The flatter, “squared” design was as flexible as most speaker cables I have used. The silver coated OFC copper dual-size spades were on flexible leads making installation a breeze. My one suggestion to Dave is to lengthen the leads on the speaker end an inch or two, as they were a tad tight to stretch between posts on the more widely set custom binding posts (much wider than a dual banana’s width) of the Legacy Audio Focus HD speaker. On posts which are not standardized, a bit more reach for the terminations would help.
Regarding listening impressions, these are the first brand of cables which unfailingly sounded superb with any electronics I used. Low-power or high-power amps, tube or solid-state CD players, Tannoys, Eminent Technology, or Legacy speakers – you name it, everything sounded wondrously vital. I could not make these cables sound bad. As a suite, they were completely adaptable, as pliable sonically as they are physically. Most cables I have used excel at either tube or solid-state; these excelled in every rig I placed them.
I will illustrate my point by referring to listening sessions conducted with two dissimilar sets of electronics. The first rig being a “tube system” consisting of the Ayon CD-1 tubed player, Pathos Classic One MkIII tube hybrid integrateds in mono configuration, and the Legacy Focus HD speakers. This is a rather warm set, one to mellow and relax the mind rather than pushing to listen for minutia in the music.
“How does one say that a cable can be ultra-revealing and yet not harsh?”
How does one say that a cable can be ultra-revealing and yet not harsh? These two descriptions almost seem inseparable in the minds of audiophiles. Want more detail? Then you’ll have to put up with more harshness – it almost seems axiomatic. But it is not always so; there are certain components, in this case cables, which achieve the perfect balance between the two.
Several discs in my collection have moments when the music seems unnaturally piercing. My ears are sensitive to hard, focused sharp top-end, and I do not like certain sounds or music which pierces my hearing. If you find the sound of chirping French fry machines at fast food restaurants or the buzz of some microwave ovens irritating, pay attention. The guitar lead in some of Larry Carlton’s pieces, the wailing wall of sound that is Simple Minds, the nose-bleed recording level of Lenny Kravitz’s “American Woman” – these and other events are softened when using a tube-based system. Braided, stranded, networked, all the differing cable technologies, except for multiple smaller stranded gauge conductors, softened the edginess but also lost detail. The Equinox 5-Squared, in contrast, brought forth from tube components the detail that I have come to associate with solid-state. The bonus was that Lenny screamed but didn’t shriek, Simple minds wailed away at their instruments but didn’t make me want to wail, and Larry Carlton’s guitar pierced my soul, not my eardrum.
One might think that by placing all solid-state equipment with the Wireworld products trouble might ensue, but it didn’t happen. This was possibly the most fascinating aspect of these cables. Rather than channel harshness, they ameliorated it. I had a high-power rig with sensational resolution set up next: Cambridge Audio Azur 840C player and Jeff Rowland’s Capri preamp paired with his 501 class D monos – at 1,000 watts each. Topping it off, I used the Legacy Focus HD speakers again. These speakers will show precisely what’s happening upstream.
If there was ever going to be solid-state overkill and an aluminum sounding attitude, it was going to be with this high resolution source and class D amplification, right? Wrong! Magnified but not mangled is the proper phrase to describe the resolution of this rig. Consider this comparison: An electron microscope can zoom in on objects invisible to the naked eye. However, we do not suggest it is harsh or glaring because it can do this. Instead, we see incredible detail because it can resolve those images at that power.
That resolving power was displayed beautifully as I reveled in Alan Parson’s A Valid Path. Parsons has always been intriguing in his brilliant engineering and use of effects. He’s revered for his work on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and in many ways he’s gotten better lately as he incorporates overdubbing and sampling on this disc. The Wireworld wires channeled it all to me – no loss of information, yet carbon-based sound. Not copper based, silver based, but carbon-based, human-like. It’s amazing how an almost entirely synthesized disc can sound so orchestrated. The ability of the cables to allow the listener to hear the weaving of countless minute details in Parson’s music impresses me to no end.
The Wireworld cables as a suite worked together like a sonic microscope which magnified the formerly inaudible (smothered, congested) image and brought it to resolution. I am normally a restless person in regards to equipment, as I can almost always find something significant in terms of shortcomings in a rig. This usually drives me to swap pieces with regularity. However, I kept this setup running for an extended period of time without any changes, as it was simply enthralling. That has almost never happened to me before. No cable in any system prior to this has ever escaped at least minor criticism. I find it exceptionally difficult to fault these cables.
Conclusion
The Wireworld sound is pristine, extended, voluptuous, and expansive, among other adjectives I could summon. Its top-end is utterly distinct, crystalline as an icicle, but not brittle. I’m not sure I would call it hyper-detailed, but it adds more informational context and nuances than any cable I have used in recent memory.
The extended information retrieval through use of the Wireworld product seemed to have no frequency limitations – a thorough expansion of detail was detectable throughout the audible range. The effect is hard for me to overemphasize. In fact, this trait was so pronounced that they single-handedly turned my review of the Tannoy Glenair speakers on its head!
There are times when a reviewer needs to say, “This component just didn’t work for me…” and urge readers not to condemn a product just because the magic didn’t happen in the reviewer’s experience. In this case, the Glenair had been put through its paces with three different amplification schemes and two different CD players. I just wasn’t hearing it. It didn’t seem to have the world-class vibrancy and detail I thought it should have. The speaker sounded congested, and I was moving toward the conclusion that the single driver (Tannoy calls it a Dual-Concentric™ driver, which melds tweeter and full range into one unit) technology was not up to snuff.
All that changed with the introduction of the Wireworld products. It was truly a revelatory change, such that I reversed my position on what these speakers could do. The Glenairs came alive and finally captivated me. I had been trying some inventive measures, like near-field listening, in an attempt to coax more out them. That all became unnecessary with the boost in detail afforded them by the Wireworld wires. Experiencing this change firsthand reinforced for me the fact that system synergy can play a tremendous role in the successful use of a component.
The question arises, what if I’m doing a similar thing by elevating Wireworld’s products over other cables? What if I did not hear those other cables in ideal circumstances? Indeed, what if? That is a distinct possibility, but across a spectrum of equipment, at some point one cable will inevitably stand out for a reviewer as superior. As of this writing, Wireworld is that cable. Long term use will reveal if it indeed is one of those “Holy Grail” items – economical with ethereal performance in any configuration. In the short term, it has already established itself at this price point as the ne plus ultra.
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