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


Ordered a pair of the Audio Art Statement e SC Cryo with rhodium banana connections, a set of Townsend Audio Fractal F1's, and may order the Fidelium speaker cables soon. I am interested to see how these speaker cables will perform against each other on my system. I have field coil speakers and the McIntosh MC2301 tube amps. I am only testing the midrange-tweeter connection because that is where I should hear most of the changes. If  it does not pan out well, I have spares for other systems and tests. 

One note about the Townsend Audio Fractal speakers, is that I am pretty sure that the LCR thing attached to the speaker cables is very similar to a Zobel network.  An Impedance Equalization Circuit, also know as a Zobel circuit, can be used to counteract the rising impedance of a voice coil caused by inductive reactance. The cause of this impedance rise is due to the speaker's voice coil inductance (L e). I asked Townsend Audio to answer my question regarding this concept. I had a German dealer add a Zobel to my system in Europe and I did not hear any change at all (B&W 800s, Octave MRE 130 tube amps). 

For folks who have 16 ohm speakers such as myself, I am not sure how the Fractal F1 will sound with my already high ohm design speakers. Will be interesting for sure. 

Look forward to more updates as I receive the speaker cables and start testing. 

The comments for the Fidelium such as best speaker cable in the world by someone who has a 600K system and the unique ribbon design compared to the Townsend concept of ribbons built inside the wire, and the Audio Art statement SC Cryo getting excellent reviews has prompted me to take this step for the community and provide feedback.

My Neotech pure silver speaker wires, 9 gauge, ultra high definition speaker wires (6K a pair x 2 pair) are in for some competition. 

 

Ciao, 

Audioquest4life 

audioquest4life

@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!! 

Rhodium is just hi-fi marketing BS. You don't need corrosion resistance for audio connectors, in fact silver oxide is a very good conductor. Silver connectors have the lowest resistance. but gold is very good. I use silver(1) or gold(2) plated connectors for all cables.

Also, i am sorry for my snarky post above. I should have added that in my opinion a first rate speaker and filter ( crossover ) designer should be including appropriate Zobel network in the design. How did your listening go ?

Jim