HiFiCritic magazine recommends the Experience880 tunable audio cable interconnect.

31st December 2018

HiFiCritic magazine recommends the Experience880 tunable audio cable interconnect.

by Paul Messenger.

In the feature that begins on page 20, Chris Bell explains the extensive experimentation that led to his cables, the rationale behind them. This review is therefore an entirely independent postscript to that main feature, its role being purely to check whether CB is telling the truth or leading us all up the garden path.

My work was based on three pairs of phono-to-phono interconnect, each roughly 2m long, with my very much more costly EnKlein David providing a useful reference point. I used a Naim CDS3/PS555 DR as the source, playing mostly Bonny Raitt’s Baby of Mine into a Naim Statement pre-amp, a NAP500 DR power amp and 3 Square Audio Translator loudspeakers.

A hiatus that did occur early in the proceedings necessitated returning the interconnect cables to Wire on Wire in order to have their plugs changed for some that apparently sounded better. This should have been no problem as I hadn’t started work, though some slips of paper carrying some identification seemed to have gone missing.

I began listening with the plain untreated cable, which sounded decent enough, though it clearly fell somewhat short of the David. However, I noticed that my foot started tapping when I introduced the cables with the gold spacers (Stage), which is always a good sign, and this example did turn out to be my personal favourite among the three.

Although the cable with the shiny red spacers did have a pleasing overall coherence, it was a little too polite and laid back for my taste. I therefore returned to the example with the gold markings, as was pleased to find my foot was starting to tap again.  How does is compare with the David? I’m not entirely sure, but reckon I could probably live with either.

I am a trifle puzzled by the fact that both the gold and red cables had some six spacers, even though they’re arranged differently, since they certainly sounded quite distinctive. The blurb goes on about imaging too, which isn’t really my cup of tea either: crucially, we all hear things differently, and in our own particular way.  Happily, I can report that the Wire on Wire spacers do work, and do create worthwhile differences between the various versions that I tried.

HiFiCritic OCT NOV DEC 2018