Has anyone compared these higher end Hijiri cables to Kubala - Sosna Elation or Realization? thanks!
聖HIJIRI Users thread
Based on a discussion with another forum member, I've been reading up on this Comback Corporation brand. The reviews I've found have been pretty positive, but I've also learned over the years to take all reviews with a grain of salt. So the purpose of this thread is for users to share their input on 聖HIJIRI cables. When you share, if you'd discuss what model of HIJIRI you demoed and what brands/models they were compared to, that'd be very helpful.
A little background: a few years ago I was reading the Audio Envy threads and decided to give them a try as the seemed to compete with much higher-priced cable. So I decided to give AE a try. I found both the $179 P2 and the $279 M3 to easily best an Isotek power cord at $1k. So that got me thinking even more about value products. I was about to give Zavfino a try and then was given another recommendation to give HIJIRI a try. So this is how I got here. I'll be very interested to hear all user comments on HIJIRI and this should be a good repository for the brand.
Here is their website: www.combak.net
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@disc As I said in my earlier post, I have a slightly unique setup with Tannoy’s. In addition to bi-wiring functionality of Canterbury’s, I chose to add optional Super Tweeters for enhanced WideBand frequency response to Prestige GR loudspeakers. Based on my assessment with speaker cables, in a bi-wire or tri-wire scenario; you always want to use a cable that renders the highest resolution with finesse on HF terminals. This is not to say that speaker cable connected to LF post is not important, a high quality 12AWG speaker cable like Zavfino Nova is far more capable in delivering the bass frequencies accurately. In direct comparison between HIJIRI “Million” vs Nova on LF channel, I honestly couldn’t tell them apart. If there were any differences, they were subtle at best and certainly not justifiable at 15x the cost difference in this particular application. When I swapped the Nova on HF terminals, HIJIRI was sorely missed. The tonal richness, depth, musicality and resolution took a noticeable hit in scalability. The vocals were not as palpable as heard through HIJIRI. I am not trying to knock down the Nova but HIJIRI “Million” plays in another stratosphere, as it should given the price and its artisan heritage. And lastly, the Sternklang speaker cable was a better fit for my Super Tweeter. Their low mass design, livelier, slightly forward tuned and detailed sound allowed the tweeters to sound more alive and louder. Thankfully my hearing is still good but in ten to fifteen years I may not able to appreciate the cymbals splashing like confetti falling to the ground…LOL! Sternklang speaker cables were able to render the definite trails of textural nuances such as reverberation trails and delay repeats more succinctly than any other cable I’ve tried in this application. In my system, the combination of these three cables has elevated the sense of excitement and listening experience. Cheers! |
@lalitk Thanks so much for the full explanation. I take your point about different cable shining depending on the frequency. BTW, that looks like an amazing set of speakers. Thanks so much for taking the time to explain. |
I just ordered another Hijiri RCA cable. I will now have a full loom of Hijiri Power cords and interconnects. Thanks again Colin King at Gestalt Audio in Nashville. In the next 6 months I have to order 3 pairs of speaker cables to support the crossovers on my Aries Cerat Aurora speakers. I can see me following Lalit;s lead and buying 3 different cables. |
I am looking forward to your listening impressions of Aurora’s. I believe, trying different speaker cables would be a great idea as long as HIJIRI “Million” speaker cable in the mix. Like you, I am also using a complete loom of HIJIRI’s with one pair of Sternklang Speaker (tweeters) and XLR between my SACD player and the Integrated. My other source, DAC/Streamer is wired with HIJIRI “Kiwami” XLR’s and a pair of “Takumi” Maestro PC’s. |
@gochurchgo I think comparing the Lavricables (Grand, their top-of-the-line) to Hijiri would be like comparing apples to oranges. 5N silver vs whatever the hi-grade copper is used with Hijiri cables. Don't get me wrong they are both very good, but I would think they sound somewhat different. I own a full loom of the Grand but I only have one Hijiri power cord and have not had the luxury of hearing the interconnects or speaker cables. If you were to purchase the HIJIRI brand from what I know I would suggest you go with the “Million”. |
I wish I could update you on my Aries Cerat Equipment but I am not receiving it until the end of the year. Right now, I have the AC Essentia Mono amps. I will be getting the Aurora Speakers, Ageto Pre, and Kassandra 2 DAC. I will report out on WBF when the time comes. As far as cables go, I believe I reported my findings somewhere here or WBF. About 8 months ago I did a shootout between my custom Dueland Helix Custom Power Cords with Hijiri, Tchernov, and Inakustic. I would rate them as follow: Hijiri / Inakustic /Tchernov / Dueland Helix. The bottom line was that the Hijiri was just more musical, lush, and detailed, with excellent bass response. I ended up buying The Hijiri Takumi for my Inakustic 3500P Power Conditioner and Lampi Horizon DAC. I traded all of my Dueland Helix cords for a Hijiri Nagomi which I have in my Lucas Audio LDMS. Right now I have MIT AC Rev 2 for my AC Essentia amps. When I get the AC equipment, I will use the Takumi's on the Essentia Amps and move the MIT's to the crossovers. I do have the MIT's listed for sale on US Audiomart. It won't bother me if they do not sell as I need them regardless. BTW, I just added the Network Acoustic Muon Pro cabling and Filter ethernet cords and they shine!!!!! They shine even more after I added a very inexpensive D-Link switch to them. I was shocked. I have two sets of Hijiri RCA cables and I had one Sternklang SPDIF cable. Again, thanks to Colin King at Gestalt Audio in Nashville, I was able to demo various RCA and Spdif cables. Because the Hijiri was a little lush, I really liked the added punch that Sternklang provided. I did have the Inakustic interconnects...I think the 4004 air but I can't remember. They are fantastic cable in their own right and I had 11 offers to buy them when I listed them in one hour. Obviously, I priced them too low lol. My speaker cables were custom-made by my speaker maker. They are all silver. Now, when my AC equipment arrives, I need two more pc's, and 4 sets of speaker cables and I am switching to BNC from SPDIF. I have to say I am intrigued by the QSA Landrei series of cords and cables. I might try them given you get a 30-day money-back guarantee.
