Transparent Audio Musicwave Super XL
Speaker Cable

Transparent persuasion: how one high end cable maker overcame the strongest resistance

Transparent Audio Musicwave Super XL

Regular readers know that if there's one thing I hate more than cables, it's expensive cables. Hell, I do my best to avoid writing about them beyond the confines of a show report, or mentioning them in a review of something else. Those same readers, however, will also know that I tend to stick with ART, Nirvana, Shinpy and a couple of others... including Transparent.

But given that Transparent -- along with NBS, Kimber and MIT -- can lay claim to pushing the cable pricing envelope to the point where its seams are splitting, what am I doing playing with a whole system's worth? Now I could be glib and focus on just how much fear Transparent's Karen Sumner instills in men (indeed, there are those in the hi fi industry who fantasise about her wielding a riding crop and slapping them about), but that's only part of the threat. Over lunch on her turf, Ms Sumner pointed out a few home truths which I was too frightened to contest. So I agreed to try out the latest wires after listening to the following persuasive remarks:

  • Transparent justifies its prices on the grounds that it: (a) operates an upgrade policy for customers who want to move up the scale; (b) sinks a bundle into R&D; and (c) the cables represent an investment, since Transparent expects to be around long enough to deal with point (a).
  • Cables are not accessories but components; cables carry signal; they don't act on them externally, as do spikes, clamps, magic bricks, etc. A system cannot exist without cables; it can exist without accessories.
  • The only way to understand a brand of cable is to wire a system completely with one make of wire, from front to back.

Considering that I've preached the latter a few times myself, and considering that I always seem to have a piece of Transparent cable somewhere in my set-up (eg, the Wilson WATT/Puppy 5.1 'Puppy Tails'), I could hardly argue with her. So my current mix of cables includes the latest spec models featuring the company's new XLerator Technology, due to be launched at the Stereophile Show in San Francisco in early June.

OK, so the boxes fitted in-line in Transparent (and certain other) cables have been the butt of jokes from manufacturers who eschew these in line filtering networks, but it's inescapable: you either have/like the filter boxes or you don't; they're no longer novel or even controversial; and nothing I (nor Karen Sumner) can say will change your attitude toward them. But XLerator is something else entirely.

Even though it has always employed test equipment to control the electrical parameters of its cables, Transparent more recently discovered that 'extremely minute differences in electrical parameters made far more significant audible differences' than had previously been recognised. Transparent's staff also proved to themselves (in one of the nicest listening rooms I've ever visited, I hasten to add . . . ) that these audible differences were identifiable repeatedly under controlled blind listening sessions.

Having gathered data through over 5000 hours of listening tests, the company created 'a powerful computer model' to enable the new techniques to ensure that the electrical properties of a given cable are optimised for a specific application. The tolerances are achieved through newly developed methods of assembly and measurement, including even better fine-tuning of the networks within the filter boxes. In the Reference XL wires, for example, tolerances of the most important parameters are controlled to 0.01%. But the XLerator technology hasn't been restricted to the most expensive cables; the Super and Ultra ranges also benefit from it, promising even greater compatibility from system to system, and greater consistency from cable to cable.

At the aforementioned lunch, Karen walked me through the range just as if I were a paying customer. What gear was I using? What lengths I required? What connectors? Which is how I ended up with a mix of Super range cables from the middle of the catalogue. (Ultra is upper middle and Reference is the top.) These included the MusicWave Super Speaker Cable, a selection of balanced and single-ended MusicLink Super Interconnects, some bi-wire cables, some nifty replacements for the cheesy links used by most companies to connect terminals when single wiring a bi-wireable speaker, and the new Premium Digital Link. And I used them everywhere that my own criterion for cable selection was met: the wire shouldn't cost more than a quarter of the price of the primary components. Which is my revision of the old 'ten per cent of the entire budget' formula; otherwise, most of us would never even contemplate the expensive stuff. I figure that it's only slightly more absurd to spend a quarter-as-much again on cables as it is to spend ten points more.

Thus was I able to re-wire the Marantz CD12/GRAAF/Quad 63 system and the Theta/Sutherland/Wilson system without feeling like a running dog lackey of the cable industry. Which tells you that these cables are still Big Bucks, as those are 15k-and-above packages. Pricing of the new wires hasn't yet been established for the UK, but -- to allay fears of total elitism -- I'd like to remind you that you could wire a CD player/integrated amp/speaker system with (pre XLerator) Super throughout, with a 2.4m pair of speaker cables for £949 and 1m pair of interconnects at £399. Pre/power combo? Add another £399. Need a meter of the stunning PDL digital cable? A mere £199. And we're still below two big ones. Given the roger'd dollar and the US price list before me, I don't expect the new stuff to cost much more. (Tip: the PDL just might be the best digital coax on the market.)

The results? Exactly the same kind of innate consistency I expect to acquire when matching a CD transport to a DAC of the same make, or connecting a pre-amp to its sibling power amp. However much we, as hobbyists, love mixing it up, trying to find the ultimate cable for a specific part of the path, this experiment showed yet again that it's far easier and just as rewarding to stick to one brand. And the move from what I was already using to a complete Transparent set-up involved a mere 5% price hike. Which is a teensy tariff to pay just for the gains in coherence and consistency. Add to that audibly extended bass with better control and the likelihood of not being slapped around by Karen Sumner, and I'm a happy man.