¥ippee Ki-Yay? Rather than stiff middle finger, the cable's thickness is 1/3rd my pinkie. Why so many high-end cables get obese is a brilliant question. This just isn't one of them. The feel of the connector housings sits between metal and hard plastic to be different. All markings and branding are etched not silk-screened. That's it. It's a cable for Chrissie's sake. If there was more to it, it'd be weird. And yes, many hifi cables are weird. But we already crossed that bridge. Other than colour and happy absence of heat shrink and other DIY guff, this one is perfectly ordinary. Having recently splurged a single ice-cream scoop budget on a small adapter, I could even test the visitor on the USB-C output of my FiiO R7 SD-card server. That typically sends digits to a Soundaware D300Ref USB bridge/reclocker down a custom Polish Forza AudioWorks cable. With the below Exact Express USB link from Kinki Studio on hand as well, I had even more comparison ops. Time to board the universal serial bus. If I drove too fast, would all become a blur? How much difference could already quality USB links still make? To advance my odds of hearing any, Raal 1995's Immanis triple-ribbon headphones could get microscopically molecular on the music should my speakers prove deaf. In fact I first bypassed the USB bridge to connect FiiO's transport directly to the DAC's USB input as most users would. A second round reinserted the Soundaware to see whether its reclocking and dejittering might equalize upstream cable swaps.
Immanis or Susvara with Cen.Grand's flagship DAC and headfi amp of DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe and Silver Fox.
To coin these swaps, a 3.3m Exact Express wants $1'049, the 3m Curious Cable in the main rig gets $880. My Forza was a custom commission from years ago. I don't recall what I paid but suspect that today's Furutech undercuts it, too. From my bunch the visitor made going to the bank the shortest walk. Another surprisingly short walk was hearing differences though it must be said that, a/ I paid close attention, b/ I had what surely must be one of the most resolving transducers available. My 'professionalized DIY' Polish leash tapped out. Its warmth clearly lost out on air, separation and harmonic sophistication of timbre differentiation. It was duller, fuzzier and of lower contrast. In fairness, its maker focuses on aftermarket headphone cables. He repurposed his standard conductors for my USB order so converted analog wires to digital duty. In hindsight, not a good idea.
These white and purple contenders from China and Japan took tone, separation and recorded space to a higher level. The high frequencies that embed as overtones in midrange sounds injected more liveliness and vibrancy. The same greater illumination factored on not clumping together closely placed images. Even low-level venue cues were more visible. The Polish link had damped down those micro-lingering elements of trailing fades. With it out of the running for overall lower clarity, zooming in on the other two was a far longer walk. Rapid A/B noticed something. Identifying what it was—never mind whether it mattered—was another business. By selling for 1/3rd, that already made the Furutech a careful punter's choice. With gaps this narrow, we're down to what shoes to wear. If we own two pairs equally appropriate for a given weather and occasion, they both get the job done. Even if they look and feel a bit different, once we've made our pick for the day, we stop giving it another thought. Though my tastes groomed by the speed of ribbons gave the final nod to the pricier Exact Express for being marginally more open and immediate still, this was more accessorizing with color-matched shoes. If the footwear is correct, blue or brown makes no difference once we hit a sandy beach or rainy puddles.
My takeaway was basic. Two cables from big companies with actual engineers on staff made a meaningful improvement over one from a DIYer turned businessman. Beyond that, divergent approaches to UHF noise filtering—a showy gold-plated copper trap of unspecified innards for Exact Express, NCF with Furutech—plus likely strict adherence to bandwidth and Ω requirements took me to very similar places of equal competence. The real decider now was price. ¥es!
Time to take this show downstairs and throw teams Australia and Japan under my universal serial bus?