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Thank you for posting your feedback. I’m glad to hear you found Muon Filter and Ethernet cable effective in your system. If I may make a suggestion, try the 聖HIJIRI SM2R-L "SOUND MATTER" Power Cord for your LDMS. This is an amazing cord for the money considering it will get you very close to TAKUMI sound. I am reposting my impressions below. I think you will be very happy with SM2R-L over Nagomi. “The 聖Hijiri SM2R-L power cord took 300+ hours to open up. My listening test were conducted at 400 mark. For direct A/B comparison with “TAKUMI”, I swapped the SM2R-L back n forth on my Accuphase Integrated. I listened to variety of high resolution files stored on my Aurender SSD and Qobuz. What struck me immediately is the similarities between the SM2R-L and TAKUMI power cords. I heard much of the same characteristics of 聖Hijiri TAKUMI maestro in SM2R-L i.e. conveying the music in a most natural way without emphasizing any elements of music and with finesse and fluidity. Again with SM2R-L, the designer's emphasis remained on the mid-range. The vocals through this PC were simply stunning and my connection with music was just as engaging as with “TAKUMI” power cords. IMHO, the SM2R-L fills the performance/price gap between the NAGOMI and TAKUMI power cords nicely. I don't think SM2R-L meant to compete with TAKUMI's so in that aspect, SM2R-L has easily surpassed my expectations at 60% cost of TAKUMI's. Switching back and forth between "TAKUMI" and SM2R-L revealed why I'm still biased towards TAKUMI's :-) The TAKUMI’s in my system simply digs deeper into the music and reveals every nuances you didn’t know you were missing with SM2R-L or Nagomi power cords. It’s not like SM2R-L is lacking in details or holding back anything but you’re in different stratosphere of resolution with TAKUMI’s. Is SM2R-L worth the 2X cost of Nagomi's? Well, I'll let you be the judge of that! I do honestly believe, if you hear both of these power cords in your system, there is a darn good probability that you're going to end up preferring SM2R-L over Nagomi's. ” |
I really appreciate your update. I can't wait to read about the AC gear you have coming on WBF around Christmas! I also really appreciate your excellent comments on Hijiri. It seems nearly all who try them buy them. I've spoken to Colin a number of times on cables as well as DACs and streamers. His reputation precedes him, he is a gentleman. Like yourself, I believe @grannyring also uses Hijiri power cords but uses a different brand of interconnects, Tchernov if I remember right. I think that Lalit may use Sternklang as well, again if my memory is correct. As the OP of this thread, I do want to try Hijiri, but I want to finish the Network side of my front end first. I appreciate the comments on NA Muon Pro Streaming System, that is one of two items I am considering. What I really like about it is that is it passive, so no power cord or LPS or DC lead. And it has a number of positive user comments already. Will thanks again for coming by and commenting on Hijiri. |
You’re welcome my friend! As to your earlier post, I am using full loom of 聖HIJIRI “Million” series in my system. As far as SM2R-L PC, it’s currently being used on my SACD player along with Sternklang XLR IC’s. I’ve written in detail on Sternklang cables in my thread, check it out. As I mentioned earlier, SM2R-L has a gorgeous sound and I’m glad Combak decided to revive this cable. In any case, I recommend auditioning both SM2R-L and TAKUMI in your system and let your ears guide you. |
Just got the Takumi Maestro power cable for AMP. Also put a Naomi into PSU for steamer. What a difference! What a difference! What a difference! I did a blind test with a non audiophile friend. The Takumi was picked 85% of the time over the no slouch ZenWave Audio Power cord that was into AMP. The Maestro topped that! Thankful.
