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Review 2 of 2 Summary:
I began upgrading/replacing my system last winter and moved from OEMs to RS Golds all around. Why not, the price was right and kinda hard to get hurt. I could always cycle them down to my son or SO.
I have followed all the points and counterpoints on ICs and have read and studied Jon's, as well as others, DIY recipies and spent some time on the Belden site. The problem was easily finding less than full roll lengths. Shane, aka Gansta', recently offerd the remainder of his roll so I scored a 30ft length for $20. I happened to have 4 extra RS Gold RCAs in a bag I have been meaning to return for the last year so they were pressed into service on a 20" set for my CDP for demo purposes.
The Belden #89259 is a rather stiff, sheilded coaxial cable consisting of a 22ga stranded bare copper center wire inside of a foamed teflon insulator. The sheild is a bare copper braid with 95% coverage and an outer jacket of black solid teflon. It's normally priced around $1/ft in 100ft rolls.
With my 20" demo set on my CDP, I started with just on cable and moved from speaker to speaker on some music I was more than intimately familiar with. Initially, I was concerned that I may have an imbalance between my tweets with one being brilliant and clear and the other one rather flat and dull. Could have been because they are some DIY speakers (quasi Meadowlark "Kestwaters") that I have been dialing in for the last two months. After specifically identifying the particular instruments, tones and sounds present and missing from each, I switched the cable and listened again. Well, the good news is it wasn't my speaker. I can only attribute it to the cable.
On Annie Lennox and Anita Baker, I more clearly heard, and was now able to correctly identify, a congo drum. Previously, it appeared more as a drum set rim shot or even a block. Sorry to be so imprecise but let me say that I believe that I now have much more definition. The backing strings are more vibrant and sing out more in their upper harmonics. I also have more seperation. Others may call this a wider stage and/or better imaging. OK, some instruments clearly took a few giant steps stage left or right and that suits me fine.
After noticing the obvious difference in the mids and highs I stepped back for more general or overall listening. I did lose the well balanced bass that I was kinda proud of with everything set flat. Adding two clicks on the bass knob has brougt it back. That doesn't bother me too much because I had to do the same thing on some thin sounding Kimber 4PR I had for a bit.
Overall, I believe they are a very fine cable with excellent detail at an unbelievable price. Given my results from the first set, I will build out the rest of my short roll but plan to use better RCAs in the future. For the performance gained, they are noticably better than RS Golds. I do still plan to build a set with the DH Labs BL-1 wire for my CDP but now honestly don't expect much difference. In fact, the Silver Sonic wire may cost me more bass I hear.
Flexability - 2 (pretty stiff)
Versitility - 5 (custom lengths)
Quality - 5 (choice materials)
Assembly - 3 (basic 22ga coax)
Highs - 5 (air, etc)
Mids - 5 (detail, stage, image)
Bass - 2 (there, but thin)
Sound - 4 (far superior in my experience)
Value - 5 (no doubt!)
Grin Factor - 4 (wish they carried some bass)
Overall - 4 (Damn nice, Great, but not the perfect cable in my system)
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