Ultra High-Resolution "Acoustic Zen" Cables - Jason Diffusion

way to name the change is to say that I heard a MUSICALITY -- a presentation ofthe music's inner pace, with an utterly convincing rhythmic and harmoniccohesiveness -- from Jackie Ryan's stellar, mid-performance quartet that had neverbefore been delivered by this monitoring rig.A footnote is in order here. Recording studios routinely employ very long runs ofmicrophone cables as well as patch bay circuits and patch cords. The number oflinear feet of wire that sits between an artist's voice or instrument and the tapethat captures it can be measured in three figures or more. Despite the importance,and the prevalence, of cables in studio recording work, the vast majority ofrecording engineers adamantly believe that wire is wire -- that no difference can beheard among cables. Mogami is akin to Canare. Canare is equal to Belden, withClark or Monster no more, no less sufficient. A recent two day recordingengagement at a major Los Angeles studio once again confirmed this mind set. Oneis tempted to laugh … or cry.The assumption of cable equality is a joke. Sufficiency does not suffice. And onewonders, concluding such adventures, about the quality of home sound systemsused by those who feed the sound of great musicians through ordinary wire at thebeginning of your (and their own) listening pleasure.My Cabasse monitoring system has been set up to deliver a high degree of detail sothat I can hear as far into the sound chain as possible. I use it as part of mymastering playback work. It is one of several systems I rely on to work withrecordings, one of several used to review equipment, as well.I've found few rules of the audiophile road that are one hundred per cent certain,but I am sure of this one. The proof of great cables is in the details. I have neverencountered any interconnect that is utterly neutral, without tonal character. I doubtthere is or will be such an entity. Therefore, I take REVELATION of detail andACCURACY of musical representation to be a strong sign of virtue in interconnects.If the music being played through such wire is beautiful, (beautifully played,beautifully recorded) then the wire should deliver it beautifully and vividly.That predilection on my part has lured me to admire Nordost Quatro-fils cables aswell as Magnan cables. Very few interconnects that I have used combine rigorousanalytical revelation with extraordinary musicality. The best Magnan and Nordostcables do that. Others approach this ideal. I have long been a fan of AudioQuest"Diamond" cables for that reason.When the first two pairs of Acoustic Zen cables went into my system (displacing, forthis listening, a pair of Magnan and a pair of Harmonic Tech cables), the soundstageboth deepened and grew wider. It more fully resembled the actual physical locationwhere the music that I recorded was captured live-to-two-tracks. Such recordingsare in some sense fragile. When recordings are done well, they carry an explicitsense of the ambience in which music is created as musicians, in performance, digdeep into their inspired work.A single pair of Acoustic Zen cables increased the Cabasse system's transparency.Two pairs created a sense of intimacy and musical "palpability" that riveted me tothe listening chair. My experience at that moment was very much like being back atthe club, in person, the night that "I Concentrate On You" was recorded withmusicians less than twenty feet from my console -- using a twenty foot pair of"Diamond" mic cables, a thirty foot pair of Magnan, and a twenty-five foot pair ofvan den Hul cables.Notes that I took on the occasion of my first extended listening to the Acoustic Zencables capture observations otherwise lost. The first concrete result of hearing Zen's"zero crystal reference" cables was "added upper range clarity" and "deepenedsoundstage resolution." My scribbled notes point to "transient reverberation tailsthat linger eerily" and "quicker attack from vocal dynamics" as well as "solidity fromthe piano's percussive heft given added body and placement." The singer's "heightand presence," the notes say, "take on greater resolution than before."