Delivery by generic carton slightly worse for wear revealed cloth bags filled with a writhing cobra cabal. Like iridescent scales, the lot was sleeved in synthetic mesh revealing blue or purple undertones except for the all cloth-weave long black XLR without outer plastic skin. The light metal barrels mid length of the power cords don't screw or glue to slide and/or rotate easily. Their fat dress barrels without strain relief open too large for the incoming wire diameters. Cleanly applied but still unsightly glue material fills up the excess. Why procure dressy metal bits that don't fit properly; or use out-of-spec samples? One could equally question the cheap shrink wrap on the speaker cables. Why go generic plastic when all else gets light alloy? To me the RCA interconnect ends without synthetic mesh looked far better than their mesh-sleeved centres. I'd much prefer zero synthetic mesh but it likely wears cleaner over the long haul. Whether you appreciate the inset Swarowski 'jewels' shall depend on your desire or tolerance for bling. Cables sit behind equipment racks and speakers. Except from the distance, we don't see much of them. Courses for horses.
Before making any sound, first impressions were slightly less than fully turned on. Korean competitor Allnic would concur. But it can all be easily addressed should Sung Jin agree. I'll give him a break. He didn't even have a global website when this lot parachuted into my room. Rome wasn't built in a day either. Just so, in any upscale sector of commerce, consistency is key. Here shrink wrap and Swarowski will never date though in the real world, there's no good reason why they shouldn't. We'd have no Romeo & Juliet, no Westside Story or Trojan War if love stayed in its prescribed lanes. As to thin or thick, gaunt or gorged, slinky or stiff, true love doesn't discriminate. No fat shaming. I'm admittedly less Christian. I strongly favour fit low-mass cables like my Exact Express. They look like classic Crystal Cable just charge far less. Heaven. And you know what's at the opposite end of that spectrum. It's where stiff thick ropes go which require serious manhandling to enforce dressing and routing. But needs must. So I armed myself with some wire ties and Irish cusses for proper self recrimination at having accepted another phat cable gig.
Top row middle shows a lovely purple/black weave undone by thin plastic mesh farther down the cable. Lower middle shows the filler on the power plug barrel.
To illustrate what pressing into service means, consider the evidence before Athenamuse's fat power cords inserted. Check out the tight coils of Exact Express power cords beneath the closer mono. The Athenamuse versions run inside rubbery garden hoses with a turn radius of what in these games would be a fixed lorry. With the tight spacing of my Kinki/Vinshine 4-outlet Tai Hang DC blocker location, I felt rather put out. If skinny slinky wires by Crystal and Exact can sound and work splendidly, what justification is there for engorged lumps other than impress on first glance and cater to juvenile machismo? Enough questions. Down to sonic biz.
