I have herd SL speaker cable on a 500 system that was on phased mana racks, I forget the speaker name but something like $50,000 made by sonus faber.
Using nac5 the system just would rip you a new one. When the nac5 was replaced by SL speaker cable it turn it into pedestrian politeness and just went all hifi🤮. That made me and my bank account very happy.
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I tried that but wasn’t convinced, this is another “it depends” just like the SL/A5 choice.
we always talk about boogie, Pace Rhythm and Timing…
There are other qualities too, timbre, fluidy, musicality… things I can hear at live concerts, and Superlumina cables do take the sound in those directions too… more gentle, analogue, fluid, musical, while preserving the energy of the instruments…
But I understand we all got our way of listening.
In any case a recent concert I went to was interesting about how we perceive Pace Rhythm and Timing vs the home audio system…
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That’s about the size of it.
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I really like the SL speaker cable … maybe it interacts with the speaker … to give you too much bass in your setup. Which in turn perceptively slows it a little…perhaps moving the speaker out another 200mm may help…
I had a similar experience with Chord Signature speaker cable (silver plated copper which I think is what SL is made from). Given the cost of Chord Signature I really expected it to outperform the Nac A5 but after a few weeks I found myself not enjoying music as much.The Chord Signature did provide more detail and a more forward treble but whilst this benefited some music, it made other music too fatiguing compared to the more relaxed sound of the Nac A5. I guess it depends on overall system synergy but, in my system, ‘silver’ based cables seem to make the music too ‘edgy’ with sibilance on female vocals compared to the mellower sound of copper. In any case I learnt that ‘more expensive’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘better’ and instead you need to try things in the context of your own system and room acoustics!
It’s also worth noting that Nac A5 was the cable of choice even for 500 series stuff until relatively recently (when, in my opinion, an expensive cable was ‘required’ to complement the Statement amps).
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Timmo
Did you ever compare Chord Epic to Chord Epic Reference with your 272/555 system?
Jim
I did, Jim. No contest, the Reference just took everything to the next level: detail, involvement, clarity and bass response (not to mention boogie!).
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SL all the way through to power Amps (3 x 300’s) tri-amped PMC MBL SE, but prefer Naca to the SL for the speaker’s. Sold the 3 x SL speaker cable that previously worked very well with active S600’s. Therefore speaker dependent. SL for the I/C and SL Y-leads between s/cap and 300’s were massive improvement, so much so that SL on 1 x 300 was better than 3 x 300 with stock Y-leads.
Your experience encouraged me to look at the Chord Epic Reference in the near future. The main advantage of the Epic is it costs considerably lower than the Epic Reference. For a 4m length which i need, i only paid about £275 for the Epic while the Epic Reference will set me back over £1,200.
Similarly i find the Chord Epic to sound better than NACA5 which was (surprisingly) claimed to sound better than Superlumina by some. As usual, personal preference and type of speaker will have an influence to the outcome.
I know! My only consolation was the Reference being so much cheaper than the Superlumina (£1,500 compared to £3,250). Once I’d heard the Reference side by side with the standard Epic Twin (bearing in mind the latter was well ‘run in’ compared to the former) there was no going back!
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Timmo, did you try the Chord Signature XL or compare it to the Epic Reference?
No I didn’t. I was so taken with the Epic Reference I felt no need to keep looking.
Thanks for the response. I have contacted my dealer who recommended the Signature XL. I just checked the Chord website and found that the Epic Reference was discontinued, replaced by Epic XL.
We’ll see…
Good luck. I too trusted the recommendations of my dealer, and ended up exceedingly satisfied and not too badly out of pocket!
I have an opportunity to pick up a RCA-RCA super lumina to replace my DIN-RCA Hi-line (which i really loved when i introduced it into the system). I’m on the fence since I always thought the DIN-RCA SL would be better for me but maybe the Hiline DIN-RCA is best. I have a CDS3 to an ARC amp. Obviously the only way to know is to try it.
Just for something to do last night I popped out my SL interconnect from my CDP555 to 552 and replaced it with an old Lavender lead. All the attributes of the Lavender were there as I remember but the the whole image took a massive step back in width, depth and realism. It was as though someone had dialled down the drama by quite a bit. Mids were still very good but the high and low frequencies just became a bit muddled and instruments lost that dynamic edge that SL is so good at portraying. I listened for a couple of hours before change back but I have to say, in my system, SL is still a big difference over Lavender.
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I reported on my move from NAC5 to Epic Reference on the last forum. I did a proper back to back - using my nine year old well run in NAC - and I felt the Epic had everything that the NAC possessed but added more fine detail and, more importantly, a more accurate rendition of musical instruments. Acoustic guitar - which I dabble at - was particularly realistic. I’m sure the X will be even better. Hope that assists.
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That’s good to know. I too did a back to back comparison between the NACA5 and regular Epic. Even though it’s not the Epic Reference, similarly I find the regular Epic to sound almost the same as the NACA5 but with added fine detail and refinement. The bass quality of the Epic is also more detailed, nuanced and goes deeper than the NACA5.
A 4m pair of Chord Signature XL will set me back £2,400, and I’ve committed on the order with my dealer. This would be my costliest ever speaker cable purchase since I went crazy with the Nordost SPM Reference more than 15 years ago (approx £1,000). I would have to trade-in my current Chord Epic Twin and another exotic cable Pure Note Cerulean for the Chord Signature XL. Still, a hefty sum to pay after the trade but it gives me an opportunity to offload some of my old cables which have been sitting in the closet for more than a decade.
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Congratulations Mango