I’m not in to cables. I use the power cable that came in the box with my amp (Audioquest). I have an $80 ethernet cable, which I thought excessive at the time. I was using Audience AU24e speaker cables that I got in part-exchange effectively to facilitate the sale of something else and cost me about 20% of their new price. They were too long, but it seemed sensible at the time. Until yesterday I has a pair of Atlas Hyper in use ($100), as they were needed for electrostatics that I took out last week (as ordered by wife) and hadn’t bothered to put the Audience cables back in.
I’d finally succumbed to some of Townshend’s isolation equipment because nothing else worked, and his platform (turntable) and bars (speakers) work perfectly.
About 5 years ago Jimmy Hughes (a former audio guru of some repute) told me he’d been using Isolda speaker cables for about 20 years. I was taking his advice on a turntable at the time (which I wisely bought). My issue is lots of cables relatively close together at the back of a unit. I’d remembered what Jimmy had said about these cables being relatively immune to external influences, never mind their internal design, which is quite unique.
Anyway, I was speaking to my dealer for the Townshend products, who is the leading used dealer in the UK, and he offered me a nice price with more in p/x for the Audience than they cost me. Deal done instantly.
I plugged them in last night, quite difficult as they are fragile and I had to avoid folding them behind furniture and tried to keep them as far away from the power line as possible. Straight out of the box, the clarity and resolution was quite shocking. I must admit that I was blown away. This very rarely happens with me. The last time was when I heard how the speed of Devialet Expert amplification improved my speaker performance, and I bought the Devialet unit a few minutes later. I’m still rather shocked by the experience. It’s not fairy dust or claims that the electrons have been lined up with very small tweezers, there is just some clear thinking that comes up with a design that works.
I was split whether Townshend was a bit of a crank or a genius. He makes isolation products, speaker cables, a turntable, super tweeters and pre-amps. That says to me a lack of focus. I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided he’s a genius.
