Silver cables - Great price!!

Monroemed, you forgot to mention how Home Grown Audio cables compare with Stealth in terms of musicality; price is only a small part of it. More details would be helpful. I've been using Stealth ETS for about three months now. My Home Grown Audio Super Silvers just arrive Friday and are still burining in; 200+ hours should do it. I'll post my observations in a couple of weeks.

Dekay, different components take differing amounts of time to break in. In order to make comparisons between products I want to be sure all of them are adequately burned-in. I choose 200+ hours as a safe number; nothing scientific about it. For interconnects I hook them up to my VCR in a second system, tune into a cable station and let it play, with the volume turned down, 24-hours a day for about 8 days. Perhaps playing pink noise or a special burn-in track on repeat would be a better choice. But, my way seems to work. An alternative is to borrow cables from The Cable Company; there cables come burned-in. The only drawback, of course, is that they don't carry every brand available. Hope that helps.

I want to echo Trelja sentiments about not falling prey to the "flavor of the month" syndrome. The reason I am upgrading interconnects is because I just upgraded my CDP and Preamp. Home Grown Audio has received some good reviews from people on this site that I have grown to trust. Some of you probably remember that not too long ago Shunyata Research King Cobra power cords were supposedly the king of the hill. Now it appears that FIM has "dethroned" them. Or maybe its the Stealth HAC. No, no, it must be the . I wonder who it will be next week...Seriously, back to the original purpose of this thread. I'll start my audition of the Home Grown Audio Super Silver interconnects in a few days. I would be interested in the details of an experiment comparing large diameter conductors to small ones if anyone has done such. It seems to me that you would have to hold all other things constant and change only the diameter for such an experiment to be valid.

I thought I'd post a preliminary review. Before I do, I should tell you something about the equipment they are hooked up to. The Super Silvers connect my Roksan CDP to a B&K Reference 10 A/V Preamp. My power amp is a B&K AV6000 driving a pair of Paradigm Reference Studio 60s. I also have a HSU Research VTF-2 sub. Not a purist system. But then, I like movies too and can't afford separate systems. My musical taste ranges from BIG symphonic and orchestral works to chamber and choral music and from Rock and Pop to Country. So I've put a variety music through the Super Silvers. What does this cable do right? Sound stage galore. I mean, huge...HUGE. I thought my neighbors were going to come over and ask me to kindly remove the violin section from their living room :) I've never heard a wider, taller, deeper sound stage on my system. The presentation was a tad more forward than I am used to; forget front row, you're in the performers laps! With these cables the music was more palapable (I've always wanted to use that word) and had more impact (another good audiophile term). With respect to bass extension it was the tightest, lowest, and richest bass my system has produced. I had already upgraded my power cords so I think the Super Silvers just wrung out the last drop of performace in this area. Percussion was especially nice. Brass sounded very good. But lest you think I believe these cables are the best thing since sliced bread there are some negatives. Extreme highs, especially those produced by metallic instruments, are somewhat harsh. Massed woodwinds sound metallic and thin; though, oddly, solo woodwinds seem pretty accurate (I used to play clarinet). But the worst problem is the female voice. When Joni Mitchell sings on her latest CD, Both Sides Now, the "S"'s are sibilant; it makes her sound like a snake. The same problem with Jacintha's voice on Autumn Leaves. I am somewhat in a quandry. What this cable does right in my system it does *right*. But I don't think I can live with the sibilance. So, I'll 'em another three or four weeks. I don't plan on returning them. If they wont work in my system now maybe they will in a future one. I like what these cables do right that much.

Dekay, thanks for the post. I like the cables enough to keep in my system for another couple of weeks. I wont have much time to listen to them this week. So, I thought about hooking them back up to my VCR and giving them another 50 to 100 hours of break-in time. So far they had about 200 hours. Incidently, we are entertaining out of town friends this weekend. They have never heard my system. Their first words were, this is a very nice system. It is nice to get a second, and third, set of ears to listen.

Well, here is my final review. Pretty much everything I posted in my preliminary review remains true. Though the sibilance in female voices has softened it is still there. For a while I had TMC Yellow Label interconnects between the preamp and power amp. Together with the Super Silvers they extracted gobs of detail. But, both are high achievers with respect to bass resolution and detail. When used together the bass became too prominant. Oh well, I guess the search continues for the perfect mate for the Super Silvers. I was discussing room treatments with another enthusiast and we got off on a tangent (its always fun to discuss this hobby with people who are truly interested). On this tangent we talked about interconnects. He suggested that the brightness might not be inherent to the cable. Rather, the cable may be revealing noise in my AC power. The Super Silvers do everything else so well I am willing to keep them and audition some power filtration components. On a side note, I've had more and more people make very positive comments about my system. So, the interconnects must be doing something right :)

Dekay: I also live in an apartment. Since I usually go to work early critical listening after 11:00 pm isn't an option except on the weekends. I have noticed that my system sounds its best later in the evening. I've read reviews that suggest the PS Audio Power Plant "recreates" this effect through-out the day. But at $1000 it is not a cheap solution.