Just a great sounding cable.... For any money....

Bass, details, soundstage, cost

Spades are a little flimsy.

In the never ending cable search, I tried a lot of different wires.
These beat the Audio Magic in soundstage depth, bass depth and punch, and overall dynamics.
Oh yeah, they cost a lot less too.

Similar Products Used:

Audio Magic Excallibur II

I had heard some marvelous things about this brand of wires so I ordered some. I purchased the pro-silway interconnects and the pro-ll cables. First time I have ordered anything over the 'net so I was nervous. I had heard two stinging criticisms from other reviewers and one cautionary note from one of the company people about the pro-silways; my ears were perked. "Many systems will find that the Pro-silways overload the treble", said the exec. "Soundstage accuracy is an issue", "these wires are not musical", were the criticisms. My worries originally came true. Lucinda Williams' 'Car Wheels on a Gravel Road' was plagued by the annoying 'click' 'click' of the drum cymbals on nearly every song. As this is one of my favorite records, I made plans to order the Truth-links or to scap the whole plan and buy elsewhere. Then I noticed that a lot of other artists I admire made more judicious use of that particular treble range and that the sound was actually pretty balanced with impressive detail on the low end. The voices weren't there yet and the sound was pretty easily isolated to the front end of both speakers.
That was then. The cables are now out of the box for about ten stereo hours and the transformation is just amazing. Records I've listened to countless times are like new music- same lyrics da da da but Where did this music come from?! The sound stage is building, the speakers are disappearing. Accompanyist voices grab my attention. I realized last night that I have spent my whole life trying to find a sound system that will play live Grateful Dead like it was meant to be heard.

Not musical. I can understand that response and I think I know what it is based on. Sometimes the notes seem to be overly truncated, but I think that is because the attack on each note is so blazingly fast, an experience in and of itself.

Well, I have to go listen some more. The company said that burn in requires 24 to 200 hours. I am borrowing some Red Dawns tomorrow in order to compare with these. The Red Dawns are mature and I want to make sure the playing field is
level.

The last few days' listening has been intense. My Dynaudio 1.8's are in the middle of the living room so that I can hear the depth building as these babies grow up. Acoustically, this turns out to be the best placement for them now but the problem is that the only sweet spot is in the center of one of my sofas. Ahh, who needs friends? How sweet it is. Star ranking? Phhht. Oh, OK. I guess the mathematician wants stars. 5!

I've been using the Harmonic Technology Pro-11 speaker cables for about 2 weeks now, and am really impressed with them -- enough so that I have ordered HT products to replace all of the wires in my system (including the power cords, which I can't believe will make a difference).
For reference, the core of my system is an Accuphase CDP-65V CD player, an Accuphase E-406V integrated amp, and Eminent Technology LFT-VIIIA speakers. The interconnect between the amp and power amp is 0.5 meter of Kimber KCAG. The speakers are biwired. The HT Pro-11s replaced Kimber 8TC, also biwired.

Physically, I think that the cables are pretty impressive looking. Each pos/neg pair is encased in a heavy (and very stiff) 1"-diameter tube covered with a shiny black woven material. They are marked for directionality. The pos and neg legs extend about 6" out of the ends of the casings (but this can be specified by the customer if he or she has special requirements). HT had no problems constructing a custom length for me and putting spade lugs of different sizes on the amp and speaker ends. Custom cables take about 2 weeks. The conductor is 6N single-crystal copper, as are the spades, which are not plated. There is a lot of interesting information on the construction of these cables at HT's homepage (www.harmonictech.com).

With the Kimber KCAG/8TC combo, I was quite happy with the imaging -- in particular, soundstage depth was excellent. The bass was strong and deep and the treble had lots of air and detail. However, in retrospect, the midrange was somewhat recessed or "polite" sounding. When I replaced the 8TC with the Pro-11, the first thing that I noticed was a marked increase in midrange "presence" without any offsetting reduction in treble sparkle or bass weight. Top-to-bottom spectral balance seemed to be right on the money. Unfortunately, this seemed to be combined with a significant loss in soundstage depth -- maybe 50% or so. I initially ascribed this to the correction of an artificial sense of depth resulting from the recessed midrange of the 8TC, and philosophically concluded that even though I had really liked the depth I was hearing before the switch, it was just "euphonic coloration" and that the new cables were probably giving me a more accurate sonic picture. However, at about the 20-hour mark, something wonderful happened -- the soundstage just magically "blossomed"! I don't know whether it was the cables or my ears that did the breaking in, but the change was amazing -- the opening up of the soundstage was like watching a time-lapse movie of a rose blooming. I was particularly surprised because a number of reviews I had read reported that the HT cables don't require a break-in period. To make a long story short, the image depth that I loved so much with the 8TC had returned -- in spades.

