Sakura Systems OTA Cable Kit


Has anyone tried this "minimalist" cable kit? After receiving a recommendation from someone with similar musical values to myself, and whose ears I trust, I could not resist ordering one. I will report on how they sound in a few weeks, but am interested in others' opinions too.

For those that have not heard about them look at www.sakurasystems.com for an interesting read. The cable sounds as if it is very close to the specification of the conductors in Belden Cat5. So I may have spent around 100 times what the kit is worth. We shall see.

If you have not heard this cable, please don't bother posting your opinions of how it MUST sound here. Nor am I that interested in hearing how stupid I must be to order this kit - it's my money and you are free to make different decisions with yours. Sorry for this condition, but I am bored with those that have nothing positive to offer on this site, and post their opinions based on deductive logic rather than actual experience.
redkiwi
Guys, I'll read this entire post tomorrow. Dekay, thanks for the tip I am always interested in new ideas!
Caterham makes a suggestion, Redkiwi and Decay do all the homework and brulee tags along for the ride. Thanks to all three of you. I love being in this company.
I can't add much because these 3 have said it all so well.
I was loaned the Kimber top of the line speaker cable and IC which retails near $9000. I thought this stuff was very good. Damn well should be! I owned the Quattro Fil ICs and wondered what all the fuss was about. I bought the Coincident speakers a couple of years ago and thought I would try there wire. I did not think it was better than the Kimber 1030 but in some ways I preferred it. Then I heard the FIM speaker cable and thought I was Through looking for speaker cable. I then got hold of some Venture ICs that I was thinking of putting in my system but when I was told that retail was $3500 all of a sudden the Coincident was good enough. Then I saw Caterham talking about the OTA kit and then came along Redkiwi's thread. I asked Dekay if he would like to go in half on the OTA kit and he agreed. When I received my half I had to laugh. It looks like 10lb test fishing line. Redkiwi and Caterham must have lost it somewhere along the line. Sorry guys, I should know better.
The first thing I noticed was all my other ICs would cause congestion or what Redkiwi calls smear. This lack of smearing is what seperates this IC from all others I have heard. A week later I put the OTA speaker cable in after a 100 hours of break-in. I have been using the very fine FIM Gold and Coincident Total Reference speaker cable. I go back and forth between these two. I installed the OTA speaker cable if you can call this stuff a cable. Fishing line is more like it. What a synergy! Just because I was taken for a ride on the merry go round wire game don't mean you have to. Thanks Caterham, Redkiwi and Dekay. I have never been more happy with my system.
When I go to sell my other wires what should I say as to why I'm selling? Because I like this cheap looking, whimpy, unmanly, skinny fishing line better? How about the old down sizeing routine. No more wire games for me. I'm done. Don't need to listen to any more wire. I'm through. I wonder what this stuff sounds like in silver or gold or silver and gold or
Bruce, it's good to have your endorsement of the product. I wired up a friends system (speaker wire only) with the extra cable that I had and he asked last week if he could run it for another month (which means that I won't be getting it back:-). When I get back to work, I will pick up another OTA kit to do the spare and bedroom systems and would have needed more RCA's and cable anyway (the runs are a bit long and I did not calculate them properly in the first place). I did a quick test on the spare room system and even on cheap (speakers) the OTA made a big improvement in the sound (much more enjoyable), so I will want to use it in both of the bedrooms. Neither of these systems are really Hi-fi but if I can make them sound better for $300 each then it's worth it to me.
I was getting to the point where I was going to suggest trading speaker cables for a few weeks, double helix for OTA but now it sounds like you wouldn't want to part with it. There goes another $600. Anybody else want to split a set?
47 Labs OTA POWER CABLES next? Shunyata owner's desperately trying to sell of their King Cobra's for a power cable a little thicker than the "fishing line" mentioned above? Redkiwi, Dekay, Brulee, Kitch29 describing in minute detail the very noticeable frequency aberrations introduced into their system when they pick up, twist, and drop their 47 Labs POWER CABLE? aberrations that would be disturbing to any listener but quickly forgotten after the cables returned to their normal "vivid" operation? What I am saying is not a dream. At the High End 2001 Trade Fair in Frankfurt last week, three wise, attentive and artistic engineers from 47 Labs proudly displayed their System, trying to leap gracefully over the very tall linguistic barrier between them and the German audiophiles asking about "those cables." When, all of a sudden, Slawney noticed in cold sweat what was connected to the 4 Power Dumpties (the high capacity transformers feeding all of their components)! Well, they were all connected in parallel to a single plastic AC plug (German wall outlet) with very thin fishing-line wire that looked very similar to the STRATOS wire 47 Labs were using on all of their components (maybe the Power Cord wire was a little thicker than 0.4mm OFC interconnect and speaker wire, but not by much). I know that the KIT says about the Stratos wire: "do not use them as power cords!" but it certainly seemed like these 47 Labs engineers were using something very similar to the OTA cable system for their power cables. And talk about vitality, lucidity, liveliness, instantaneous energy, speed! This system was the most jaw-dropping demonstration of the effects of bare-essentials component parts, short signal paths, and minimalist cabling I have ever experienced! It compelled me to adopt a new mode of understanding and experience. (So here comes the poetry.) Every event in the music communicated itself to me with supreme intelligibility--a system internally and externally illuminated and inflamed by the music itself! I even felt I could dispense with all of those means I require in order to give my system warmth and luminosity at home (those tubes)! The entire meaning of the 47 Labs demonstration could not be simpler: there is no reason for intentional complexity and a confusing multiplicity of circuits styles. The simplest, most direct means are the means by which the electronic poet attains a sense of wonder and rapt interest for the musical work, so as to intensify it into a feeling of amazement! The impression of idealized immediacy and purity I was experiencing could only be achieved by not resorting to artificial, overly-complex devices. Music returned to the power of feeling, and despite the fact that the small speakers they were using responded much less than typical speakers to low frequencies, now internal details, which until then had been banished from the stage by complex signal paths, compelled the listener to passionate participation, stretching out the emotion. And what WERE these speakers I was listening to? Three-way speakers with gigantic active sub-woofers! Just kidding. It was just a plain, single tiny 6" Jordan driver in a wood tombstone with no binding posts, the STRATOS going directly into the cabinet to the speaker itself. OTA Kit owner: Get the screwdrivers ready and take out those binding posts! Needless obstacle robbing you of the sound of pure music! ... The difficult last step to the MINIMALIST ZEN SYSTEM (anti-system) is being made right now at audiogon by a few wise disciples of the eminent masters from 47 Labs.