Silnote Audio cables Review

Silnote Audio Orion Master Series XLR

Silnote Audio Orion Master Series RCA

Silnote Audio Orion Master Series Digital cable

Beautiful systems built with Silnote

Mark was kind enough to allow me time with several speaker systems and a good batch of components. I heard the Silnote loom with the VAC Phi200 tube monoblocks and Pass Labs X600.5 solid-state amplifiers, with speakers such as the Legacy Audio Whisper DSW Clarity Edition, Kingsound King III and Vapor Audio Nimbus White. There is a sizable divergence of listening experiences achievable with all these combinations, every one of them potentially dazzling. One of the setups with tremendous dynamic impact, coherency and resolution was the Pass X600.5 monoblocks and the Vapor Nimbus White speakers. A system with a larger overall soundstage and a rounded bottom-end was achieved with the VAC Phi200 and Legacy Whisper. Few are the cables that can be applied to such different systems with outstanding results, but the extensiveness of conductor materials and geometries of the Silnote Audio cables allowed them to draw a wide variety of components and speakers together in a convincing fashion. The presence of a lot of copper with a touch of silver and gold in the system cables kept warmer rigs from becoming boring, and ultra-definition rigs from sounding edgy.

The listening experience

Here are some of my recent review pieces – lately I’m focusing on vocals such as Katie Melua’s “On the Road Again,” Kenny Loggin’s “The Real Thing,” Marc Cohn’s remake of “Maybe I’m Amazed”, and Rajaton’s “I Was Brought to My Senses”. These selections offer gorgeous guitar and deep vocal bass along with soaring female vocals. The mixture of cables from Silnote worked, as I did not encounter a common problem, that being an imbalance of tonality such that it impeded my enjoyment of the artists.

This is not to say there was no shifting of emphasis, as the Morpheus interconnects and Poseidon GL Power Cable allowed more sibilance, less resolution and more gapping between instrumentation. As I worked my way up the line to the Anniversary Edition Balanced Interconnects, used in conjunction with the smooth, forgiving exaSound Audio Design e22 DAC and the aforementioned gear, along with the Orion Master Power Cables tucked in more politely the treble alongside the upper midrange.

In the past I have considered the Clarity Cable products to be superb performers for the money, but upon occasion I have had to insert one or two competitor’s power cords or a pair of interconnects to adjust the frequency spectrum. This is what Silnote is doing within its brand. I found that I could “remix” the locations of the sibling Silnote cables to achieve what might require purchasing a wild card mix of separate brands.

I recall using the Kingsound King III with the Pass Labs X600.5, and not being satisfied with the upper end energy overrunning the midrange. This setup utilized the Orion Master Power Cables on the amps, and the Poseidon ES Power Cable on the exaSound e22 DAC. When I swapped their position, moving the Orion to the DAC and the Poseidon PCs to the amps, the high frequency energy was reduced to being in appropriate proportion.

With these pieces of music, an informal diagnostic to determine when the mix of Silnote cables was correct was the perceived “age” of the vocalist and weighting of the voice. When the mixture of cables was not optimum the singer sounded younger, and they had a more nasal quality. When the mix was perfect their voices sounded more mature and I could easily hear more involvement of their chest in the singing.

Silnote Audio Anniversary RCA

Silnote Audio Anniversary Master Series speaker cables

With the Teo Audio Liquid Pre

At the same AXPONA show Taras Kowalczycszn of TEO Audio put in my hands the Liquid Pre. Over the past several months I had opportunity to explore the limits of this fantastic passive preamp that uses liquid conductors inside! The results have been precedent setting, and the Liquid Pre has become my reference passive preamp for all reviewing.

As the Liquid Pre review developed, the TEO Liquid Cables were promised to me but not available yet. I turned to the Silnote products as they present a highly refined sonic signature. This refinement was revealed by the transparency of the Liquid Pre allowing me to discern a lightness and delicacy beyond even the Clarity Cable and Silent Source lines previously reviewed. This puts the Silnote products in very fine company, among the very best I have used in the past decade.

Then the TEO Liquid Cables arrived. There has been only one speaker cable to clearly better the Anniversary, the TEO Liquid Speaker Cables. There is something special in the liquid conductors of the TEO products, but they also come with a special cost. An 8’ pair of the Liquid Speaker Cable makes one’s wallet spasm at a price of $12,000! Perhaps you can easily afford north of ten G’s to run wires to your speakers, and if so, you’ll want to check out the Liquid Cables. Then again, there is another Silnote contender, the Orion Master Speaker Cables at $4,200, and my mind wonders how they would have fared in comparison to the TEO Liquid Cable.

In addition, Mark is developing an all-silver conductor series of cables, the Orchestra Master series of interconnects and speaker cables, and perhaps he will prove me wrong in regards to my perception of silver conductors! One thing is certain, you will want to explore the wonders of Silnote Audio cables, which should provide all the sparkle you need to run your favorite High End speakers.

Associated Components:

Source: Macintosh Mac Mini; Sonos Digital Music System; Musical Fidelity M1CDT Transport

Playback Software: Amarra 2

NAS: Buffalo Linkstation 500G

DAC:  BMC PureDAC; Eastern Electric Minimax DSD DAC Jr, Eastern Electric Minimax DSD DAC Supreme with Burson, Dexa NewClassD and Sparkos Labs Discrete Opamp Upgrade; ifi Micro USBPower and Micro DAC

Preamp: TEO Audio Liquid Preamplifier; VAC Renaissance Signature Preamplifier Mk II; Pass Labs XP-20; Cambridge Audio 840E

Amps: VAC Phi 200; Pass Labs X600.5 Monos; Wells Audio Innamorata

Integrated Musical Fidelity M6i

Speakers: Kingsound King III; Legacy Audio DSW Clarity Edition; Kingsound King Tower omnidirectional; Vapor Audio Nimbus White

Subwoofers: Legacy Audio XTREME HD (2)

IC’s: Clarity Cable Organic RCA/XLR; Snake River Audio Signature Series Interconnects; Silent Source “The Music Reference”

Speaker Cables: Clarity Cable Organic Speaker; Snake River Audio Signature Series Speaker Cables; Silent Source “The Music Reference”

Digital Cables: Clarity Cable Organic Digital; Snake River Audio Boomslang; Silent Source “The Music Reference”

Power Cables: Clarity Cable Vortex; MIT Oracle ZIII; Xindak PF-Gold; Snake River Audio Signature Series; Silent Source “The Music Reference”

Power Conditioning: Wireworld Matrix Power Cord Extender; Tice Audio Solo