Townshend Audio EDCT Isolda Speaker Cables

I've got F1, speaker cables and interconnect. Both were a significant upgrade from more expensive Synergistic. Both have the signature Townshend sound, although it feels odd to say something with so little signature has a characteristic sound. What it is, Townshend eliminates a lot of colorations or distortions common to others. I have experience now with their wires as well as Podiums and Pods. They all have in common a clarity of detail and truth of timbre that seems to come from eliminating ringing and other distortions common to many components. The more I live with this stuff the more it seems a lot of what others are doing amounts to trying to tune harmonic distortions in less offensive ways. Where Townshend instead engineers them out of existence.

They do not "sound good". They let you hear how the recording sounds. Nothing more. Nothing less. 

Isolda should be similar to F1 only at a lower level. Hopefully some actual owners will chime in. From what I hear they are very similar in terms of what I just described, only at a little lower of a level of detail and transparency. A lot of which is probably due to the wire, as I understand it the F1 wire undergoes a special treatment that greatly improves conductivity and thus greater detail. When I was looking into F1 I came across several who had Isolda and had compared to some pretty spendy wire and said good enough, done looking. Good enough so if you got Isolda it would probably be only F1 you would consider an upgrade. But again, hopefully someone who has Isolda can say how they compare.

In 50 years in this hobby, about the most major improvement in SQ came with Silversmith Fidelium speaker cables. Very affordable $1200 for an 8’ pair. I replaced $6K cables that are now junk relatively. I know they have bested $20-30K cables. 30 day trial but you will not send them back!

Ribbon geometry seems the way to go with speaker cables. The geometry itself is so powerful there are people who have made quite good cables from ribbon copper and packing tape. Like anything else though if you can optimize it you can do quite a bit better. Townshend applied engineering and math to work back from the desired impedance characteristics to find the optimal conductor spacing to eliminate the ringing caused by impedance mismatches that are the reason ribbons work so well.

What is odd is when Max publishes a White Paper explaining in detail exactly what is going on and why this is so, he got lambasted here by a bunch of EE wannabees. But when anyone comes along saying oh this ribbon works great this flies under the radar.

Me on the other hand, I am sure the Fidelium is at least a pretty decent cable, and probably quite a bit better than decent, because I understand the advantages of this particular geometry- from having listened to and heard just how good the Townshend implementation of it is.

I tried the Townshend isolda briefly in my system and preferred the Galileo SX Speaker Cables.

That said the Galileo cost much more....

I use the Townshend fractal rca interconnect for my digital connection to my preamp and these speaker cables have similar qualities in my system.

It’s an excellent speaker cable for transparency and soundstaging but is a bit cool.

I am running a tube amp albeit a VAC 200IQ which is not a warm tube amp and even on vinyl it sounded a little cool....

I have a super transparent Marten Bird 2 speakers so likely was too much of a good thing in my system

However if you have speakers that are a little warm and lean to a deeper or richer sound and running tube amp these speaker cables would likely be an awesome combination.  If your preamp and amp are tubes it may also be ideal speaker cables...

Bottom line it’s excellent but proper system matching essential.

Townshend makes fantastic products so encourage auditions as the interconnect is especially a steal at its price and the allegri reference preamp which I also own is one of the best preamp I have ever heard [dartzeel still better but again cost way more]

sorry I auditioned the townshend fractal cables not the isolda....

I have a lavardin it amp and it likes low capacitance cable. I used DNM - my own diy microwave style cable - Nordost Heimdall 2 - then DNM (again) - I spoke to max Townshend and he puts an impedance match network which I was advised would mean the capacitance won’t be an issue and bought some on the proviso of getting my money back if I did not like them. It was without doubt about the beat thing I have ever added to my system. It took away a kind of hash and there was a real body and depth to the sound that was previously not there. It is exceptionally detailed but not cold. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

ZenWave also has ribbon speaker cables in copper or silver. The copper version is outstanding with my tube amp.Exactly how others have described the brands listed previously. Every nuance in the entire frequency range presented naturally without highlighting particular frequencies.