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Tellurium Q Ultra Black
#1
Looking to change up from Naim Naca 5, the little I have read about TQ Ultra Black and it seems that it's a hard one to beat. A little pricey, but there are quite a few cables (Chord Sarum, Naim Super Lamina) that are dearer. I would be interested in anyone's experience with Chord Sarum or Signature speaker cables also.

Any thoughts or recommendations particularly, of course, in respect of performance with Devialet Expert.
Devialet 220 Pro, TQ Black Mains & Ultra Black Speaker Cables, Naim Ovators S600, Sonore microRendu (Roon & HQP) with Uptone JS-2
TRNC (North Cyprus)
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#2
The amount of choice is pretty horrific! Chord Sarum is fantastic speaker cable and I believe Signature is very good too though not heard it. I'd say it's a necessity to audition first though unless you're taking a punt on a well-priced secondhand cable (which I tend to do).
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#3
(14-Aug-2015, 19:18)Rufus McDufus Wrote: The amount of choice is pretty horrific! Chord Sarum is fantastic speaker cable and I believe Signature is very good too though not heard it. I'd say it's a necessity to audition first though unless you're taking a punt on a well-priced secondhand cable (which I tend to do).

You're not wrong there Rufus!! I have my eye on a used pair of TQ Ultra Blacks, but even at half price they are a significant punt!
Devialet 220 Pro, TQ Black Mains & Ultra Black Speaker Cables, Naim Ovators S600, Sonore microRendu (Roon & HQP) with Uptone JS-2
TRNC (North Cyprus)
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#4
(14-Aug-2015, 18:57)AllenB Wrote: Looking to change up from Naim Naca 5, the little I have read about TQ Ultra Black and it seems that it's a hard one to beat. A little pricey, but there are quite a few cables (Chord Sarum, Naim Super Lamina) that are dearer. I would be interested in anyone's experience with Chord Sarum or Signature speaker cables also.

Any thoughts or recommendations particularly, of course, in respect of performance with Devialet Expert.

Hi,

Had the Chord Signature in my system (Devialet) and compared to my previous diy AWG 10 solid core copper single wire  cable for 5 GBP per meter. My diy beat it in all areas albeit difference not huge. Even my dealer had to agree that this was the case. Even the 5500 GBP Anzus Ceramic in my system didn't do anything else than change the tone somewhat. 
What I try to say is that perhaps 'loads' of money will not be a cure and definitely audition before as Rufus suggests.
Now I run another cable, a diy copper foil (Mundorf manufacture) according to the late Allen Wright ideas. It was a small step up from my previous one in some important areas. As discussed before it seems like the Devialets are less sensitive to speaker cables.
I acknowledge that not everyone may have the time or skills to try diy.

Let your ears be the only decider and not package or snake oil arguments/Mike
Ex D400 Now Aavik U-300/Feickert Woodpecker2-Kuzma 4P-Kondo silver-Benz LPS-Teddy Pardo PSU/Naim Unitiserve-Teddy Pardo PSU/SF Guarneri Homage/Whole system decoupled by Ansuz DTC/Cables from Ansuz, DYI and other commercial/Dedicated mains and spur-Lampizator SILK
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#5
Hello AllenB  
I 'm trying different SC's now, having become disappointed with Chord Sarum TA's with my Dev 250.
The best results i've had are from TelluriumQ black diamonds, followed by the less costly Albedo Solids, [a silver cable range from Poland, where the maker actually smelts the silver himself!!]
The Nordost Frey2 came next, [the distributor loaned me these via futureshop]. But Heimdall2 was wide of the mark.
The Audience Au24se were also ok.
All cables above excepting the silver ones failed to convey jazz percussion convincingly, least of all the wooly-sounding Sarums. It probably all boils down to system synergy - the fact I use Tellurium cables throughout must help their own SC's. And the MBL 126 speakers are so different to cone and electrostatic types I suspect their impedance curve might also be unusual.
15 years ago I ran an Audio Synthesis Dax Decade/AS Amp into Usher Dancers. Magic high resolution treble there - one wonders if there is any progress at all except for minitiarisation.
The TelluriumQ's had an overall quality of rightness, timbral naturalness whatever you like to call it, that trumped the Albedos greater transparency and focus on individual sounds.
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#6
(15-Aug-2015, 18:19)lanfranc Wrote: I 'm trying different SC's now, having become disappointed with Chord Sarum TA's with my Dev 250.

Do you mean the Chord Sarum speaker cables? If so can I ask you how long you have owned them and how much usage they have had? 

I've owned Sarum for a couple of years. For the first few months I was very unhappy with them since they did not sound anywhere near as good as the demo ones. In fact they didn't sound good at all leading me to get in touch with Chord themselves as I thought there might have been a fault with my pair. I also spoke to a few Chord dealers with experience of this cable.

It turns out that for some reason these cables need a ridiculous amount of time to burn in, something that isn't widely advertised. They started to improve noticeably around 1000 hours of use but became truly special around 2000 hours (crazy, I know). During that period I ran my music 24/7 and it was a good 3 or 4 months before I started to enjoy them. As you can imagine it was an extremely frustrating time and I almost did get rid of them on several occasions. 

In the past year or so I have compared a number of Transparent cables including the Reference level at almost double the price of Sarum and these did not even come close, the Sarums were just leaps better. I've had a number of people who are familiar with the cable hear my system and be extremely surprised (including the local Tellurium Q distributor); Sarum speaker cable is sometimes described as being a bit bright/glassy/shimmery and that is certainly what I experienced in the first few months of ownership. However this is no longer the case and they are now just incredibly transparent.

Guillaume
Industry disclosure: UK distributor for Shunyata Research

220 PRO, totaldac d1 server with additional external power supply, totaldac d1-seven, Echole PSU for Totaldac, Wilson Audio Sasha 2, Shunyata Research cables, Shunyata Hydra Alpha A10 + DPC-6 v3, Various Entreq ground boxes and cables, Entreq Athena level 3 rack, 2 X SOtM sNH-10G with sCLK-EX + 10MHz Master Clock input + sPS-500 PSU, i5 sonicTransporter w/ 1TB SSD

UK
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#7
The problem with long cable run-in is it encourages people to buy used!
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#8
I think unlike cars, cables are probably the safest thing to buy used. It's hard to damage a cable. The good thing with people buying used is you have someone to sell your old cables to Wink
                                                    Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,                                     
                                                                                                                                                                            Dynaudio C1 MkII.
                                                                                                                                                                              Jim Smith's GBS.
                                                                                                                                                                        Northern NSW Australia.
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