Fidelium owners, how is the bass with these cables? With the extremely thin conductor, does it allow enough current to have full bass authority?
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This is where auditions become a necessity. For all the rich guys here, they may not blink an eye at plopping down $5-$10k for speaker cables, but not for me. Tellurium Q is also an interesting brand, but one that's not easily accessible in the states - the Black IIs have impressed me for the price, they're also ribbons, although they don't do what Fideliums can. Then again, I don't want to drop $3-6k further up the range to find out. I've got a whole list of cables to try - Silnote Poseidon, Shunyata v2s, Kirmuss, ZenWave, Grover Huffman, it's a crowded market. The reviews though in The Sound Advocate and Enjoy the Music were so out there with praise that it was really a no brainer to give these a try. |
Well I would say that the Inakustik 4004s certainly do some things better and nothing worse that I can hear. I would give the nod in favor of the Fideliums over the Inakustik 2404 although these are both great cables. I think the Bionics cables (new company) are superb but I need to do a head to head comparison. Give me some time and I can think of more, but all of these cables are more expensive. |
I am just past two months with the Fideliums and just as pleased now as in the beginning days. I won't be selling my KS6063 because they are to good to part with. The Fidel's won't be on the Gon' either. I tube roll, digital cable roll.....why not IC & speaker cable roll too. Room Treats - M. Green & mine Sony Transport Snake River Audio Boomslang Illuminati D-60 HFC Reveal Shunyata Z-Alpha Digital Power Cord to DAC Decware ZDSD DAC/Transformer output stage Kimber Select KS1030 Snake River Audio Mamushi (pending) XLO Power Cord to ZMA Decware Zen Mystery Amplifier (ZMA)/25th Anniversary Mods Current tube roll: Ediswans/inputs-THE Telefunken's/inverters-Tung-Sol quad 7027A/power tubes Kimber Select KS6063 Speaker Cables/8ft Silversmith Audio Fidelium Speaker Cables/6ft Acoustic Zen Adagio/Modified/Single Capped/ Mundorf MCap Supremes MiFlex Caps (pending) for Adagio's Kimber PK-10 Palladian Power Cord from wall to PS Audio P3 DAC & ZMA run direct from HC outlet/P3 Transport regenerated only |
Even the Fideliums are sentitve to vibration. The top of my amplifier is always removed, exposing the speaker connections inside, at the rear. I attached some clamps to both sets: the ones connecting the cables and the unused ones. So, one clamp covers the l and r channels of the former set, and a second clamp connecting the two posts of the latter. The sound has become even clearer, with better focus. |
I did my best to resist, leaving the box with the new Fideliums unopened, for a week. I wanted time to tweak my system, and pay attention to what I liked about the sound. And identify passages to focus on, with the new cables. The Fidelium cables are incredibly good. Really. Too bad I can't get back the time I "wasted" using other speaker cables. But there is so much great sound to look forward to! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paPNUOhWPdA |
I just had a blinding flash of the obvious regarding the Fideliums. Specifically, I suspect they may never get serious review from either Stereophile or The Absolute Sound. Why? Both of those two mags rely heavily on printed advertising revenue. And the Fideliums have that ability to seriously undercut the business of some of their most prominent advertisers, which - of course - is bad for their own business. Who wants to write a review that might seriously damage the business of one (or more) of their key sources of income? So anyone sitting on the fence waiting for the thumbs up from one of the two major hifi mags may well have to keep waiting. Others will trust things like Positive Feedback dot com’s recent comment in their Writer’s Choice Awards: "Having lived with the costliest wire on the planet, I can say with certainty the Fidelium has achieved cost no-object performance for under a grand." That’s one heck of an accolade. It’s just not in a printed magazine. |
The interconnects can’t come soon enough. The thing these cables do is give you detail and texture across the spectrum. There’s no exaggerated highs or a focus on treble at the expense of mid bass/ bass detail. It’s all there. What’s fun with these is you can put them on a set of cheap speakers and they’ll sound comparable to more quality builds with the detail retrieval-no muddiness to be found. Supposedly these may be the entry level cables if future iterations work out. I can only imagine |
@fxman tried to tell everyone eight months ago. And I tried to reinforce that myself a couple of months later. Now with this review out there, you're likely going to have a hard time even getting a pair, as I'll wager there's likely going to be a landslide of orders. Good luck. IMO This is a game changing product. If you get them, and are not bowled over, you've got some kind of problem with your setup, something other than speaker cables. |
Here's a new review of the Silversmith SCs: http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1120/Silversmith_Audio_Fidelium_Loudspeaker_Cables_Review.htm All the best, Nonoise |
