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Review 5 of 20
Price Paid:
$230.00
from Audio Advisor Summary:
Until adding Audioquest's Bedrock to my system, I had never really thought to put much importance on speaker cables. I was always reasonably happy with my Circuit City Monster cable, which worked fine with my Mission 772 monitors and C1 center channel.
However, when I began to replace the Missions with Mirage Omnipolars, I noticed certain details were missing, for example on the "Gladiator Waltz" track on the soundtrack album, the deep, wide sound stage, with the horns, strings, and kettle drums all around me that I experienced with the 772s was gone. The sound stage seemed flat and restrained, and the imaging magic that I know the OM-6s are capable of just wasnt there. While fine for $500\pr Missions, the Monster was just no match for $3500 Mirages.
I started auditioning with Cardas Cross, and while it was a generally pleasing and revealing cable, I didnt feel that it lived up to its $1K price tag (for 3M). I also breifly tried the Quadlink 5C, and was not impressed, so that was it for Cardas.
The Bedrock was a sonic revalation. It seems to compliment the OM-6s perfectly, with thundering but tightly controlled lows, silky sweet mids, and perfect highs, which are crystal clear and highly detailed, yet not overly foward or bright. More importantly, the signature omnipolar sound that was missing with the monster cables was back. Soundstage width and depth increased by leaps and bounds, vocals greatly improved, and when I finally was able to stop analyzing the details and just sit back and listen, the experience was wonderful. The sonic veil holding the Mirages back by the Monster was gone, and the speakers could disappear into the room (not an easy thing for tower speakers to do).
The Bedrock made a huge difference in the bass response of the OM-C2, which was able to get down to subwoofer level deep bass that was never possible with the Monster. Since the subwoofers in the OM-6s are powered by internal amps, I wasnt sure what kind of (if any) difference there would be since the speaker cables essentially act as low-level interconnects for the OM-6s subs. The difference turned out to be huge, with a level of depth and slam that I never knew they were capable of.
The fact that Bedrock can be had from Audio Advisor for $230 for a 10FT pair internally bi-wired was just the icing on the cake. There is nothing else at even well above that price that sounds as good.
Now to add some King Cobra interconnects... Strengths:
Powerful, deep and tightly controlled bass, transparent midrange, and superb highs. Weaknesses:
Solid core conductors are stiff, and can be tough to rout. Similar Products Used:
Cardas, store bought Monster.
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