Speaker cable shootout Townsend Audio Fractal F1, Fidelium, AA Statement e SC Cryo rhodium

Oh man…,what a ride so far. Two cables arrived, Townshend F1 and Audio Art Statements gold. This is a quick update and not detailed. It will be enough to make you salivate for more, LOL. 
 

My intent was to compare these against my reference Neotech speaker cables which seem to be impossible to find at all. Pure silver high definition, 9 gauge. 
 

Well, the king Neotech is still the throne, but, for somebody who has other listening priorities, these might by kicked off, but, I doubt it. All cables are 2.5 meters. 
 

1. Neotech ultra high definition 9 gauges pure silver speaker cable. Unobtainium lately. This cable has been my go to reference speakers cable for a few years. Tried many others, Nordost, too anemic, Audioquest, to bland, some German brands I forgot, Harmonix, nope, and the list goes on. The Neotech are pure in nature and provide a total top to bottom full scale presentation of music. Cymbals splash have great resonance and reverberation, drums are deep and vocals are realistic. A top performer from top to bottom without any single standout feature…all balanced and great sounding. Stereo image is massively wide.

2. Audio Art Statements SC cryo gold. Listening notes, stereo imaging is compressed, not wide, but narrow, bass is deep, a little rounded off on the upper end. Voices: Holy cow, the Statement SC cryo gold had the best voicing of all cables, but, it’s less upper frequency definition took away the sparkle, literally from some music. If you wanted to have a speaker cable for voice only, this speaker cable is it. The narrow image makes the vocals seem to be compressed in the middle for some songs, but when not, the vocals are quite realistic. 
 

3. Townshend audio F1. I give these cables a close second to the Neotechs. If one appreciates the attributes of what I use to describe the Neotechs, then you will appreciate what these cables can do for you at less of a price too. I noticed a slightly less resonance and reverberation of the cymbals, and although voices sounded close, I felt that the Neotech had more air associated with voices. Both bass and upper frequencies seemed to be close to the Neotech, but the Neotechs do go down noticeably deeper in the bass. I say this is a good cable for what it offers because compared to my reference cable, these are the most like sounding to my cables that I have ever heard, and that’s a good thing.
 

The one thing I was concerned about with these cables is how my amps might react to the resistors or whatever is placed in the F1 cables. After the 4th time inserting these into my amps, my right McIntosh MC2301 amp went into protect mode. Uh oh, short…pulled out the Townshend cables and tried both the Neotechs and the Audio Art, no issues. Tried the cable again and it sounded like it was a bad internal connection because I had a slight buzz of music, crackly, and distorted, while the other side played perfectly. So, I have to test this one cable and measure for a short. I don’t know what it could be. I only had these cables for about 3 weeks. 
 

I am still leery about the F1 cable tech used with very high efficiency 16 ohm speakers. My Neotech being so thick, don’t allow for any electrical influences to taint the sound. The F1 allows one to match mismatched speakers and amps to have better outcomes. If you need to rationalize why these would be good for you think about this…they take out the guessing game and provide a means towards resolving impedance mismatch’s. I am not sure what the speaker cable anomaly is, most definitely short related. If not, than the impedance circuitry is not matching well with one of my amps. Also, each speaker has its own 18 volt 5 amp power supply to power the magnets due to the field coil design. I believe A less complex system should not have issues. 
 

This is short and probably more questions to be asked. Will provide more details. But for now, Neotech still king, F1 second, Audio Art, third. That is of course on what you are looking for in sound qualities. 
 

The modern versions of the Neotech are NES 1001

https://www.thecableco.com/amazon-speaker-cables-pair.html

My Neotechs are pure original Neotech speaker cables. Neotech is also an OEM supplier to other companies…one I believe is Acoustic Zen. Yes, the Neotechs are expensive, but my goal was to benchmark my cables against highly popular cables. I was fortunate to obtain my Neotechs from a European dealer who purchased spools of the OEM versions before Neotech stopped selling as whole looms of wire to certain market segments. 
 

If you search for 9 gauge OCC silver Neotech speaker cables, you might find some 

You are welcome. You cables are fine for what they need to do. I am a firm believer in silver and gold, and silver/gold hybrid cables for their sound qualities. I have used pure copper for a while also from Neotech, but 11 or 12 gauge. They were my first high priced speaker cable for me at the time upgrade. That was way back in 2002. Your cables will blow away the copper Neotechs. When I first tested silvers, I did the biwire copper silver mix, but shorty, just went to pure silver.  I have learned as I matured in this hobby, is that what may seem obvious upgrades, are in fact, not. It’s a matter of your personal tastes and system interactions….the secret Italian sauce. 

@Tomic601,

Having grown up and experienced many different audio products for over 35 years, the One thing I have learned in this hobby is that no matter what someone else says about another product, it more or less does not necessarily mean that said product will perform the same on your system.

Sure, when tendencies of reports about a product seem to paint a vibrant and glorious picture as stated in one or two forums (maybe 3 - 5 people praising stated product, those who hang out in those forums), to me, it is not indicative of how that product will perform on your own system. There is also the counter factual, those who use the same product and do not have positive experiences, but, sound degradation by using the product. That is why it is always a good idea to try and test anything (mostly cables), if possible in your system, especially if the vendor offers at home trials. 
 

At the end of the day, my experiment will only showcase a products ability to work reasonable well within the operating parameters of my system, and hopefully, without any gross degradation in sound qualities. I have learned also that some cables which sound different, are not better, they are just different. 

My three basic rules of cable evaluation:

1. Cables will sound different, but not better or worse (lateral move)

2. Cables will degrade the sound 

3. Cables will offer some improvement in sound

This means that in my world, cables will have 2/3rds of a chance of not being better than what I currently own. 
 

I have been there done that with Uber priced cables. I ordered 7 Sigma 2 NR power cables, only to not use 3, because, less was better on my system.

If you have been in this hobby for a while, you will learn that you are the only one who can say from a personal perspective whether or not the flavor of the month will agree with the totality of the ingredients of your system and your hearing. 

I am not a robot!!