Connectors are proprietary RCA plugs with double silver plating connected with WBT solder. At this price that’s quite impressive. These Esprit connectors exhibited a strong grip over the sockets of my Coincident Technology preamp and Esoteric K-03 SACD player. The Beta speaker cables are sleeved in the same dark sheath and look very elegant. They are also very flexible to install without fuss. They too are composed of pure long-grain copper conductors within an asymmetrical dielectric. The shield is described as progressive with a friendly impedance of only 8Ω/kilometer. Termination is via spades or banana plugs. I received spade-to-spade lengths plus a set of banana/banana jumpers. These connectors looked nicely built and overall quality again sat at the top of this price class.

Sound. The Esprit Beta cables were not just visually attractive but also a nice surprise to my ears. Their sonics were balanced overall with a slightly laid-back character. I would call their character typically French, meaning they did not highlight any obvious artifacts to make a system sound bigger than it is. At the same time they preserved a touch of vividness to keep me involved without adverse listener fatigue. They sounded balanced and elegant in the pure French or Italian tradition. They were relatively quiet with a good level of transparency. Bandwidth felt extended with a pristine rendering of microdynamics. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to write up two cable pairs which are essentially balanced and honest. Compared to the American Triode Wire Labs loom, the French played the lower mids less dense. They were less warm but nonetheless remained in the organic rather than sterile or cold milieu. They managed to have a very crystalline tonal signature whilst being a tad sweet at the same time. Choosing between these cable sets would be a matter of taste and priority. The TWL would wake up a tidy system but not to the extent of my Analysis Plus speaker wires or JPS Superconductor 3 which truly impact the sound to impress the listener.

By comparison, the TWL and Esprit sound is far more balanced. They don’t ‘create’ the same lush density in the lower midband but neither do they alter nor mask parts of the bandwidth. In that sense they’re superior to the more famous American competitors. Of course with such a different voicing philosophy, it makes little sense to compare. For something else committed to neutrality, I reached for two of my personal references, the Grimm Audio and Naturelle Audio Live 8 interconnects. The differences now were rather subtle. These cables were quite close on tonal balance and detail accuracy.

Of the three, the Grimm Audio balanced interconnects were undoubtedly the most resolving. They offer a high level of ambient recovery and small-scale signal. They don’t deliver the most gorgeous of tone and can also sound a bit harsh in the treble if not carefully associated with copasetic electronics. The Naturelle Audio RCA interconnects offer less resolution and detail but might have a better tonal balance and are clearly more forgiving than the Grimm. They also produce a very silent black background that provides a lot of quietude. By comparison the Esprit Beta were more warm but not excessively so. They unearthed as much detail as my Naturelle Audio wires but provided more vividness. Esprit Beta’s tonal balance in fact hovered between my Naturelle Audio Live 8 and the High Fidelity CT1.