Well I joined the Silversmith FIDELIUM Speaker cable club today
The story behind this goes like this. I bought new speakers in December and their placement forced me to stop using my Wireworld Gold Eclipse III bi wire cables because they were too short. So for an interim cable I found a 2 meter pair of the "Regular" Eclipse III wires used being that I wanted to keep it in the "Family." My entire loom for the most part is Wireworld Gold Eclipse III interconnects. The Reg Eclipse III seemed fine but I alway felt I was missing something I was used to before, like it was just a little veiled comparatively. I've researched the hell out of cables and was just going to get a set of the New Eclipse 8's but when they raised the price for a 2M pair another $500 to $2000 I decided to look elsewhere, scouring used cables for months. Well through that process I discovered the many threads and positive reviews on the Silversmiths, so since they were more like what I was hopefully willing to spend I ordered a 6 foot set. Today I placed them into my system and after about one minute into the track I was astonished! I couldn't move from my chair, I listened to the entire album in astonishment. They literally "fixed" my system, it's never ever sounded this good. It's only been a few hours so i won't go into everything that happened right now but new cables are not supposed to sound this good straight out of the box. I am lucky. they blend with my system right away. The Bass was so immediately impactful I just cannot believe a cable can make this much change, the inner detail and transparency, wow! I know these things have been raked over the coals in these forums and their are some that are naysayers, but in my case I was one of the lucky ones because these babies are not going back to Chris! I cannot stop listening, it's amazing.
That's funny @steakster, because someone private messaged me that my response to @tsushima1 should be to ask about his unhealthy obsession with some members on here, I assume are former?
Here, I thought he was just part of the harassment crew with you. Should I judge you by the company you keep?
No agenda, @tsushima1, just continually surprised by what I would consider apologetics for bad corporate behavior, sort of like I am surprised by the lack of consideration shown to you (or in general) in this picture.
“ Some users really enjoy this cable, but I have not read any comments (other than negative) that indicate a realization of significant changes in frequency response.“
I have to wonder at just what is your agenda here!
I have no dog in this fight and yet from a merely spectator perspective you seem to be working very hard at discrediting an audio product that you have neither owned nor heard, your self considered opinion is mere speculation.
In the interest of not appearing so do consider changing your “Some” to The vast majority and your “ but I have not read any comments (other than negative)” to literally The One or Two !!!
The only impedance curve I could observe for Soundlab was the A1 on Stereophile. I will attempt to insert it here. If this speaker was used with these Fidelium cables there must a change, I would consider large, in the frequency response, more so with the 10 foot version. That change, based on the graph below which may not be appropriate, would mainly be a gradual reduction in high frequencies starting at approximately 2KHz, increasing to a 3db drop by 10KHz, and 6db at 20Khz. My ears have not heard 20KHz in many decades, but I would notice a change at 10KHz of several db (at least I think I would). There could be a small emphasis close to 200Hz that is audible.
Perhaps what this cable does is lay bare the audiophile claim that they "really know there systems and would know if something changed". I don't mean that specifically to you mrmb. Unless a speaker has constant impedance, this cable must make significant frequency response changes. I don't think that can be debated, though the amount of change will depend on speaker impedance. Some users really enjoy this cable, but I have not read any comments (other than negative) that indicate a realization of significant changes in frequency response.
Oops, please NOTE: The sentence in the 3rd. paragraph of my above post, should have included the word NOT, as in: "The differences were NOT astounding, but there."
Fideliums look more fragile than they are. However, finger tightening them or going a little easy on using a wrench to torque them down, is probably prudent. Perhaps because of their lack of connectors, their use would be contraindicated if you rotated speakers in & out of the room daily, but other than that, handle them as you would with any other speaker cable.
Resistance suppositions are fine, but when I compared Nordost and Iconclast speaker cables on my SoundLab's (which go as low as 2-ohms), the Fidelium's won. Electrostatic's in general like to "see" speaker cables with Low Capacitance, Low Inductance and Average to low resistance. Nordost fit those requirements, yet my audition pair weren't as good as my 10' Fidelium audition pair. They stayed and the other two cables went back. I even switched from 10' to 12' Fidelium's with no resulting differences.
With the Fidelium's and the other audition pair's I noticed little difference in frequency response. What prompted my preferring them was their sense of ease (for lack of a better description) and a better soundstage. The differences were astounding, but there. Because I liked the Fideliums better and they were a couple times less expensive than the other two, keeping them was an easy decision.
