Interconnection cables, excellent finding.


We often hear, that we get what we pay for. But occasionally
we find products which are very priceworthy, and now I want to communicate one such finding to you.
The product in question is called Silk II, and I will now tell you the whole story of how I found it.

As a Swede I have an ability, although limited, to read norwegian. Having subscribed to the Norwegian magazine Audio
for about a year, I sew,in the magazine´s fifth 2000 issue,
an elaborate review of an IC cable called Silk, that was almost unknown to me.
The four reviewers/editors were all very poitive about it;
one wrote e.g. "Together with the Transparent Reference and
WireWorld Gold Eclipse, the Silk is clearly the most homo-geneous cable that I have tested."
You might wish to ask me, is this magazine trustworthy?
As I see it, it´s as good as it gets, and together with the
English hi-fi+ the only ones that I subscribe to.(But of course, I occasionally read some american magazines,such as
Stereophile and TAS, as well).

Back to the Silk cable! At a price, that is significantly
lower than the other two cables mentioned above,and considering the very favorable review, I felt that I had to check it out, so I ordered some cables.
When I changed the balanced interconnection between my pre-
and poweramp, from the Tara Labs Prism II(which I had borrowed from a friend),to the Silk, I found the improvment
to be considerable! The Tara was not bad at all, but the Silk was perceptible superior in my system.Then i changed
the unbalanced IC´s as well, to a very positive result.

Some months later, Petter Hörlaas, the distributorof, among other things, Silk interconnections here in Sweden, and from whom I had bought them, called me up and told me that
the cable now was available in an improved mark II version, and of course, out of curiosity, I couldn´t resist checking them out! Was there an improvement? Indeed yes;some un-wanted,but nearly unnoticeable artifacts mainly in the upper registers, was now gone, and the sound from my system
had taken a big step towards "the naked truth", a goal that
I, for my part aim at.

If you are looking for an honest,neutral cable, at a reasonable price, you might want to try the Silk II for yourself. Naturally, I can´t gaurantee,that you will like it as much as I do, but I think there is at least a fair chance that you will like it a lot.

Petter has now told me, that the Silk II interconnections will be introduced in the US through direct-selling to customers in the US, from his company Intelligent Sound (the distributor), here in Sweden. I believe that a 4 foot
set of terminated (RCA or XLR) IC-cables will cost you approx. $ 170 plus postage and duty.
If you are interested, please mail him at:
sales@intelligentsound.se
(The company has a web-site: www.intelligentsound.se
but it is only partly written in English,so I don´t think it´s very informative to you).
I want to stress, that I have no economical interests in
his company. I only volonterely wanted to support him, in
his efforts to get this splendid product to a bigger market!

My system comprises of: J.Rowland Synergy II preamp
Sony SCD-777ES player( on home-made
suspension table and with home-made
power cord)will be modified,but not
the Audiocom way.

LC Audio Patriot (2*100W Class A
power amp from Denmark)
Home-built (kit) Focal 802 speakers
Sil-Speak speaker cables
And hopefully:in the near future
my homebrewn speaker, that has
costed me nearly two years of labor
and about $ 7000, to build. Serious
stuff!

Regards
Håkan Ståhl
Uppsala,Sweden
dinos
I can throw in another company that will give the "big names" a run for their money at a fraction of the cost, LAT International. I finally tried my first IC from them and I am very happy with the results, plus the quality is top notch.

On their Web site, http://latinternational.com/, they claim that their IC-200 MkII will compare with $2000 a meter cables, the IC-200 MKII is $189. They also have speaker cables. If you have the time, read their "Cable Hype" link.
Your post reads like an advertisement. Is it really, and not a post from a listener ???
Sorry,I think I may have calculated the price of the Silk II cables in a wrong way. (I deducted the Swedish VAT or sales tax , then divideded it with the current excange rate for dollars vs the swedish currency,but used an older price to begin with. The real price is slightly higher.

I also forgot to mention a separate DAC(made by a friend
of mine), that I use(d) with the SCD-777ES. But he is now updating it, the first version sounded almost like the internal DAC,with filter number 2.

Regarding Sugarbrie´s comment, I don´t know if it is a
comment on my posting, or the real meaning of it.
Please speak out, in a way that makes sense!

I´m now 51 years old, and have heard a lot of systems, and
I state that the very expencive gear is often good or
even excellent, but if one can achieve a system with less
money,that has the same or almost the same virtues as the
more (or most) expencive ones, then you will likely be a
gifted audiophile. Some very expencive systems havn´t
been musically gratifying to my ears.There is some hype
and ignorance in this business.If I come across other
(in my opinion)excellent products, that doesn´t cost
a fortune, I will inform you about them. Needless to say,
you may believe me or not.
Regards
Håkan Ståhl
Sweden
Hakan,
We have something on television in the USA called an infomercial, which is a TV commercial disguised as a news program or interview to make the viewer think they are watching real testimonials from customers, when it is just a bunch of actors reading a script to get you to buy the product. Your first post came accross to me as being similar.
You want a run for your money, try Clarity Wires IC's They can be found exclusivly at www.responseaudio.com I have the Emberglow and really love it.

BTW, i have no relation to either response audio or Clarity Wires, only a happy customer.