Audio envy - dang!

The great deal of overwhelmed positivity over these cables is a red flag to me. Use of extreme hyperbole over cables is concerning.

The fact is I discovered Audio Envy a few years ago in the market floor of an audio show, I forget which...possibly AXPONA? The low price of these modest, lightweight cables lured me over. I chatted with the owner for a bit. Thought what the hell, sounds like it would be a great phono interconnect and bought a set. When I put them in the system I don’t recall them wowing me, blowing my socks off, being a revelation, game-changer, "transparent" (as if there is any other kind) or anything of the like. I didn’t think they were bad. Since they seemed like a cheap, safe bet I got another set and a power cable too.

This thread has inspired me to critically test these cables. If this is social media marketing campaign they’re going to be sorry for drawing my attention. But if the hype is true than I’ll be added to the choir.

Negative topic headers is my brand, don’t worry about it.

My Yggdrasil has two sets of SE outputs which makes testing interconnects easy. In one group are "World’s Best Cables" interconnects. These are simply Mogami pro cables with nothing-special connectors. Running a quick test, switching back and forth between the two cables using a remote for my preamp, showed there WAS apparently a difference. The AE cables seemed to shift the soundstage making it a little wider. Sometimes, but not always, piano seemed more forward / louder.

That was just a quickie I’m doing a more thorough comparison

Well there's always someone who feels like investigating my posting history. Because of that I feel like I can't break the trend so it's basically become my brand.

Anyway to try and expose the apparent sound staging I listened to Factory Girl from Beggars Banquet by Rolling Stones. I picked this track because it has a strong spatial effect due to manipulating stereo. Listening to this I realized that the "shift" in soundstage I experienced is due to one of the cable sets being cross-wired. Honestly it doesn't look there's much a difference between the AE and Mogami cables in place. I'll need to test further, perhaps not with rapid A/B testing which might be messing up my audio perception.

I also have a set of Audio Sensibility cables connecting pre to amp. I'll figure out how to test those as well.

Source: custom audio server, linear power supply, Paul Pang v3 USB card + external battery supply. SSD power isolated with splitter cable to another battery. Windows 10, Fidelizer Pro, Roon. All fanless. CD player when the batteries are charging.

DAC: Schiit Yggdrasil Analog 2 + Unison USB (Supra USB cable and optical for CD player).

Pre: Yaqin B-2T + Herbie tube dampeners, all NOS. Both DAC and pre plugged into a Chinese balanced isolation transformer. Audio Sensibility power cables to devices, transformer is plugged into a Furutech outlet with a AE power cable.

Amp: VTV Purifi, currently burning in but I think it's about done. Old Odyssey Stratos standing by, Odyssey Kismet coming in. LessLoss level 1 power-filtering cable (not the C-Marc) with a LessLoss Firewall x64, plugged directly into a Furutech outlet.

Speakers: ProAc D30R + Audio Sensibility cables + matching jumpers. 

@arafiq Yes, I am implying that. Of course I could easily be wrong and it’s simply that it’s unrelated people participating in a feel-good groupthink exercise. No cables will have the amazing revelatory effects being described here, and also the almost unadulterated positivity, no one at all except for one person seems to be able to be mildly critical. Don’t worry I haven’t officially labeled the AE cables as "nothing special" yet, more testing is required.

Anyway, AE has nothing to worry about. People, especially in the lower budget spectrum, will already make up their minds about the cables being excellent because they prefer to believe they’ve found the "smart" buy, and all they need to see is most people on here praising it. The one or two mediocre reviews will just get dismissed.

I did the same thing with Anticables some years ago. I trialed a set of their top of the line 6.2 interconnects. Far more expensive than these AEs. I compared them against a set of old no-name cables using pro stock (I forget which) with big heavy connectors lying around the basement. At first the 6.2 was much worse, but after a good amount of burn-in they improved to...no difference at all. No matter how hard I listened I couldn’t tell any difference that wasn’t so minor that it couldn’t be chalked up to memory effects. So, I returned them. No harm no foul. Of course nobody wanted to hear my findings for the reasons stated above and I’m sure that thread hasn’t impacted the purchasing decision of a single person.

And I guess I’ll say that the versions of the cables I have are labeled "patent pending" and look different compared to what’s on the site. The interconnects look more like the phono cables without the grounding wires. I also note that prices have been greatly increased. Has the owner increased price to match the better performance? Or is it just bringing things more into line with expected audiophile margins?

@lalitk I don't see any indication of the high-end cables you claim to have owned in there.