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Colin loaned me a Nagomi pc 2 weeks ago. I tried it first feeding the Puritan per his suggestion, but I did not really hear much change. More anticipatory excitement telling me I would hear something. But I don't think there was much there there. Then I tried it in a (crazy) daisy chain arrangement to my amp inside an Elrod string and it really made a nice improvement. See my system thread and you'll see my crazy experiment where I was bypassing a 27 foot Anticable pc with 3 power cables daisy chained together. I used IEC to male plug adapters to tie two Elrods and a Tara Labs into a long power cable to see what would happen. That combo was pretty good but when I added a third Elrod in place of the Tara, it was too much bass and fuzzy highs. I pulled the Nagomi off the Puritan, placed my NRG on the Puritan as before, and set the Nagomi in-between both Elrods and it was magic. It's crazy, but the Nagomi tightened up the bass, clarified the top end, and made it very musical. I still need greater than 5 meters to get from rack to amp even if I pull the amp in more, so I'm considering two 3 meter Nagomis instead of a custom length because I did not knowingly suffer any loss of signal with the adapters. I can now try the Nagomi on the dac or preamp if I can adequately substitute for it in the Elrod string from my back-up pile of pc's. Hard to explain, but the sound really changed with the Tara or Nagomi in that string of Elrod cables. Enough to give me some taste for what this cable is supposed to deliver anyways. More cable fun coming as I also have a Harmonix Studio Master and a Sablon Robusto to try. I suspect the Studio Master to have similar Nagomi traits. Thanks to Colin for the loan. He's gonna cost me some real money here soon as I also want to audition the Sternklang speaker cables. |
@bugredmachine, Is the "bugredmachine's Tennessee System 2023" system the one you are referring to? |
“The Combak company is the real deal for musicality” I couldn’t agree with you anymore. If I may say so, you barely got a taste of what 聖HIJIRI’s cables are about with Nagomi. Wait till you try the "TAKUMI" 匠Maestro Power Cord or even the 聖Hijiri SM2R-L power cord. I started my audition with Nagomi vs TAKUMI’s and end up upgrading to full 聖HIJIRI “Million” loom. |
Hey all - my question is about where you started (front end or back end) with your cable upgrades - Streamer or transport to DAC? DAC to preamp? Preamp to power amp? Speaker wires? Kind of seems like improvements at the front end will benefit the whole chain, but the need to conserve funds means I need to prioritize. Thanks, in advance, for any advice or experience you can share. |
“I need to prioritize” Not knowing your budget, I suggest you contact Colin @gestalt for guidance on where to start. My suggestion would be to start with a speaker cable plus - One power cord, - One pair of Interconnect That 3 cables in total, rotate the PC and IC between your components to access where you hear most audible improvement. Once you get hooked (and you will), upgrade as funds permits down the road. Good luck and have fun!
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I had the most impact on the amp, followed by the preamp when it came to PC's. Moreso exposing deficiencies in other cables then followed by drawing you in to the seductive sound. Then you try to go back or start mixing in different combinations while you're second-guessing and all you can hear is a problem here or there. Then you realize you need more Hijiri's. I hate Colin.😏 |
I couldn’t agree with you anymore. I started off with the PC’s as well and end up upgrading all of my cables. Now I have a full loom of HIJIRI’S on all the main components. Also, check out Sternklang cables, they mate very well with HIJIRI’S. Colin @gestalt has great taste in music and he certainly knows how to pick his gear, everything I came across and heard so far offers great value and audio nirvana. |
Hey guys. I thought I would chime in. I already had the Nagomi but my curiosity got the best of me and I broke down and bought the Takumi PC. After ordering, I thought to myself, what the hell am I doing spending this kind of coin on a freakin PC? When I first installed it in the system on the integrated amp (moved the Nagomi to the source), the first thing I noticed is that it was smooth. It was pleasant, sure it sounded darn good, but not 5 grand good. I thought the highs were a little subdued at first. I let it play in and now have well over 300 hours. And Now? My goodness this cable is freakin awesome. So much TEXTURE, thickness, great extension and balance, it's all there. Oh, and in a way where it is so enjoyable, or as others have described as very musical. So smooth, but with plenty of detail and extension, the system just sounds relaxed, doesn't shout at me at all. Easily on of the best audio purchases I have made. Even though this seemed not sensible to spend this kind of money on a cord, I know it will save me money in the long run. |
@willgolf …lol! @kclone ….thanks for chiming in. Glad to hear you’re in enjoying Takumi. Nagomi PC is pretty good but once you hear Takumi, there is no going back. Not sure, if you know, but ask your dealer about HIJIRI SM2R-L PC for your source component. At almost half the cost of Takumi, the SM2R-L will get you very close to TAKUMI. I first added this SM2R-L to my SACD player then moved it to my streamer while I save money for 2nd SM2R-L PC. This PC is very complimentary to three TAKUMI’s in my system. Enjoy your music! |
Just wanted to chime in. I ran into Colin of Gestalt Audio at CAF Saturday. It was wonderful to meet him, put a face to a name and talk for a bit. Such a pleasure to do business with Colin. His room sounded great. When I heard it, it was cabled with Sternklang and Tchernov, I believe. Meanwhile, my Takumi PCs are keeping me smiling. |
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