Home Cable Asylum

Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys.

ChrisVanHaus and Jin Risch speaker cable comparision (long)

144.141.231.122

I built both of these cables over the course of a couple weeks. My goal was to have it all, of course! I've been fighting with a bright top end and was looking for an improvement in this area. I started with the full blown VanHaus recipe thinking that the high capacitance might help with the tizzy top end. After I hooked it up I was very satisfied with the results. The top was definitely nicer to listen to, and sibiliants were noticeably reduced. What I didn't expect was the general smoothing of the whole spectrum. It sounds slightly less detailed, but I'll throw in the disclaimer that I could be getting lack of detail and "hyper etched" sound confused. After several familiar CD's I couldn't say for sure that I was missing any information, only that the presentation seemed more relaxed than I was was used to. I gotta say that I was very impressed with what this cable does in my system.

The cross-connected 89259 cable was a horse of a different color (of a different sound?). The VanHaus had some time on it so I ran the Risch cable about ten hours before sitting down to listen. This is about the same amount of time that I spent listening to the VanHaus. I did it this way to get a feel for one cable before auditioning another. Cranked it up and damn, that bright top end was back. I listened for two hours and never felt as comfortable with this cable as I did with the VanHaus. Without a doubt I liked it better than the $4/foot TaraLabs biwire I was previously using. Having said that, I heard nothing objectionable from this cable.

So, lessons learned? System matching is extremely important. That's why I made both cables! My system is currently bright by nature, almost annoyingly so. From all I've read Risch's cable works very well, and in a better balanced system than mine it might be the pick. I suspect it is more revealing and neutral than the VanHaus cable. Just for fun I hooked up my roommate's Polks to my rig using Risch's cable. The sound was very nice, very liquid-like with no trace of brightness. This little experiment verifies the system matching part, and also that all cables DO NOT sound alike. My recommendation to anyone trying to find I/C's or cable is to try as many as you can, whether you are buying or rolling you own. It's worked for me, as I've found a cable that works great in my system. The only problem is that when my tube preamp kit gets here I'll have to do all this over again! May the force be with you.


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Parts Connexion  


Topic - ChrisVanHaus and Jin Risch speaker cable comparision (long) - Chad L 14:35:01 03/14/01 (6)


You can not post to an archived thread.