Heated debate on Hifisentralen.no (Norwegian hifi forum).

If you want to start a heated discussion with an American republican, talk about communism. If it's audiophile you are talking to, the never ending cable debate will do the trick.

There's a lot of heated discussions on hifisentralen.no, especially regarding power cables.

The last one was initiated by the user "Zerostat", who replied very critically to a campaign from Paradox Audio, where an 1 meter power cable was marketed with a price around 6000 NOK (aprox. 1000 USD).  "Zerostat" was convinced that this was way too much to pay for a power cable and that the improved sound characteristics of the cable could not be justified by the price.

Since the first thread, people have been exposing the effects of cables in their own opinions, beliefs and temper in over 2120 replies since Nov. 22 - right before Christmas. More or less justification, strong opinions and brutal tackles have probably gotten the sweat going for the forum owner and his moderators, and of course I couldn't hold my peace either.

Personal cable opinion.

With a relative relaxed standpoint towards cables, I look at myself as a relative cable agnostic. Despite this, since my hi-fi interest started along with lots of unexplained confidence I have always wanted to try out new things. There has been more than a handful cable tests throughout the years and cause of all the stress that cable testing involves I would say I have stepped down the anticipation around cables, where I have seen fairly small differences where the price itself might have not been so small. Cables can be expensive, and our hobby is not always that kind when it comes to achieved sound performance for the money you have paid, but still we are always looking for that little extra improvement, and the smaller improvements we are looking for thus harder is it to clarify what is common sense. How big of an improvement have to be achieved to justify the price? Not to mention all the parameters in this sport, was the cables the same length? Where they put the right way? What kind of terminations did you use? Was the cable burnt in? How was they placed? In other words...lots of challenges.

To not be over eager when it came to hear the difference in sound characteristic on different equipment I made myself a subjective scale, a sound "Richter scale" if you'd like, where I put the experienced differences in categories like this:

Not noticeable: (Flood, moon phase alignment, astronomy, colour of the room) - milligram level of improvement.

Uncertain - (Movement of the cables, burnt in or not) - gram level of improvement.

Noticeable - (Speaker cable diameter on long stretches) - hectogram level of improvement.

Clearly - (switching of signal source, tuning of the RIAA, characteristics of a power amp) - kilogram level of improvement.

Change for the better - (switch of pre amp and power amp) - 10 kg level of improvement.

Radical - No room for debate (Change of speakers or the acoustics of the room) - 100 kg from or too.

The weight comparison might be a bit vague but is a perspective worth thinking about.

Paradox.

When Paradox Audio started their production of cables towards the hifi business I was interested. It's nice to see there's still product development and industry production going on in this country.

So when Paradox offered me to look at some of their products I couldn't say no. I wanted to test a wide range of products, so I could come to a clear conclusion regarding cost efficiency towards components like cables.

Paradox states they use the best materials available on the market, and produce their products with an incredible attention to quality control and detail, without the use of any special technology or construction principal. Fair and square - make the products as good as possible. Considering I have little amusement of things I don't understand, ex. high levitated terminology, theory or religion, I considered this very appealing. Especially since Paradox Audio promise an outstanding customer service. A key element in their business idea is that they have a 30-day return limit, where you borrow the product before making the final decision, they pay for the transport and they even have a lifetime warranty, they also have a unique trade in program for existing customers where they give you as much as 80% money back for the old cable if you want to upgrade at a later time. I feel and wish customer service like this was enforced by law, and is perfect for us who has a long way to travel to the nearest hifi dealer.

So I wanted both speaker cables and signal cables, I was considering the power cable as less interesting in my setup due to the use of ASR Emitter 2 Exclusive, which has the cables integrated in the power amp, so it's not possible for me to switch them out. New power cable in my LP-player wasn't considered, it would not do much I figured, besides this also need different types of plugs, luckily I had Manley Chinook for testing, a RIAA which can eat cherries with the most despite its "low cost". The power cable I wanted to try out here was "Edison Coil" at a sale price very close to the Chinook itself. Is there any improvement from changing the power cable here or is the money better spent on upgrading from Chinook to "Steelhead" from Manley. Considering the cost this is highly relevant, especially for an American who has to import this cable.

I also received the top of the line signal cable for use at several places in my system, I find the connection from the LP-player to the RIAA especially interesting as this is the place where signal cables prove to have the best impact on the sound, and thus a place where spending a lot on cables can be justified. So after some waiting I finally received the cables.

Design, feel and construction.

Very impressive, all the products feel almost unbelievably good, terminations, materials and the quality of the craftsmanship (to the extent where I don't slaughter the cables) was so well done that even the most angered line constructor would approve them for use in his high voltage towers. Paradox cables are built to last, and will create wonder amongst the archaeologist who dig them out after a couple of millennia, but when considering the lifetime warranty a good built is crucial. So even if the prices look astronomical they can be defended.

"First I wanted to try "Edison Coil", a really stiff cable, so stiff that its almost unspeakable, and the only reasonable place to try this was on the "Chinook" RIAA from Manley."

Also read Paradox Edison Coil - Paradox cable fun first act.

Also read Paradox The Link RCA - Paradox cable fun, second act.

Also read Paradox Mk II - Paradox cable fun, third act. 

Also read Paradox cable fun - finale.