WireWorld makes A/V cables at many price levels, including some that are very, very expensive. While at CES 2011, I spoke with David Salz about his designs, and I was intrigued enough to request some for review. What I received were cables that showed some of the best bench test results I have ever seen in A/V cables. Needless to say, I was very pleased. They are expensive, but life is a bitch when you love quality.

Tags: Cables | Interconnects | Speaker Cables

Marc Audio - Update:  Black Line RCA Interconnects - The Reference Line.

Marc Audio is another new audio cable manufacturer that has just set up shop in October. I received a sample of their first product, an RCA interconnect that is going to be their mid-level line of audio cables, called the Red Line (as of June, 2011, they renamed them as the Signature Line). I thought it might just be more of the same. But, it turned out this one is different, and it is not even their top model. For one thing, it is totally a USA product. The wires are manufactured in North Prairie, Wisconsin, and the assembly and termination are done in Door County, Wisconsin. The cables are beautifully made, with high quality RCA plugs and stackable banana plugs (gold-plated copper alloy). But, the big surprise is that these mid-level priced ($440/meter-pair) interconnects outperformed my $4,000/pair interconnects in terms of impedance and phase, while the Red Line speaker cables ($319 for an 8 foot pair) performed about the same as my reference cables. Subsequently, I received a set of Black Line RCA interconnects (renamed the Reference Line as of June, 2011), which are priced at $870/meter-pair. Read on to see how they compared to the Red Line.

Tags: Cables

Ah HDMI. This now commonplace interface has had a storied history of controversy and confusion. Now evolved, it is still far from perfect but at least we A/V enthusiasts are living with it now. The most misunderstood part of the equation has traditionally been the cable. How long can it be and not cause signal deterioration, or even drop the signal altogether? NexGen addresses these questions with their Copperhead Xtreme HDMI Cable.

Tags: Cables | HDMI

HDMI cables have two basic issues that are somewhat different than with audio cables, namely that they tend to be much longer, and also, the HDMI connector has turned out not to be very robust. So, if the HDMI cable that came with your new HDTV or DVD player is not doing the job for you, Kordz makes cables that will deliver the goods under any conditions. We review here their pure copper model, the EVO, as well as the EVS which has a thin coating of pure silver, and the EVX, which has a thicker coating of silver.

Tags: HDMI

Sometime in ancient history, when snakes freely roamed the earth without fear that their oil would be disparaged, John Johnson asked me if I wanted to review the complete line of Ultralink/XLO Argentum audio cables. Since I thrive on comparisons, be they of cabling, amplifiers, or sopranos, I welcomed the assignment. (The Argentum power cable is not necessarily just for audio, but we include it as such here.)

Tags: Cables