VenHaus Pulsar™ interconnects

George, thanks for the info about the various Pulsar iterations! Very valuable.

I'd add that the Pulsars with Silver NextGen WBTs at $350/ 1 meter pair puts them in a price league with Wolff/Huffman Empress, Ridge Street MSE II, and many excellent used interconnects that originally retailed for significantly more, so I wonder if the upper-end Pulsars can still compare as favorably on a value basis like the Pulsar with Eichmann bullets?

In my evaluations, I was going for best sound, not best sound for the money. My comments should be taken in that context.

I totally agree with previous statements that cables are system dependent and need to be evaluated in each person's system.

That being said, I have evaluated many different ic's in my system and the Pulsars are staying.

Some other excellent ic's that I tried that are absolutely worth trying:

Ridge Street Audio Poiema!! and MSE II
Acoustic Zen Silver Reference
Bolder Cable Summit
Argent Audio Pursang and Jaden Signature

George

I reecntly tried the full Kubala Sosna "Emotion" range of power cords, speaker cable and interconnects on my system (which consists of Audio Researcg VT200 MKII, Audio Research LS25 MKII, Marantz CD7 cd player, Marantz ST17 tuner; Roksan Xerxes 10 turntable; Morch DP6 tonearm; Lyra Parnassus DcT cartridge; and Talon Audio Hawk monitors. They are phenomenal: outperforming the Siltech G5 cabling and Stereovox Reference cabling by some margin.

They are very expensive and thick however. Yet have not been bested in my experience: indded, some see these as the best cables on the planet (see discussions on AudioGon). However, given their size and cost I am interested in trying the VH Audio AirSine power cords and related interconnects and speaker cables. Chris has informed me that he's in the process of beta testing new IC and Speaker cables that will be of the same reference/gold label quality as the Airsine and will be relatively thin and inexpensive (I mean in comparison to the unbelievalbe Kubala Sosna's).

He feels confident of their potential performance and I intend to avail myself of an opportunity of auditioning a full set before deciding on these of the Kubala's. If these come out on top - I believe we will have the World's best cabling and I will be a proud owner.

If anyone has A/B tested the Airsine again the Kubala Sosna Emotion range I would appreciate your opinions.

Happy listening

Like I've said, it's virtually impossible for an *extruded* cable to beat naturaly insulated silver. Chris VenHaus and Robert Schult of Ridge Street Audio are some of the very few designers working with naturally insulated silver.

My psychic mind tells me Kubala's performance would not get even close to VenHaus or Ridge Street naturally insulated silver cabling.

***

Thanks Psychicanimal, do you actually have any experience (of a more material nature) with the 'Kubala' top range cables?

I was of the impression that shielded cables (whether silver, copper or gold) produce a more restricted or closed-in sound. When one compares the Silver and insulated cables of the likes of 'Stereovox' or 'Siltech' with a cable such as the unshielded 'Verbatim' copper ribbons, this would certainly seem to be the case. Similarly, the 'Goertz AG3' silver ribbon speaker cables also hugely outperform the likes of the 'Chord Company Odyssey 4' shielded copper speaker cables. What this seems to suggest is that neither the selected material of cable or selections around shielding in-and-of-themselves guarantee a better cable: not even bothering to wander into the mine-field here of what constitutes "better".

Having noted this proposition, I should stress that the Kubala's (which I assume to be shielded) are far more open sounding, more neutral, resolving and produce a more realistic soundstage than any of the above noted cables.

Interestingly, it was a review in which the VH Audio power cords were put into an elite list of cables with the Kubala that first highlighted my potential interest. I have tried many, many high range cables of various characteristics and have come to infer that the proof of this pudding is very much in the eating. This leads me back to my question about any direct comparisons between Kubala's and a prefered cable. Any advice would still be warmly welcomed