LISTENING SESSION - fadel Art products

LISTENING SESSION
By Cristiano Ubaldi
Interconnect Cable
FADEL ART APHRODITE IC
THE EUROPEAN CABLE
The Aphrodite series is the most recent among the vast offer of one of the biggest producers specialized in audio and
video cables: Fadel Art. The French company was born out of the designing genious and from the studies of the
French mathematician and phisician Jean Marie Fadel who, chasing the most faithful reproduction as possible of the
music, tried to apply the knowledges aquired during his job as a researcher in innovative sectors of electronics industry so
to design cables with the minimum possible modifications of the flowing signal.
You would surely comment that all the cable producers declare to chase and obtain the target above quoted, both the famoaus brands and the
newcomers in the immense melting-pot the hi-fi cables market has become.
Hower Fadel Art, though using a “listening” quality approach, also tries to discover the theoretical and physical principles leading to a superior
performance result and applies methodically the solutions researched.
No one can deny the French mathematician has clear ideas and follows a personal method to approach the problems of audio signal transmission;
this approach leads him to research and implement original and certainly interesting solutions.
A clear example is the top level speaker cable named Gold Line, which surpasses the classical concept of Hi-Fi cable reaching a true transmission
line. In this transmission line the audio signal flows into three concentric tubes made of the purest silver and copper, very thin so that the skin effect is
avoided, isolated with the best material which is simply air and everything is contained into a robust plexiglass and aluminium box.
Only the terminal leads are “cable like” so to allow an easy link to the amplifier and speaker’s plugs. Of course the whole system is correct in
Impedance and Phase following the principles of the French physician. This costly solution allows to dramatically reduce, according Fadel Art, the
negative effects of vibrations introduced by the environment or self produced by the cable’s conducers. This particular design lead to the lower
attenuation factor ever measured in Fadel’s laboratories.
The principle is named “Silence Technology” and it is applied also in the new Aphrodite interconnect series, which is also using other interesting
innovations aiming a correct phase and impedance interconnection. The target is to get as close as possible to the mathematic ideal conditions, stated
by the English physician Oliver Heaveside, for the signals transmission (Heaveside is one of the most important researchers in the development of
telegraph and telephone communications).
The music lover approach, aiming first of all a correct and musical reproduction, and the technical basis lead to the success of the French/german
products. Fadel Art is not yet known in Italy where the regular distribution of the products has begun only recently thanks to the young and dynamic
company HIFI4MUSIC.
SOME HISTORY
a little history and a presentation of Fadel Art is necessary, because it is the first time if I am not mistaking that a fadel’s product is reviewed by an
Italian magazine.
The first approaches to the study of interconnections by Jean Marie Fadel are dated more than 20 years ago, even though Fadel Art was founded in
1993, when Fadel ended his professional experience with Thompson the French multinational specialized in electronics and telecommunications.
The professional path of the French (but was born in Morocco) physician and mathematician explains the knowledge applied in the design and
production of Fadel Art cables.
After an experience as a teacher, Jean Marie Fadel worked as the director of the Quality Control in a French company specialized in wheels and
materials such as cast iron powders.
For over ten years he worked for the Thompson group where, among the various charges, was the leader of the RITA project dedicated to aerospace
telecommunications, he was also the director of the military research department committed to the development of innovative technologies.
Out of his researches many international patents were issued and he gathered a big experience with electromagnetic devices, including the
development of mathematical methods, and innovative products based on iron-carbon cast powders.
Willing to concentrate his activities to the research and development, which he loved most, starting from 1995 Jean Marie Fadel left the commercial
side management to Kurt Hecker, an important person in German Hi-Fi being the president of the Hi End Society Deutschland. Fadel developed two
separated poles working in a great synergy: Fadel Art Technlogy based in France (caring of production and research) and Fadel Art Marketing based
in Frankfurt headquarters (caring of marketing and sales).
The Fadel Art catalogue spreads from the affordable cables of the Litz series, using as you can argue the homonymous topology, up to quite
exspensive products with the top range Reference Two and the above quoted Gold Line based on the “Silence Technology”.
All the cables have Silver conductors and/or Silvered Copper and are corrected in Phase and Impedance achieved thanks to a special magnetic
material based on Iron-Carbon cast powders composed by spherical particles.
The laboratory measures and a Software developed by the French technicians allow to build a model of a cable response, and this helps together with
the listening sessions in determine each products peculiarity.
