XLR cables that sound bold, natural, real..silver?

I use Acoustic Zen Absolute 0.5m XLR. Fast and clean/refined but natural. A little bit overkill for my system but I got good deal ($650 used). Acoustic Zen Silver Reference II supposed to be good as well and runs at about $400 used.

You might also consider the Revelation interconnects by DH Labs - a very good, sanely priced, pure silver interconnect

I really like AZ Silver Ref II as well! As Kijanki mentioned, the AZ sounds very natural to me with some weight to the vocals. Its not as black as other cables I tried but the AZ seems to do a very good job with vocals.

You should audition any cable in your own system to hear what it can do. I am using Anti-Cable silver XLR \Xhadow connections with great satisfaction.

If the Darwin Silver XLRs are anything like their RCAs, then give them some consideration.

I have two pair of their RCAs (had to get the other one once I heard the first) and they bring an ability to unravel the music like nothing I've heard.

There's a testimonial from an A'gon user on their site where he prefers them over his Nordost and Quattros (which go for 2-3 times the price of the Darwins XLRs)

All the best,
Nonoise

Loftarasa, I just today received a Symmetry Silver balanced cable from VH Audio. Its much too early to draw firm conclusions, but my first reaction was that the Symmetry is a very natural sounding IC. Sweetened strings, without the dryness or thinness that one sometimes has with silver. Chris at VH audio sells the Neotech stuff, so he is quite familiar with what you are currently using I expect. Might be worth shooting him an email and see what he says. He has a very generous trial period, and as Stringreen points out, you really want to be able to audition a cable in your own system.

Thanks for the responses. I've got the Audio Sensibility Statement Silver and Grover Huffman ICs on order. Will report back how they compare.

Antipodes Audio make very good XLR cables.

Third the AZ Silver Reference II. Detailed but still natural sounding with good tonal properties unlike some silver cables. The original Silver References weren't bad either if you can score a good deal on them, but the IIs are a little more refined. I'm interested in the Huffman ICs as well so would be interested in your thoughts on those. Best of luck.

+1 for the AZ. I have Silver Ref II which I was very happy with for years. I moved up to the Absolutes and in my system I like them better than Zitron Pythons I was using. More natural, more realistic with no loss of extension in either the low or high end. Fantastic presentation of space. The only thing the Zitrons had over the Absolutes was arguably a tighter control in the low end. It was vise-like. But that wasn't enough to counter the Absolutes.

The SR II has many of the same qualities relative to its cost. PM me if you think you'd like to try them.

Hi I promised to post an update so here is what I ended up comparing with my impressions

1. Neotech NEI-3001 - what I had - smooth, warm mids, I confirmed its limitations are that it's not the most detailed in both frequency extremes.

2. Audio Sensibility Statement Silver - excellent construction with awesome Furutech connectors - very impressive mids and treble, detailed and smooth, but lost some oomph and ultimate detail in the bass and sub-bass compared to the Audience.

3. Nordost Baldur 1 - a balanced sound, but didn't really stand out as better at anything in particular than any of the other cables.

4. Audience AU24 - very similar reactions to their speaker cable, which I also own - it's got everything, palpable presence with vocals, but this uncanny, confident low bass which is detailed, arresting, and addicting. Don't know how they do it but their products just seem to suit my equipment and my tastes almost perfectly. Just so expensive...

5. Grover Huffman - really, really late shipping cause Grover went on vacation right after i placed my order, but I'm very impressed and very surprised -- this is a real eye-opening, musical cable, PRaT is up the wazoo. It has a forward, propulsive sound that I like. It needs more burn in, though (only been able to put 50 hours on it so far), cause it can't match the Audience in the bass...yet?

Leaning heavily towards the Audience AU24E or SE, but will give the Huffman's about another week before deciding. In terms of value, they offer incredible performance.