possible combos of mixed cables on hand but my ears no computers to spit out percentile score cards, I still ended up thinking this: that his OCC Silver power cords were more universal than their far more specialized signal-path kin. Only when I went as heavy on valves as my choices allow (S.A. Lab direct-heated pentode DAC plus Nagra Jazz preamp) and added silk/paper drivers to the mix did a full loom with mainstream speakers remain acceptable. Tonality was far from as full as I could achieve by altering the wire mix but still in the zone. Uncut OCC greatness only happened with the soundkaos Wave 40 widebanders. To dip into Samuel's crystals with just one foot, I defaulted to a full Ocellia power loom but Black Cat Cable solid-core silver for the rest. That gave me truly brilliant results on our Accuton-fitted Aptica with a solid-state source and amp. It meant an ideal balance between light and darkness, between leading-edge speed and decay-rich textures, between damped control and freedom, all with quite startling in-room presence.

The 1m OCC XLR in this balanced headfi rig with Questyle QP1R, AURALiC Vega and two Questyle CMA 800R did nicely over the prior Crystal Cable connection. If you will, it was my homeopathic OCC dose.

Intermediate wrap. With Samuel Furon already committed to copper and copper/silver experiments for 2016, for now I'll say that with his OCC idea, he's onto clearly potent juju. But I'll also say that he must still figure out how to administer it in a more universally applicable dose if majority 'philes are to recable. For now, owners of mid-efficiency widebanders based on vintage paper drivers like PHY and Enviée appear to be prime candidates for his OCC Silver recipe as it is. I suspect that deep SET-type systems would likewise benefit. For the rest of us, including ultra-efficient widebanders fans like Voxativ, his very flexible power cords are the perfect entry. With them, one nets all of OCC's space-opening, energy-accelerating, presence-growing goodness. One simply doesn't overcompensate for qualities one already has. If there's a lesson in all of this, it's that excess in any form quickly gets tiresome. After all, going fast but nowhere is of dubious practical appeal to all but danger-obsessed adolescents and professional racers paid to court accidents. Screech! Yet when at correct dosage for a given system, Ocellia's OCC approach excels at drawing sound out of speaker boxes and into the room whilst cutting any apparent connection between them. That's fantastic. After all, who really likes a stuffy boxy sound? Not even the boring pipe and slippers people who otherwise abhor excitement and energy and prefer that their sound sit over yonder without demanding too much attention. Right?

"Hello Srajan, hope you are both well and enjoying the Indian autumn in CH? Just saw your OCC update and thought I do a foot note. We recently exhibited at the HiFi-News show in Windsor with Scott and Isabel from CAD who provided the front end of the system with their server and DAC. After I heard the OCC cables at your digs this summer, I contacted Samuel. He made me up a set of 4-core fly leads for the Waves and also sent me the speaker cables, ICs and a few AC leads. We had done some listening tests prior to the show with some expensive Chord and Black Rhodium cables and all agreed that his OCC came out on top. I had asked Samuel to do the tweeter legs with a smaller gauge wire as I had done a similar exercise with the various gauge cables that Caelin from Shunyata had sent me. The extended bandwidth and lit-up top end really are out of this world, so much so that I have decided to offer the OCC option as an upgrade to the Waves. I am also looking forward to using the cable on the up'n'coming Liberation model which will have two Enviée drivers and a Raal dipole ribbon per side."

Ocellia website