Tok2000, the company that I had the positive experience with was HomeGrown Audio. The other companies I won't go into here, as I am sure there will be a lot of blood if that happens.
I am happy to say that in addition to being wonderful to deal with, the prices of their cables are actually cheap. Especially, when viewed against the competition. There were a lot of correspondence between us.
My intention was not even to review a cable, I simply wanted to purchase their Super Silver interconnect. I previously found Kimber KCAG to work well in a tube based system, but thought KCTG to offer a bigger sound, with fuller low frequencies.
We got into discussions about KCAG, and it seemed Super Silver was a copy of it for about 1/8 the price. The only basic difference between the two was that HGA used solid core wire instead of stranded because they found it to alleviate some of the harshness sometimes found in KCAG, depending on the equipment. The downside was that the stranded wire is easier and faster to braid. Seemed like a win - win for the consumer.
In our discussions, my goal was to put my own spin on their cable, making my own KCTG. We talked about it, and the reasons. At the same time, a lot of noise was being made here on Audiogon about thinner gauge wire. When it finally got to the point where I was ready to jump, they let me know that while they could provide me the parts or build me what I was after, but they had done some tinkering around and blended my ideas of more wire with the thin wire concept. That was when the offer to review was extended to me.
The cable is HomeGrown Audio Silver Lace.
I spent a lot of time with the cable, and was more than impressed. In fact, the cable is still the best that I have in my system. Recently, I did a cable shootout between the Silver Lace, Alpha Core Goertz copper, Audio Quest Emerald, Coincident CST, Musical Fidelity NuVista, and Stealth silver ribbon(SCR?). The Silver Lace was the winner, slightly nosing out the Coincident in my system. Basically, only because of slightly more impactful bass.
In no way do I think I am the reason for Silver Lace. But, I do think that my involvement and impressions left some imprint on the product. Like I said, it is a good cable. Some will love it, some will hate it, some will think it's OK. That's cable, they're like flavors of ice cream, we all have our own opinions and favorites. But, this cable does get my highest recommdation. A reference cable for about $170!!!