Fadel Art produces, apart from Interconnect and Speaker cables, also Power cables and network distributors (filtered and non filtered) and Line
Conditioners. There are also unconventional products such as two interesting interfaces: The first is a Correction Interface (Mono or Bywiring) and
allows to correct Phase and Impedance in every production cable just to make it coherent with Fadel Art’s production; the second is a symmetrizing
interface to be used with separated amplification systems so to allow the link of a balanced Preamplifier with an unbalanced Amplifier (correcting
Phase and Impedance rotations and minimizing Intermodulation distortions). Though I cannot say nothing on the effectiveness of this device, it
confirms the original approach of Fadel to the problems of the Audio connections.
APHRODITE SERIES
The new series, launched in 2007, is based on the quoted Silence e Coherence. Three are the cables in this Aphrodite series: Interconnect, Speaker
cable and Power cable.
The prices are in the middle to high market segment starting from the 495 euros of the power cable to the 1475 euros of the Speaker series. Right in
the middle we find the object of this test, the Aphrodite Interconnect Reatiling at 795 euros.

This first test is a “first bite” because with Distributor’s support we will examin the whole range of Fadel Art’s products.
The new Aphrodite series topology is based on a quadric-axial geometry using 5 conducers, three are in OFC Copper and two are in Silver. The silver
wire is produced by an high-tech company, working in the military field, with a particular process extracting the pure Silver, with a chemical process,
out of Silver Nitrite.
As reviewed by fadel Art’s documentation, the cable has two internal conducers with two shields: one is internal, driven by a booster with unitary gain
and free from Phase rotations so that the conducer practically does not “see” the shield, granting a perfect signal transmission, while the external
shield acts like a normal conducer.
According Fadel Art this topology allows to virtually eliminate all the negative effects of parasite interferences on the signal transmission.
The internal and external dielectrics have been studied by the French technicians because they are more efficient in reflecting the ultraviolet rays,
emitted by the electromagnetic field internally generated by any conducer when carrying an electrical current flow, which add noise and interferences
to the signal. The internal dielectric is made of the whitest cotton which proved to be the best in this particular application (better than Teflon or Air),
the external sheath is transparent.
The cable is somehow rigid but you can handle it easily because the diameter is not too large. The test cable is terminated with WBT Nextgen of the
highest quality.
LISTENING SESSION
I will not get bored to say that to test a cable is quite a difficult task because it is not easy to understand the true carachteristic of the single cable
moreover in many different contexts in order to achieve a more objective evaluation.
The price of the tested cable, though it is not cheap, it is anyways decent easing my antipathy to expensive cables, also considering that lately the
prices have considerably raised in the audio sector.
I testd the Interconnect cable alone even though Fadel Art advises to use the same cable for the whole system accordin a Coherence principle so
much sustained by Jean Marie Fadel. Anyhow the characteristics of the Aphrodite emerge clearly and, I may anticipate, they are shared by the rest of
the cable of this series.
What is immediately perceivable is a sense of freshness and openness in the sound, a transparency not achieved through an artificial brilliancy on
middle-high frequencies but a peculiar cleanliness and transparency in all the frequency range. The middle range gets many benefits from this attitude
being open and transparent, very smooth with voices rich and full of details both in dynamics and timbre.
The voices are not particularly warm, Fadel Art cables are more on the honest side without embellishment. The same honesty is found in whole of the
series so that the Aphrodite is not the cable to correct or equalize characterized systems but is the cable to achieve a transparent and balanced link in
a medium-high class system well assembled in its components.
If this condition is true, the tested cable allows a clear and open reproduction without any disequilibrium towards the trebles which are instead well
refined and with no extension limits, even because of steady and balanced bass with the right power and articulation.
Dynamics is at a good level, both in speed and amplitude of transients at every level.
The image supplied is well spread and coherent, the cable does not compress the deepness of the stage, even though the presence and cleanliness
in the midrange.
After all I would say that the best characteristic of this cable is the very accurate balance and its substantial neutrality. The reproduction is on the clear
side, which tends to level the timbre nuance, and the comparison with higher cables like the Ayon, which I used as a reference in this case, gave a
result just a bit superior in terms of authoritativeness and refinement.
The ones preferring euphonic cables with warmer midrange and a midbass, will not find with the Aphrodite the ideal cable. It is confirmed that it is an
high quality and concrete cable, it will absolutely not regret the money spent and this, in the cables sector, is quite a rare quality.