I wrote a review of the Digital Research 4X12F cables and
posted it here on Audiogon almost three weeks ago as a recommendation for these
high quality speaker cables that were IMO very inexpensive given the build
quality, quality of its component parts and in view of the four figure cost of their
direct competitors in my side by side and blind comparisons and foremost, how my
system sounded with them and with other cables. I am not an electrical engineer
and I do not work in the audio industry. I am a long time audiophile enthusiast
(over 45 years down the rabbit hole) and I have one immutable rule of thumb – Don’t
buy what you can’t hear. I read the reviews but then I listen on my own. I know individual components and interconnects
make a difference in how your system sounds because I have done the side by
side tests in my own system. Why they may sound different or better or worse
than the standard they are being compared with (my existing system components)
I cannot begin to tell you. You either hear or the difference or you do not. If
you do not hear any difference or any improvement – end of story. If you do
hear a difference IMO you then have to beware of really hearing an audible
difference versus perhaps a psychological one. To combat the latter, I try to use as many
blind tests as my fiancé will indulge me by connecting and disconnecting and
reconnecting cable and interconnects from multiple sources repeated for each
comparison.
Its now been a several weeks since I posted my first review
of the Digital Research cables which were new at the time of my first review. The cables I tested them against were not new. They have now about 200+ hours on them. Initially, I must confess to being
skeptical of the entire “burn-in” process. I read up on the electrical
engineering explanation which exceeded my lay understanding of such things as
current orientation, dielectric break in and the vanquishing of stray molecules
of moisture or other imperfections. Again, IMO whether this is a real phenomenon
or not, or has its roots in science or snake oil, I fall back on – Don’t buy
what you can’t hear. That being said, after another round of testing side by
side and several rounds of blind testing I do believe these Digital Research 4X12F
speaker cables sound better than the thousand dollar plus options I auditioned and I believe they sound better now than when I first auditioned and tested
them with the other cables. Was it night and day? No, categorically not. Was it
a matter of degree? Certainly yes. As I said there was no OMG moment 200+ hours
into the process where the clouds parted and angels began to sing -- nor after 45 years of critical listening
did I have the expectation that they would. (Let’s completely put aside for this
update the very real possibility that 200+ listening hours later I can actually
recall to any reliable degree what these cables sounded like.) But I have to be
honest, IMO they sound better now than I recalled at the outset – more like a fine
wine that has been opening up for a while. It was not rubbish out of the
bottle, but it’s just a little more refined and defined than immediately after
opening. For my hard earned audio money I just cannot believe these cables cost
what I paid for them. I simply like my system’s sound with these Digital
Research 4X12F cables better than I liked it with others costing many orders of
magnitude more and even costing less than the existing cables they replaced.
Good luck – please this was not intended as kindling for re-igniting
the burn in period debate – about which much, maybe too much, has already been
written, sniped at, belittled advocates and opponents of each position – like I
said – it does not matter to me until I hear the difference and I believe I did, maybe you will too.
I voted with my dollars.