benzman, I’m with you on your assessment of these cables. Lots more detail in the bass. I’m comparing the Fidelium against Audio Envy NV-SP9. The latter only has maybe 20+ hours on it, so that might be making for a bit of an unfair comparison, but the Fidelium cables can absolutely transform what’s coming out of my Revel m106s. The tweeter on these can sometimes be too much of a good thing with my regular AQ cables, but the Fidelium seems to balance it out quite a bit. Anyway, bass definition and the overall layering/detail/balance of the sound has been a welcome addition to my setup. |
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I am auditioning the Fidelium in my system. Currently have Cerious Matrix Loom. these cables are more similar than different. Both great cables. I feel the Matrix have a little more sparkle on top but the bass definition goes to the Fidelium’s The Fideliums have been on tour and sound great on my buddy’s Martin Logan CLX’s and my other friends Revel Salon’s Believe the hype it’s a really,really good cable. |
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Ozzy how long did you keep them? I picked up a European class d amp with room correction a few years ago based on forum feedback. People were replacing tube systems, and it was all the rage. What a piece of junk. I kept it for 2 weeks and couldn't wait to drop it off at UPS. We always have to find out for ourselves. |
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I think, the cables are system dependent and nothing is absolute. In my system, these cables have been amazing with remarkable improvements across all spectrum. It may be a touch on warmer side, but everything else is as good as it gets. With this level of improvement, I am waiting for them to release ICs. |
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Hi All. I wanted to report on my impressions of the Fidelium speaker cables, which I had the pleasure of auditioning in my system and am purchasing a 6' pair. Up until now, I've been using Cerious Technologies Extreme Graphene cables, which replaced Wireworld platinums, which replaced Clear Day double shotguns, which replaced some lower level Purist cables. My system includes Avalon Eidelon Diamond speakers, VAC electronics, a PS Audio direct stream DAC fed by Roon, and other excellent cables and tweaks. While the Cerious cables were the best I had had in my system to date (except for a short-term loan of some $30k Nordost cables that I could never afford!), the Fidelium's clearly bested the Cerious and (by inference) all before them. While the Cerious cables provided a big and bold sound, swapping in the Fideliums showed me that there were micro details, textures and colors that were not getting through the prior bold presentation. Not that there was anything wrong with the Cerious - they are great - but I found more to be appreciated with the Fideliums. The Fideliums had a more natural and organic presentation, removed some mid-base bloat, and maintained excellent sound staging and imaging. I had two friends come over and A/B with me to share impressions - one a reviewer, the other a female who has good hearing, no audiophile tendencies, and was willing to humor me on the experiment. Both had the same impressions, so "3 for 3". This, of course, led me to purchase the Fideliums. From my perspective, they are an awesome deal in terms of bang for the buck. My former cables were all in the $500 - $1200 price range, and these outperform them all. |
I’m evaluating a pair now. Jury is out but I am remaining unbiased and giving them a good run with various IC cabling combinations. Drastically different than my Cerious Graphene Matrix SC’s. And I forgot to mention I am a believer in Jeff and his approach. As an engineer I am humbled by his technical chops. |
Hello, everybody. Thank you for your general impression but I would be interested to have more details about your feelings if possible. Indeed, I have owned a pair of Fidelium cables for about 1 month. I acquired them by looking at the few words on this forum as well as by intuition because it seemed to me that something interesting could come out of it. As far as I am concerned, I found the quality suggested here. Once installed, at the first listening, I would say that the key word is openness. You get the feeling of a wide open sound stage, redeployed with a more perceptible separation of the instruments. In this new space, we find a great richness of tonalities with an unusual presence of the instruments as well as a frank separation. In my case, this is particularly noticeable on the Jazz drums which leave the back of the stage to come closer with percussion and cymbals better highlighted on my Harbeth SHL5 + speakers. The sound in general is very beautiful, rich in details, the treble goes high and is "clean". I was reading on a site a tester who said "when you find yourself tapping your foot, moving while listening without realizing that it's somewhere that the cable is good". That's what happened to me. I think there is indeed something exceptional about these cables that deserves to be further explored and confronted on various systems and by various people. |
I asked Jeffrey Smith about break-in, and he said that he hasn't experienced and did not expect any improvements with break-in; however, he did say that some customers did experience positive effects. I have had one pair (just received a second pair for biwiring) for about 3 weeks and don't think I've heard any changes. I must say that these are the best cables I've ever used and by a considerable margin. Highly recommend trying them...you can return them within 30 days for a refund if you don't like them. |
