Effem
05-10-2012, 17:14
I like playing with cables, in fact so much so I used to be in the business of making and selling them. I have not lost that fascination at all even now, so when the opportunity arose to evaluate some Lessloss Anchorwave RCA interconnects from Scott Nangle Audio, it piqued my curiosity and simply couldn't be missed.
http://www.lessloss.com/images/anchorwave/black/gallery/01_FON7522-1000px.jpg
I am told these are hand built with in-house materials and you can without any doubt see the quality and workmanship that has gone into these cables. The Anchorwave interconnects sent to me are oval in cross-section, are no lightweights either and have a large curious rectangular tag of faux leather "butterfly wing" near each connector that looks strange at best and makes connecting them up no easy task with vertically aligned RCA sockets, because they obscure the bottom socket if the topmost one is connected first. My tip is to connect to the bottom RCA socket first and aligning these "wings" out of the way to make connecting up the top set easier. I tried to slide them up the cable but they seem firmly attached to the connector. They do though give the cables a clear identity so they are unlikely to be confused with any other brand of cable.
Whenever I have a new set of interconnects to evaluate, I do my level best to ignore them during any burn-in period and will have the system on as background music only while I am busy doing other things, so it came as a surprise to me that this cable somehow DEMANDED my immediate attention. It wasn't drawing attention to itself by having luscious bass, or crisp treble, or fireworks a-plenty with vivid dynamics, but it was none of those in isolation that drew me into the sublime sounds these cables were producing, most unlike any other cable heard to date. There wasn't soaringly high treble definition to grab you, there wasn't a bottomless bass to beguile you, there wasn't a seamless midrange to enchant either, and yet there I was being drawn inexorably into the music I was hearing because of it's sheer involvement and taken well beyond the proverbial toe tapping stage, into the murky realms of me singing along with the music too. Gosh and yeuk too.
Many a time in the past while auditioning cables I will have had the "Crikey, not heard that before" moments as isolated events, but this cable turned those moments into an endless joined up procession of musical joy, so CD after CD went into the player long into the nights and time simply stood still for me. Even the CDs I would normally dread playing took on a whole new musical character, one of those being George Michaels "Older" album which has some awful stings in the treble registers and no shortage of sibilance that can be painful enough to keep the volume turned down low. The Anchorwave managed to untangle this recording and lose the sting, yet still present the fine treble, reverb and ambience details this CD has tucked away, so it isn't just masking or attenuating the treble either. When it comes to the bass registers, this cable had to beat my own all time favourite bass communicator from Virtual Dynamics in the shape of their Genesis interconnects - now sadly no more. The Anchorwave easily outperformed the Genesis in every respect, because while the Genesis was always bass articulate, coherent and never shy of the lowermost octaves, it sacrificed the topmost registers and midband accuracy to achieve that, whereas the Anchorwave has no such traits and reproduced the entire audible band with accuracy, neutrality and sheer musicality.
To sum up then, these cables don't "do hi-fi" and to me that sets them well apart from the herd which will have degrees of that trait in their make-up. What they do do, is transmit the music in a way that not too many folks are familiar with and if you have owned high end cables like Nordost and Chord it will come as a shock that a cable can be so MUSICAL and you can listen for many hours and then some. In value for money terms they are not cheap but I would see that as an investment rather than anyone continue on a journey for a long time trying cable after cable to find one with equal musicality. Would I buy them myself? Of course I would ;-)
http://www.lessloss.com/images/anchorwave/black/gallery/01_FON7522-1000px.jpg
I am told these are hand built with in-house materials and you can without any doubt see the quality and workmanship that has gone into these cables. The Anchorwave interconnects sent to me are oval in cross-section, are no lightweights either and have a large curious rectangular tag of faux leather "butterfly wing" near each connector that looks strange at best and makes connecting them up no easy task with vertically aligned RCA sockets, because they obscure the bottom socket if the topmost one is connected first. My tip is to connect to the bottom RCA socket first and aligning these "wings" out of the way to make connecting up the top set easier. I tried to slide them up the cable but they seem firmly attached to the connector. They do though give the cables a clear identity so they are unlikely to be confused with any other brand of cable.
Whenever I have a new set of interconnects to evaluate, I do my level best to ignore them during any burn-in period and will have the system on as background music only while I am busy doing other things, so it came as a surprise to me that this cable somehow DEMANDED my immediate attention. It wasn't drawing attention to itself by having luscious bass, or crisp treble, or fireworks a-plenty with vivid dynamics, but it was none of those in isolation that drew me into the sublime sounds these cables were producing, most unlike any other cable heard to date. There wasn't soaringly high treble definition to grab you, there wasn't a bottomless bass to beguile you, there wasn't a seamless midrange to enchant either, and yet there I was being drawn inexorably into the music I was hearing because of it's sheer involvement and taken well beyond the proverbial toe tapping stage, into the murky realms of me singing along with the music too. Gosh and yeuk too.
Many a time in the past while auditioning cables I will have had the "Crikey, not heard that before" moments as isolated events, but this cable turned those moments into an endless joined up procession of musical joy, so CD after CD went into the player long into the nights and time simply stood still for me. Even the CDs I would normally dread playing took on a whole new musical character, one of those being George Michaels "Older" album which has some awful stings in the treble registers and no shortage of sibilance that can be painful enough to keep the volume turned down low. The Anchorwave managed to untangle this recording and lose the sting, yet still present the fine treble, reverb and ambience details this CD has tucked away, so it isn't just masking or attenuating the treble either. When it comes to the bass registers, this cable had to beat my own all time favourite bass communicator from Virtual Dynamics in the shape of their Genesis interconnects - now sadly no more. The Anchorwave easily outperformed the Genesis in every respect, because while the Genesis was always bass articulate, coherent and never shy of the lowermost octaves, it sacrificed the topmost registers and midband accuracy to achieve that, whereas the Anchorwave has no such traits and reproduced the entire audible band with accuracy, neutrality and sheer musicality.
To sum up then, these cables don't "do hi-fi" and to me that sets them well apart from the herd which will have degrees of that trait in their make-up. What they do do, is transmit the music in a way that not too many folks are familiar with and if you have owned high end cables like Nordost and Chord it will come as a shock that a cable can be so MUSICAL and you can listen for many hours and then some. In value for money terms they are not cheap but I would see that as an investment rather than anyone continue on a journey for a long time trying cable after cable to find one with equal musicality. Would I buy them myself? Of course I would ;-)