Obviously, everyone's results will vary, especially depending upon one's amps and speakers. But that's why manufacturer's like Silversmith have a trial period. So rather than guessing about this, that or another thing, simply try them. You will be surprised when you receive them in a feather-weight, hand-size box. Although based on research, I expected them to weigh little and take up little space when rolled-up, the box's feel and size was still surprising.🙂
I do think there is something about this wires design that did not mesh with my equipment. More resistance? I dunno.
I am using tubes amps and when I tried these cables the bass, treble and dynamics was anemic. It had a good midrange though. And, I had to turn the volume up a few more notches when playing.
Many here love these cables so it must be my specific amp/speaker configuration that did not work well with these cables.
I went to the Townshend F-1 Fractal speaker cables. Very nice match.
I had an inexpensive tri wire 5 foot set of Van Damme cables for two years causing me to bend each time I had to play an LP but they were decent in many respects. I needed to move to 6 footers and tried a half dozen biwire sets from Audioquest, Allnic and Cardas between 3K and 8K a set. Each set while smoothing out the response seemed to veil the mids and higher frequencies. A friend suggested Fidelium and I tried a bi wire set of 6 footers with no expectations and they simply resolved all of the issues of the Van Damme with no apparent veiling. I then added another run for true bi wire and they improved further. They are different, however, once you have them installed with the contact area placed correctly and locked down they stay put.
I would not do a demo without including Fidelium. They are that good.
I am an owner of the Fidelium cables (8 ft pair). I purchased them after reading many testimonials of the great sound improvement, and who doesn’t want that. I was using a pair of XLO Signature3 - 5.2 (8 ft). Jeff was offering a money back guarantee so nothing to lose and everything to gain. After installing the Fidelium cables, I could hear no real difference in sound. I was very disappointed. I called Jeff and we had a good talk. I told him I had been using the XLO cables and his exact words were “I wouldn’t expect you to hear much difference between the two cables. The XLO might sound a bit brighter”. I wish manufactures would make these statements in their advertising. It would save us all a lot of frustration. My other take on the Fidelium is this. They are very awkward to handle. I made some purpose build stands to support the “ribbons” along the run and off the floor. Shame you can’t attach a picture in this forum. It is very easy to put a crease in the shielding, but it has no impact on performance. I just changed out my amps and only need 4 ft cables now. Jeff has offered to cut and re terminate them for me and a very small cost. His service is first rate and that means a lot to me. Bottom line is I’m still using them. Visually, they make a statement and that must be worth something. Ha ha
I made my moniker deludedaudiophile, but it appears I should have saved that for you @steaksterand a few others. I continue to be surprised at how bizarre it is here.
Do you have any comment on what I have discovered about the high resistance of the Fidelium cable after I checked it out of interest or are you just a troll? I expect the latter.
Do people advocating this cable realize it will add a large resistance between their speaker and amplifier? This will change the frequency response of your system. The change will be large enough to be audible. I am not sure people realize this and it is not clear on the website. You could be adding almost 2 ohms to your speaker connection. That is big.
Now that I understand the cables I would not put them in my system. My speakers impedance drops below 3 ohms. If i use these it would cause changes in the frequency response significant enough to be heard. Rough estumate is as much as a 3db change in the response at some frequencies. That is huge and I didn't pay money for a good speaker to screw it up I am not surprised people experience a difference compared to other cables I don't know how you would not.
My amp has high damping factor. This cable would also destroy that property. It would also cause a loss of 2.5db of headroom. I would lose 100 watts from my amp.
@deludedaudiophile I really wasn’t intending to open a can worms here. Jeff has a really great cable, I’ll definitely purchase his interconnects and his upcoming reference cable if that does indeed happen.
Have you listened to Fidelium? It’s definitely worth a try, easy resell if you go past 30 days. It’s right up there in resale value with the most popular products.
What you are hearing when you use the Fidelium cable will not be the the lack of connectors, or the wire, or the insulators it will be the very high resistance of the cable compared to other cables. Are there any other speaker cables on the market that have as high of resistance as these cables? I wonder if the people advocating for this cable understand how much resistance it is adding to the total connection. Do you have an amplifier with high damping factor? You do not any more.
After installing Fideliums in my system, my thoughts were that there would be a flood of high priced speaker cables on the used market.
