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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
cd45123
191 posts
 

Is this a neotech product or it’s another brand that uses neotech occ silver? I’ve seen this occ silver neotech cable that the company sells, but it must be 6x the price of the audioart statement (interesting cable, liked it but returned it) or Fidelium.

audioquest4life OP
727 posts
 

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 

audioquest4life OP
727 posts
 

The modern versions of the Neotech are NES 1001

 

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

fiesta75
1,378 posts
 

Thanks for the link, unfortunately these are out of my price range.☹️ I'm using solid 16 gauge silver for the highs and silver plated 12 ga. for the mids and lows. I'll bet your 9 ga. sound great!

audioquest4life OP
727 posts
 

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. 

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