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Audioquest Firebird Zero

I've tried several speaker cables over the past year; Shunyata Alpha and Sigma, Wireworld Silver Eclipse series 7, Audioquest Oak and Redwood, Audience Au24 SX, and I own Clarus Crimson speaker cables. I prefer the Clarus over all of the aforementioned speaker cables. I've had the Audioquest Firebird Zero speaker cables on loan for three days. My initial thoughts were everything is a little clearer through them compared to my Clarus Crimson. Not a night and day difference, but definitely clearer. The Clarus are slightly more 3-dimensional to my ears. My wife on the other hand just keeps saying the AQ sounds sharper, clearer, there are less impurities in the music. I'm not sure what she means by impurities, but she keeps repeating it. Maybe she means a darker background? My plan was to have a home audition of the Thunderbird Zero speaker cables, but they had banana plugs on the amplifier end and I can't use them. I took the Firebirds with the logic that if I can't hear a difference between them and my current cables I didn't need to have a home audition of the Thunderbirds. $14K for an eight foot pair of speaker cables is freaking crazy and sad! It would be easy for me to dismiss it  because there isn't a night and day difference, but once you hear the difference it's very hard to ignore. Financially I just can't justify spending $14K on speaker cables and hope to hear the AQ Thunderbirds sometime next week. Once again I'm reminded that absolutely everything makes a difference. For those that can easily afford $14K, $20K or more speaker cables I understand, because cables can be equivalent to a component change. Does it ever end?
ricred1

Showing 4 responses by 4425

4425
861 posts
 
I haven’t read all of the thread but i find it impossible to believe that bill lowe and team weren’t aware of what is called a “game changing” new design by Garth. high end audio cables have been around for over 40yrs so it’s hard to imagine that improvements on a massive scale can be had. every single cable manufacturer markets the latest design as a breakthrough with their new cables less expensive models exceeding the performance of higher priced cables from the “old” line. It’s not just AQ, which I think is very good at making cables and marketing. shunyata is exactly the same. 
imo
4425
861 posts
 
i’m also saying that it may not be too wise to dump old for new if in fact one was happy with the old. at these prices i’d be looking more at new speakers or components. now that can be a game changer, especially speakers. 
4425
861 posts
 
just saying if you have good(and i mean good) cables already and were contemplating a large purchase of very expensive cables i would want to be sure that my front end was spot on. i’ve had many expensive cables and find(for me) that the major differences lie along dark/bright lines with bass and smoothness thrown in. ymmv
4425
861 posts
 
WEL will not be discontinued is my understanding. In fact it’s going up $250 per pr on Feb 28. WBY is history. I suppose a new breakthrough technology has been found after 40 or so years. I/we are so blind to audio manipulation. I know there’s no possible breakthrough but still want to try something new like a fool. IMO 
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