Yes they are stupidly expensive and convincing my better half that we could put them on the home loan took some weeks of me being the perfect man but to my delight I'm very happy with the result...of the cables.
I guess at that level the cables are components in themselves. Many expensive components sound like sh!te as do many expensive cables.
Hey Nathan,
Glad I haven't caused a divorce.
Firstly, thank you for trusting my suggestion re trying these cables. I have been really impressed with what they do and have compared them with a number of cables at varying price points.
You really do have me a little puzzled I have to admit in one respect.
I picked this quote of yours to type this on because I am trying to work out why you consider these cables to be "Stupid Expensive".
If I had considered them to be stupid expensive there is no way that I would have suggested them to you, let alone suggest them to anybody else, such as Mario and his band of 'cohorts' (Hi guys!!).
If I was looking at 'Stupid Expensive' I would have gone straight to Transparent Audio (excellent cables by the way. Have had a reasonable amount of exposure to the higher-end range and matched correctly!! with the system they are very good...... but...)
Mid Spec:
Musicwave Ultra: FROM US$3045
Reference SC: FROM US$6625
Higher Spec:
Reference XL: FROM US$13160
Reference MM: FROM $US$20995
Opus MM SC: FROM US$34735
Yours $3000 for a 4m set
normally the FROM in the above is 3m std length plus pro-rata for additional length.
And given my choice between yours and the Reference SC or Reference XL, from previous listening experience I would take the ones you have got (Given that I had them in my system and ran them in for you I think I got a pretty good idea what they sound like)
So I have to ask the question: Where else could you have spent $3000 and achieved the degree of improvement that the speaker cables gave you?
Because my experience is that significant expenditure in other areas gave me, as you described, incremental improvements but once I put these cables in the change was quite insane, particularly in terms of the stuff that really matters to me:
Flow and cohesiveness of the music,
Integration across the range,
Lack of hardness and etch,
Superb resolution and inner detail--- not that brittle etched hardness that some people view as detail
Timbral beauty and harmonic resolution
AND......................ENGAGEMENT!!!!!!!!!!
The last word is what these cables do for me like nothing I have yet heard... except perhaps for 1 system at approx $1.2Mill... but that was running a magic TT at the front end.
All I have is a 'Lowly' 'Home-made' Killer Dac
So I guess the best way I can describe my experience with these cables is that they sound like a Killer Dac rather than like a ESS Sabre.
My Lad and i did a little comparison last week between a highly regarded cable that was recommended to me by a certain bloke from Melbourne which as an IC cost approx A$1200 for a 1m pair.
We listened to Holst, The Planets and then changed to the KLEI 40 series interconnects that I have.
We changed and gave the 40s about 5 minutes of settling time and fired it up again. Lad looked at me and said 'you set the volume much higher' to which I replied 'No, it is indeed the same'.
Which it was. But the sense of Life and dynamics with the 40 ICs was SO MUCH greater than the other cables that it sounded like the volume had been turned up a couple of notches. Not in a bad way louder, but in that I want to turn that up louder way, but it was so much more dynamic it was crazy.
Tuba, bass trombone had a nice bite and rasp like the real thing.
Are they coming out. No chance.
Could I go back? No chance.
So as Nathan said in an earlier post. If you are looking to buy a set of cables then audition these.
If you are tyre-kicking with no intention of spending money; then for Pete's sake do not audition these because you will not want to give them back.
So, from my POV, the 3 most cost-effective improvements I have made in my system are (Not in order of importance)
1. Getting a Killer DAC
2. A set of absolutely magificent rare-as-rocking-horse-doodoo ECC32 valves for my power amp (Thanks Steve)... and the black plate KT88s...
3. KLEI speaker cables and interconnects like yours Nathan
Cheers
Rawl
Oh, PS that just popped into my head:
We compared the interconnects KLEI Model: 40 @ $2500) with some interconnects circa 3 times that price on a very expensive system.
Interesting result. Of 4 people present (me being one of them), 3 of the 4 preferred the KLEI 40 for the reasons I described in the 'stuff that matters to me' part above--- yes I was one of the 3!
But here was the interesting part. The new Harmony connectors that KL uses on these cables take a solid hour to settle and improve more in microdetail and nuance as hours go by.
They sound absolutely terriffic to start but just continue to get better over a period of a few days.
So, if the 40s had had a longer settling period (ie more than 5 minutes) like the 3x cost cables already connected in the system, what may the outcome of the comparison been? 4 out of 4??