I was using very highly thought of $6K cables that are now relatively junk in comparison.
A main feature of Fideliums is that they use no terminations. However high end the terminations, they greatly degrade the sound.
Another very innovative and smart feature is that the $125 biwire adapter is a loop of ribbon with a screw connector in the middle which allows the signal to go into both pairs of binding posts at the same time equally.
And even though they look problematic to attach, I had no problem.
I did not notice any break in changes. Stunning from day one.
I don't see contradictions in his statement. I see several points being made there. Made sense to this old engineer's "large" brain :).
Handling: I've had these for 2 years and had no problems with them being fragile or prone to damage. If you have difficult amp binding posts, that can be tricky.
@fthompson251, Congratulations on your purchase. I am fascinated by the continuous copper no welds or cramps or solders. I am also curious if there is any isolation? My wires are 8’, AQ Rocket 88’s and have layer after layer of protective coverings.
I will follow this thread. I might be wanting 10’ Fidelium wires.
This is text from what I believe are one of of Silversmith’s patents and while it is not specific to the ribbon, it relates to the thought process. @dgluke , I am not sure if your comment was directed at me, but I think I read the marketing sheet accurately and interpreted it accurately. This would imply the Fidelium could be high in resistance. This would contribute heavily to a distinctive sound signature.
A method for reducing frequency dependent energy loss and phase errors from end to end as a function of the frequency of audio-range signals conducted therein including obtaining an electrical wire having a first end and an opposing second end and comprising of an electrically conductive metal with a conductivity between 0 and about 3.2* 106 (ohm-meter)−1 or between 0 and about 5.5% International Annealed Copper Standard (IACS), wherein the electrically conductive metal includes a relative magnetic permeability between 0 and 2, and transmitting audio-range signals from the first end to the second end, wherein the frequency dependent energy loss and phase from the first end to the second end is a function of a frequency of the audio-range signals transmitted therein.
@fthompson251 they definitely will improve a bit, my experience was the bass came in more, music flowed even better, but it was less than 100 hrs easy.
@havocman I was paranoid about this, too, the first weeks, but they are surprisingly sturdy--yes, they do end up creasing but this seems to have no effect on sound. I consider them just as sturdy as any other cable, now...
I popped over to their website out of curiosity. I don't there there is any way to determine the inductance as it would be conditional on how close or how far you kept the two conductors from each other. There width would negate some of the variability, but there will still be variability.
There is some contradiction in the statement below. I don't believe they have a metal alloy 33 times better than copper or silver (one does not exist), however, the claim below it compares it to a thickness of 5.5 times less. I don't see any particular benefit to a 0.00018 equivalent thickness of copper of silver. That is sufficient for about 200MHz back of envelope. It does sound impressive though. Any metal alloy with a skin depth of 5.5x that of copper or silver will unfortunately be a higher resistance alloy comparatively.
Since they are unlikely to have the resources to create their own alloy, I have to assume they are using something off the shelf. Monel and Constantan alloys are both up in the 5.5x range almost exactly and are Nickel/Copper alloys. However, they are really awful conductors. A pair of speaker cables could have resistance as much as 1 ohm. That would explain a unique sound.
FYI - materials science guy, semiconductors and batteries so this stuff is old hat for me.
The skin-effect characteristics of our state-of-the-art FIDELIUM alloy are up to 33 times superior to those of copper or silver. The FIDELIUM speaker cable, already at less than a thousandth of an inch thick, performs as if it were 5.5 times thinner, thus experiencing less frequency dependent attenuation and phase distortion than even a .00018 inch thick copper or silver ribbon or 64 gauge wire.
Jeff is a great guy. He’ll talk to anyone that’s willing about their setup and how to improve it.
I have had his cables now twice in my system and I still wonder what the resistance /inductance is of these although that is supposedly not relevant.
I would really like to get some other Silversmith owners to try EWA and Driade Flow and let me know what they think. Those two, to my ears, seem to let me hear deeper into the music, but I’d love to hear some other people’s take on this.
Ozzy has the Townshend Fractals, I believe. I have not heard Skogrand or Hemingway, but I hear these are also some of the best of the best.
I was always curious what $18k Greg Weaver replaced with Fidelium - maybe it was Stealth?
I’m glad though that these brought so much improvement with a minimal outlay. It’s definitely been one of the most disruptive products of the last couple years.
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