“I purchased two 3.5m sets of Slinkylinks speaker cable to use as a bi-wire set. The transaction was a long drawn out affair thanks mainly to mistakes made by me. Words cannot describe how well Slinkylinks’ company principal, David Irvine, treated me.

I had first ordered two 3m sets of cables terminated with Z-plugs (banana plugs) which were supplied with a money back guarantee and 25 days to complete my auditioning. When I received them, three days after ordering, they proved to be too short for my set-up. I contacted the company by email, and David advised me to carry on with the auditioning if it was possible, and that a longer set would be supplied if needed. After re-arranging the system I was able to audition the cables.

There is very little break-in time needed for these cables. On first installing them the sound was massively detailed, it was a night and day difference compared to the copper cables I had been using (AUD $66 per metre). I left the system playing for the rest of the day and just had a brief listen every now and then; burn in was probably only a few hours.

The sound had great clarity and was very detailed, but the extra detail served the music. The soundstage was bigger and more clearly defined and had more of a ‘see through’ quality. Cymbals had more metal in them and there was a clear sound of the stick hitting the metal surface. Kick drums had real impact and sounded great, as did all drums. Individual guitar notes in solos and rhythm parts were easier to hear, which added greatly to getting the whole performance from players and entire groups of musicians. Vocal intelligibility was also much improved.

The bass is one area where my system is not so good. I use small stand mounted speakers which should produce good, tight but not deep bass, but I’ve always felt that the Proacs were trying to do too much in the bass and that overall quality was slightly traded off to achieve this. The Slinkylinks definitely tightened the bass up, and I found some recordings to have even more bass than previously, but others to have less. This is the realm of black art in hi-fi, why one cable will appear to add bass to a system is so tied in with the individual components, the room and your listening material that it really is impossible to be sure what is happening. What I can say is that if you enjoy your system with a bit of added bass from your cables you will not get this from these cables. However I am sure that the cables do NOT reduce bass, just bass bloat and resonances.

I listen to a lot of beat driven music including some dance and electronic music, but also to jazz and piano music. With piano sounds the reality of a hard felt hammer hitting the strings of the instrument was clear. Overall, dynamics were improved which increased the expressiveness of whatever music I was playing.

All of the improvements talked about above were achieved without the reduction or destruction of pace rhythm and timing, if anything this area was also improved. This was particularly important to me, as I owned a bi-wire set of Nordost Blue Heaven speaker cables for a couple of years which were great cables and are close to the same price as the Slinkylinks, but ultimately they proved to be a bit mechanical sounding. In fact they put me off silver for quite a while even though I’m sure some of the other Nordost Cables would have been better in this regard, you’re talking about big money. Perhaps using pure silver instead of silver plated copper makes all the difference?

The end result was that the system sounded much more exciting and alive, also it told me a lot more about what the performers were doing.

I look forward to that great day when I can afford a good pair of full range speakers and realize the full potential of the Slinkylinks speaker cables.

I confirmed the purchase within four days!

When I contacted David again he organised delivery of two 3.5m sets of cables and gave me an address in Sydney to send the audition set to, so I didn’t even have to return them to New Zealand.

Since the new set would have to be made up at the factory, I decided to get them terminated with the Slinkylinks proprietary termination – the silver pins. This option adds nothing to the cost, but is harder to install than normal banana plugs, but this is really just a minor hardship - once the cables are installed they will stay there for quite a while unless you are a reviewer (and anyway they get paid). What you get with the silver pins is pure silver all the way through, including the terminations.

I totally recommend this option over the banana plugs; there was a clear and worthwhile improvement in sound quality. It is hard to describe but the system sounded more detailed, and smoother at the same time. It had lost none of its impact and excitement but the sound was almost caressing. On some recordings the sound seemed to bloom out into the room, it was very enjoyable. That’s not to say that all recordings sounded great, and this applies to the banana terminated cables as well, the anaemic, gritty, bright and compressed recordings were still bad, only tone controls can improve these not cables.

Slinkylinks speaker cables may or may not be the world’s finest cables, that’s a matter of opinion, but they will get you off the cable upgrade treadmill for a very long time because they are as close as you’ll get without spending really stupid amounts of money.”

Raphael – VIC

System:
Proac Tablette 2000 speakers with upgraded tweeters
Plinius SA-100 Mk3 Power Amp
Sim Audio Moon P3 Preamp
Rega Planet CD Player
Sphinx Labs Phono Stage
VPI TNT Jnr Turntable with Ortofon Kontrapunkt B Cartridge