Studying the Vovox pro-audio catalogue, one recognizes certain similarities but also lower pricing. Vogt explained that whilst construction shares certain elements, the production of their hifi cables incurs far fewer compromises to sonically eclipse the pro brethren. For example, the textura interconnects use the Bullet Plug so beloved for its natural sound. Alas, a tired DJ tearing down his hardware stack at six in the morning might lazily undo connections by just pulling on the cables. That's a lot faster than fussing with tightly clustered plugs. A pro cable has to withstand such abuse whereas a hifi cable can assume more respectful handling.

Another difference are the post treatments which all textura and textura fortis models undergo. Think cryogenic immersion in -200°C vats, with very carefully controlled lengthy returns to room temperatures. Whilst Jürg Vogt freely confesses that far from the whole process is understood yet, sonic gains are evident enough to not require bat ears to make out. What's more, cryo plus specially generated signal which is run through their fully assembled lengths mean that Vovox hifi cables don't suffer typical break-in changes.

Asked about their sonic philosophy, one quickly learns that Vovox don't really have one; unless it counts to serve maximal data transfer, not sonic tuning in this or that direction. Here the choice of conductor material is plainly important. Vovox treasure the balanced virtues of copper. They use so-called Continuous Cast Copper or OCC of four nines purity. The raw metal is cast very slowly to arrive at a near monocrystalline state. To obtain audio-typical diameters from such ingots involves stretching. This tends to rupture the molecular matrix. Proper care and a far slower more studious casting process reduce such damage which Vogt claims is sonically relevant.

Even though our accredited materials engineer probably conceptualizes his cables more from their physical than mathematical makeup, his operation still relies on measurements. But it's not ‘perfect numbers' which clinch final designs. Those must convince during extensive listening trials. In cases of conflict, more natural sound will trump better measurements. Distortion avoidance is pursued with deliberate reductionism. It's an approach which transmits as soon as one picks up a Vovox textura. It feels unusually light. Nomen est omen, this could lead to being viewed as sonic lightweights, too. But it's obvious also that material reductionism isn't accompanied by stripped-down production. Vovox textura isn't spooled off the OEM roll, then terminated and gussied up in CH to look expensive. After receipt of their raw copper conductors, no less than four discrete labour processes are required before termination begins. These steps are handled by select sub-contractors preferably in close vicinity. They perform these specialized tasks under stringent Vovox specs. Post cryogenics, the solid-core conductors are sleeved in special natural fibres before another contractor sprays them in polymer. Finally there's a weaver shop who otherwise crafts textiles for extreme applications. They create the final extremely strong polyester sheath which gives the unshielded low- and high-level cables not only their signature look but protects them from mechanical abuse. Add strict multi-step quality control via Vogt and team before any Vovox cable ever gets its connectors attached in their Ebikon shop. Pricing thus reflects what goes into such multi-tiered production. A Bullet Plug terminated stereo metre of unshielded Vovox textura fetches €795, a Phenol-Tuchel terminated XLR €940. A phono cable with SME plug and separate flexible ground cable gets €1'040.

Thankfully Vovox didn't hesitate to supply me with a 7-metre length of their shielded textura protect for between my preamp and amp. Unshielded such a length isn't available since it would suffer sonic losses. My long loaner registered with €3'410 at the till. Where one metres suffices, €890 covers the bill. A textura LS with contact-happy hollow bananas fetches €1'180/2.5m/pr. A complete loom of Vovox textura thus adds up but competitors we recently tested that were matched on quality didn't want any less. The quite sizeable parcel arriving from Switzerland prompted swapping out my entire resident loom where I usually proceed one cable at a time. My loaner set included phono, unshielded analog RCA and XLR, the shielded extra-long interconnect and speaker cables.