Proviso. "It's a condition or qualification that specifies how something must happen or be true before the main action or condition can take effect." In hifi reviews, the proviso is context. To get the exact results which the writer did would require the same system, room and ears. That'll never happen. For today's Vermillion to taste sweet not bitter, it's important to know that my speakers in play—the biggest sonic hardware deciders—book inbuilt warmth and fullness compliments of their miniature Dayton subwoofer running up to 5kHz. This is no classic ceramic sound based on early Accuton sightings. It's no electrostatic sound of pure reflexes with little follow-up. It's no classic class D sound all crisply dry-cleaned. Yet the free-standing dipole Mundorf AMT on top aces HF acrobatics like a swallow's flight is nature's own aerial dogfight of bird against updrafts and winds. It also helps knowing that Grzegorz favours resampling PCM to DSD512; that his go-to amps for Cube speakers are Tektron SET from Sicily.

More insight flows from knowing that he enjoys very stiff SPL and low bass. The compact Viper with horizontally opposed dual auxiliary bass radiators reflect it all. Shouldn't we expect that cables from the same ear/brain will want to frame those values? What I expected then wasn't still more body building or any whinge of warmth. Already with amps as quick, neutral and über-resolved as Topping's B200, Viper ticks off those aspects. It's why the B200 joined my desktop. I expected Vermillion to trend deeper into openness and quickness to fully uncork Viper's counter-intuitive dynamic potential and staging majesty. If that's the direction my sound would veer, confirmation bias confirmed. By our proviso's implication, we'd then also expect a 'classic' ceramic/class-D assemblage to respond quite different. Et voilà, small print read and signed.

Pop quiz time. What is a vermillion? "Arriving in the English language in the 13th century, it derives from the Old French vermeillon or vermeil which traces back to the Latin vermiculus, a diminutive of vermis for worm. It's synonymous with red orange and by the 19th century was made from powdered cinnabar, a form of mercury sulfide [above]. The name's origin reflects a colour similarity to a natural red dye made from the Kermes vermilio bug [left]. The natural mineral pigment is called cinnabar, its synthetic form derived from red lead is vermilion." From dead crawlies to a colour, from insect to Polish cable all in a few sentences. It explains Grzegorz's choice of outer sleeve hue. It adds meaning to "don't bug me" as "don't dye me red" whilst for the bugs, it's "die before dye". Meanwhile if Marco Polo's accounts aren't just tall tales, Kublai Khan put to death anyone who tried to smuggle silkworm larvae out of his Mongolian empire. From lowly insects to human luxuries, it's business as usual. Modern insect-sourced materials include beetle hulls turned chitin-based bioplastics; shellac resin in varnish or food glaze from the female lac bug of India and Thailand; and red carmine dye from cochineal beetles. Very insectual.

Looking at the massive throw of this lightweight 83dB carbon-fibre driver with monster motor, it's very much a classic bass pump in miniature. It also doesn't sound like a 100dB Voxativ.

To wrap my intro, when it comes to elite speaker crossovers, two of the brands most often supplying parts are Duelund and Mundorf. Their catalogues get pricey quickly. Once we factor the cost of raw silver and gold, shoppers looking at today's goods appreciate that despite Greg's attempts to bleed his snakes off all the oil, lamp-cord pricing is unattainable. Again, for zippier cords one goes to Belden, Mogami or Sommer. Ditto connectors. Furutech, Viborg or WBT remain off limits. Across the arc of relativity, Vermillion means to bridge real posh with sane dosh not saintly giveaway. Those who begrudge Grzegorz his flat labour fee must breathe their own solder fumes. For some colour commentary, "I'm currently on holiday in Rhodes which the kids enjoy but I look forward to getting back to my experiments and exciting new projects. It was supposed to be 25°C but is 35°C. I'm definitely no sun lizard so right now envy your Irish temperatures. I was born and lived for 18 years on the Swinoujscie seaside and as a child had plenty of fun on the beach but nowadays no longer understand beaching." When someone thinks about audio projects whilst in summery Rhodes, you just know they're a deeply – um, serious case. It's nice to know there are people sweating minutiae in all areas of life so we don't have to. We just get to enjoy the fruits of their loom; in this instance, quite literally so.

When Greg's email with my FedEx tracker announced pending arrival, "I included Vermillion speaker cables in the two versions I decided to move forward with. The Vermillion Spark uses two strands of 16-gauge Duelund tinner copper per '+' and '-' section, the Vermillion Flame twists one 12-gauge Duelund wire with 1mm silver/gold Mundorf wire for each leg. I'll share more details soon." From Duelund's website, "our DCA12GA wire based on the legendary Western Electric WE16GA cable uses a loosely twisted pair per channel and is tinner copper multi-strand wire in a black cotton and oil dielectric. It is for those who demand a robust vintage tone." About their 16-gauge equivalent, they say "savor the delightful harmonics and natural resonance". My samples were picked up in Poland on a Thursday, hit Schönefeld/Germany and Roissy Charles de Gaulle/France that same day and on the next had already landed in Santry/Ireland. FedEx were hustling up a storm and custom spot checks—the special treatment of airport security clearance applied to commodities and marked with "opened by" tape—landed on someone else that day. Only the weekend delayed 3-day delivery. Just then I had a phone call with a US manufacturer who braids his own cables with in-house equipment. Once their spools of silver deplete, re-order time will hit greatly higher costs not only because the raw commodity price has escalated since their last buying cycle but because Trumpian import tariffs pile on extra. Even at Mundorf's volume buying power, the 1% inclusion of gold nearly doubles the cost over what the same conductor would demand in pure silver. According to BullionByPost.ie, the price of silver rose over 197% over the last 10 years whilst the same period saw a Troy ounce of gold increase from €1'200 to €3'200. That's about €100 for a gram; more than nose candy.

My Vermillion reserve arrived packed in these colour-matched metalized envelopes then branded black draw-string bags. The pure copper speaker leads expose their lazy twisted pairs in two separate legs gathered together at the terminations. The hybrid version unites them in a shared sleeve. To avoid declassé shrink wrap, Grzegorz's 3D printers got busy producing black end sleeves seated in the WBT spades for a super-clean look. That was an unexpected luxury detail.

Those solid Cherry terminal nuts are from Boenicke Audio and not original WBT issue.