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Review: Jade Audio Pure Solid Gold Interconnect

Category: Cables

Hi everyone. This is to tell you about a new line of interconnect cable built by J.D. MacRae of Jade Audio. And by the way, he is everything that a few other members have so eloquently articulated and then some. I have only had the pleasure of knowing JD for just a few months and without reservation say he is one of the nicest and kindest people on the face of this earth as well as a genius in building audio cable. Why ? First, he listens to you and what you have to say about his or any other cable. And second, he listens to his own cable with an ear that knows what sounds good and with an ear that is always looking for improvement. Which brings me to a time several months ago when I purchased a meter of JD's Hybrid interconnect. A very fine interconnect indeed and for those who already have a pair of these in your system and it is a good match with good synergy then take what I have to say with a grain of salt. If you already have good balance and synergy then you might already be "there".



Anyway, after 5-7 days of settling in (I don't think you can be totally objective in one day) I did not feel the Hybrid accomplished in my system what I was looking for. I needed more smoothness in the mid-range with even better timbrel accuracy that I had read that the Hybrid was famous for. So I called JD and he said he would see what he could cook up possibly in an all gold formulation. I told him to take his time as I did not want any undue pressure on him or time constraints in his experimenting as he is always battling a severe disability and needs a heart transplant. God bless him and I pray he gets one soon. Well, all I can say is the wait was worth it!



J.D. fabricated for me a new all gold cable (this one is different from the one previously reviewed years ago) that simply blows the socks off of any cable I have ever heard before. Now relax, I am not like some of you guys that have heard most of the other megabucks high-end cable out there. In fact, other than J.D.'s Hybrid the best interconnect cable I have ever tried doesn't retail for much more than $600. So please don't e-mail me asking if I have compared this cable with Purist, Kubala, Prana, ect. The answer is no. All I can say is compared to the Hybrid the all gold cable J.D. made me is everything the Hybrid was but better in every which way. For example better soundstaging and a smoother and richer tonal quality through every frequency range that came ever so close to my analog rig. I don't know how he did it but even with the all gold there was not one negative characteristic heard that is sometimes associated with this metal. Highs were there in spades but smooth as silk. Midrange was the richest, smoothest, and full of tonal color that I have ever heard in the digital realm. And bass, well, talk about tonal color it had the best and richest bass tones I have ever heard.



So, I really don't know what else to say about this great cable. As you can see I am not a professional reviewer. I just wanted to tell you guys J. D. is still producing new stuff and in the right system it's as good or maybe even better than his previous stuff. If you want the details about the construction or gauges of wire in this cable I'd rather you talk to J.D. himself at Jade Audio.



As for my system, I was running this wire from CD player (BAT VKD-5) to pre-amp (Sira Emotive Audio) connected to a pair of 300B monos with Cardas Golden Cross.

Associated gear
300B Monoblock Amplifiers
Emotive Audio pre-amp
BAT VKD-5
swinfrey
rf_gumby
54 posts
 
I just wanted to mention that I heard John's system for the first time a few weeks ago, and it is truly reference caliber. His attention to detail and the willingness to do the hard work of fine tuning and tube rolling really shows, and simply cannot be ignored when dealing with the delicacies of cable design.

With the elaborate gear and it's seemingly awkward placement, you'd never believe how good his room sounds. I've heard many systems of all levels, and his counts easily in the top 5 best. You simply could not assemble the gear he has in the dedicated room he has, and achieve the results he's getting, with out an amazing amount of hard work and listening. My hat's off to him.

It is easy to take John's (or anyone's) opinions with a grain of salt, but in this case I would tend to believe and agree with his listening impressions (I do my best to not promote gear online, only results). Although I was not there for this testing, I would be happy to trust his impressions as if they were my own. As you may have guessed by now, John's ears are also darn fine, it would be ridiculous to think anyone could assemble such a system without a love of the adventure and a dash of golden ear...
jadem6's avatar
jadem6
1,074 posts
 
I just sent off a pair of Gold Reference with Bocchino B2 connectors. WOW are those amazing RCA's!!! They arrived today in the customers hands, I hope to hear from them soon, maybe they will write in to this review for insight.
t_bone
1,182 posts
 
Wow. Those look good, but those are amazingly expensive RCAs... It looks like $1200+ for enough connectors for one set of ICs...
jadem6's avatar
jadem6
1,074 posts
 
You got it, $1200 plus shipping from AUS, about $1300 when all is said and done. The dynamics, clarity and tonality are virtually perfect however. I will be using the B11 as my standard for my Reference line, which are $140 each, or $560 for a set of four, much more reasonable for nearly the same level of performance. Beyond this, they are fully screw set so they are great for DIY'er's.
http://www.bocchtech.com/bocchinoaudio/b11.htm
jafox
1,456 posts
 
Thank you Rf_gumby for your comments. I have learned much about many tube types from a few A'gon members. Their willingness to share experiences and to provide suggestions of other tubes to try have much to do with the results here. Achieving tonal coherency has been a great challenge. But finding tubes with all the other magical properties, and not messing up the tonality has taken much time as well.

My room indeed has many challenges with various utilities, on one wall and in 2 corners; options are limited. And with the SoundLab A1 speakers having so much bass energy, the only way to tame the base nodes is to bring the speakers out into the room 6 feet or so. And this makes for limited seating possibilities. But I am now addicted to nearfield listening.

I understand JD's quest to try all available materials, no matter their cost. The "ultimate" implementation will likely be outside of my affordability. I appreciate his efforts to achieve another design at lower cost that approaches his top product. So many manufacturers claim the trickle-down effect to less costly products but all too often I just don't hear it. But I gotta hope for possibilities here.

Multiple strands of solid gold and platinum adds up quickly. This makes for challenges for JD to keep his products affordable to many of us. But it was the one prototype I heard last week with many wires that was truly so outstanding. It always seems to be this way! 8-(

One thing to note here: these are not cables with $50 in wire and $50 connectors with a 10-20x markup. I have owned two such products. When I had to disassemble them for repair or re-termination, the quality of materials was pretty bad.

As good as the original Hybrid cable has been for me, I am aware of the new possibilities. It's hard to imagine that a change in connectors will contribute much to the improvements in clarity .... but I will keep an open mind. I await the opportunity to hear the Hybrid that I own with Furutech connectors vs. another Hybrid with the Bocchino connectors. I hope to report on this soon. And then I really REALLY need to get off the cable train.

And tonight I tried an IC, the Von Gaylord / Legend Audio Chinchilla. Contrary to a rave review in IAR, in how the Chinchilla stacked up against higher-cost ICs, it was no match to the Jade Hybrid's performance. Once again, this is unfortunate as I want so much to find a cable of less cost here, but it's just not looking good.
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