In conclusion, the HT Pro-11 is a great-sounding speaker cable. It has beautiful spectral balance from top to bottom, and in particular, the midrange is amazingly detailed, transparent, smooth, and real-sounding -- "so rich and dense you can swim in it" to lift a metaphor from HT's homepage. There is absolutely no harshness or grundge in the midrange or treble. Bass is deep and tight, with great pitch delineation and no "flab". After a brief break-in period (cables or ears), the soundstage is amazingly wide and deep -- individual voices and instruments (and the space surrounding them) are presented as a detailed, seamless sonic landscape. Spatial and textural resolution, particularly in the midrange, are breathtaking, making it easy to really hear what is going on in densely recorded albums (Prince's "Lovesexy", Zappa's "Hot Rats", The Chemical Brothers' "Dig Your Own Hole", The Grassy Knoll's "Positive", and Henry Cow's "Western Culture" to name a few).

I think that Harmonic Technology Pro-11 is absolutely great speaker cable, and a real bargain. Jim Wang has been very friendly and helpful to me on the telephone, and my impression is that the people at HT are dedicated to doing everything they can to help their customers achieve great sound at a fair price. As I mentioned at the beginning of this rather long review [Hello Hyperion -- I did my best to match your 7-page AN review, but just couldn't hack it ;-)], I am in the process of replacing all the wires in my system with HT's products, and am particularly looking forward to hearing their Pro-Silway 7N single-crystal silver interconnects. Hell, I'm so high on this company that I'd even buy an HT tee-shirt, or put HT milk on my Froot Loops!

This is my review written for AE2 with discussions of HT Pro11+.

THE SYSTEM

AE2 sign. ser.2
Target R5 stands
Harmonic Tech Pro-11 speaker cable 10ft, Cardas jumper
Monarchy SE100 delux monos
Harmonic Tech Truthlink XRL 3m
Monarchy 33 with piggyback upgrade, HT power cord
Monarchy DIP2
Harmonic T. digital cables 2x
Marantz DV18

The next upgrade: AC cords for the monos, maybe the ones from Monarchy.

Over the time, I have heard quite some systems where things like VSR VR8, Audio Physics Calderra etc were featured at various dealers. But none has come close to my system when playing big orchestra music or piano. The whole sound picture is rock solid yet with all the fine layers revealed without any strains. With Rock and Jazz and all kind of vocals and chamber music, it's equally great. Well it can't reproduce the lowest octave under 40hz so well due to physical limits. But it's definitely among the most "complete" small speakers. Yet, you may get a little better and different result if the AE2 be replaced by Sonus Faber E. Amator 2, for more ease and beauty in the mid to high with also quite solid bass but a little bit less authority and definition. I heard them hooked on my Monarchy's with Maridian 508.24 w/o the HT cables. It's an alternative I'd love too if I could get SF Amator2 used.

Some caution when using AE2: Have a solid stand! I couldn't stand the sound when I first tried them on a pair of $100 stands. Also, the HT Pro11+ are quite essential to my above listening experience. I used Audiodyne and the HF was sometimes quite annoying and bass was a bit too tight. With HT Pro11+, everything got much better to a level I never thought of possible form speaker cable changes. Everything seems at ease now with gentler highs and more extended bass. And fine details come through NATURALLY without attention being caught to any part of the tone. At first, it felt as if they were less dynamic, but in truth after getting used you will find their reproduction sounds 'righter' and the perceived lack of dynamic is actually due to the removal of 'wrong' noise associated with other cables. Sorry, it's getting too long. It's just to say that AE2 might be picky as to the complementary pieces in your system. To be safe, I'd recommend tune amps to embelish the sound a bit, if you don't have my system.

Similar Products Used:

audiodyne, MIT 750