Budget Audience Clone?
Thanks for the Duelund and Black Cat suggestions. I am in the middle of auditioning JW Cryo Nova and Clear Day along with the Audience and my Canare. Depending on the outcome, I may try those 2 suggestions also. btw, it turns out the Audience Conductor e is a used pair and the price the dealer is asking is $500 for the 2m pair. |
Zu audio auctions off their older products on ebay. If you are patient and keep bidding what you are willing to spend, eventually you'll win one of these auctions. I had to bid on 5 pairs of 10 ft Libtecs before I got mine for $80 + S&H. I think the reduced price was around $1,200 when new. I think they sound great; but I've never heard Audience. https://www.ebay.com/itm/ZU-AUDIO-LIBTEC-10ft-3-0m-Hi-Fi-Loudspeaker-Cables-Matched-Pair-NEW/1324575... |
2channel8 thanks for the heads up - I'm following that auction to see where it ends up. Update: The Clear Day Cables are very very good and transparent but maybe not quite what I'm looking for. The Audience still has more snap to the sound with transients and a little more color in the midrange, in a good way. The JW Cryo Nova is very interesting and I'm not sure about it yet. Luckily I have more time with them. They made me aware of distortion on some Tidal tracks I wasn't aware of, so now I'm trying to figure out if it's something in the chain or the UMG Watermarks. ugh. |
Audience are excellent but expensive cables. I am using Cardas Neutral Reference cables which I purchased new from the Parts Connection cheap because they are no longer being made. Different than Audience, but good. You can read reviews of the Neutral Reference, and one review compared them to the Audience cables, so you can read about their differences. The bottom line is you have to try them in your system to see if they work for you. They also need a lot of break in time to sound good. |
robert53 thanks, I'll check those out. Update, I sent the Clear Day back (what a great guy Paul is. Super nice) He makes great cables for reasonable prices, just not exactly what I'm looking for. I also returned the Audience to the store I borrowed from. I think I'm keeping the JW Cryo Nova as I got to the bottom of the distortion issue. It was the NOS Philips tubes I rolled into my DAC. The orig tubes are back in and the system sounds amazing. The JW might not be the end game, but they are quite good and very engaging to listen to in my system. For $60 they are dirt cheap, so either way they are staying. |
