AUDIENCE HIDDEN TREASURE CAT7 CABLE - REVIEW
AUDIENCE HIDDEN TREASURE CAT7 (ETHERNET) CABLE
Yep, it’s tweaks again and I have gradually come to understand that certain ‘tweaks’ are not tweaks at all, but necessary components towards achieving the best performance from one’s high-end stereo or headphone system. Ever try connecting up your system with chicken-wire? How did that work out?
Tweaks? What are tweaks, for those new to the magazine, you ask? Well, as I’ve mentioned across the various reviews of tweaks, they are:
First, tweaks are things that can ostensibly improve the fidelity—the overall sound—of your audio system for relatively little money. Tweaks can be wires or cables or risers that keep cables above the floor. Tweaks can be isolation platforms or stands or isolation feet or pucks or cones. Tweaks can also be spiked feet (surface-mounted or screwed-in) or certain inert materials—particular kinds of wood or carbon fibre or stones or a composite material. Tweaks can also be devices purposed with diminishing Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) or Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), etc. Or perhaps tweaks can be the combination of an inert, composite material embedded with, say, electronic innards—internal trap circuits—that defeat EMI and/or RFI.
Yes, I’ve been reviewing what many consider tweaks for the past several or more issues and I have found some real winners and returned a few product, that didn’t quite fit the bill or, more precisely, I was unable to understand or discern their relevance. And I some cases their relevance was, well, counterproductive.
The tweak currently under review is the Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 ethernet cable, a very nicely designed cable that provided some truly exceptional results.
REFRAIN: Unlike most reviews, this review will be non-sequential, as it will start with how the equipment actually sounds and not the process of physically “undressing” it and/or laying out its various accoutrement, specifications, etc. Think of this review then, as a non-linear movie—Memento, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Queen’s Gambit, In the Shadow of the Moon, etc.—that likewise starts at the end and winds its way to the beginning.
The SYSTEM
Two-Channel System
Grimm Audio MU1 Streamer
Grimm Audio MU2 Streaming DAC
Silent Angel Bonn NX Network Switch
Silent Angel Genesis GX Master Clock
Bricasti Design M1SE DAC/Streamer
Lyric Audio Ti-100 MkII SET Integrated
Vivid Audio Kaya45 Speakers
Kubala Sosna Cables/Wires/Power Cords
RSX Power Cords (Beyond, MAX)
TORUS POWER AVR ELITE Power Conditioner
Headphone System
Baetis Audio 4 Reference Mingo Streamer
Silent Angel Rhein Z1
Silent Angel Bonn Pro Network Switch
ALLNIC OTL/OCL D-10000 DAC
ALLNIC OTL/OCL HPA-10000 Headphone Amp
Aurorasound HEADA Headphone Amp
Abyss AB1266 Phi TC
Meze Empyrean
ZMF Véríté
Audience Front Row Cables/Wires
Kubala-Sosna Cables
Black Cat TRØN Signature Digital Cable
TORUS AUDIO RM20 Power Conditioner
The SETUP
For this review, I again used my two-channel and headphone reference systems to more easily determine the differences between the Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 and all other in-house ethernet cables.
As in all of my cable reviews, I kept things simple in terms of the streams that would be used for evaluation. I utilized Dave Brubeck’s “Time Out” (Take Five, Columbia), Ólafur Arnalds “Árbakkinn,” and Joan Shelly’s “We’d Be Home” (Joan Shelly, No Quarter). My familiarity with the various pieces would make the evaluation all the easier.
The Sound
The previous ethernet cable of choice—Platinum Starlight 8 Twinax—has been supplanted by the Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 ethernet cable. And while they did share things in common, the Hidden Treasure cable excelled in, literally, every category and with an electrostatic-like openness, transparency, air and timbral beauty much like its TOTL brethren—Audience FrontRow cables.
The Hidden Treasure ethernet cable provided a full digital banquet for all downline components—streamers, DAC/streamers, streaming DAC, etc.—that encompassed exceptional resolution of the incoming signal, a level of detail retrieval which had no rivals in terms of any other ethernet cable, to date. And the naturalness, the musicality, its technological bonafides are superb.
Its performance, in turn, lifted the performance of every other component in the system and this too was easy to discern with the plug and replacement of any other ethernet cable. The systems—reference two-channel, reference headphone—in fact, both came alive and after that there was, absolutely, no going back. The Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 will feed into components and system the best possible signal which will allow them to bring their best to each performance.
NOTE: For those who may be less able to parse differences in a given cable’s abilities on-the-fly, I’d suggest the Long Term Trade Out (LTTO). That is, live with the cable for a while—several days, a week, month, etc.—then remove it and replace it with your prior ethernet cable. You should have a pretty good idea after this what’s what in terms of sound.
Conclusion
When I discovered just how good the Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 ethernet cable was, I made an immediate note that it was time to upgrade the ethernet cable across both of my reference systems. And several of the cables in those two systems were either the same price as the Hidden Treasure or more expensive, but it didn’t matter as the Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 waltzed by them all in performance after performance, which they could not attain. The Hidden Treasure cable is a two meter run of cable that would seem impossible to effect the sound of one’s system, but it does and demonstrably so.
The Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 ethernet cable is a must. If you’re using other high-end ethernet cable. You will want to try Audience’s Top-of-the-Line ethernet cable to see how much you’ve been missing. And, God forbid, if you’ve been using standard black or white cable for your high-end headphone or two-channel system as what you’re hearing is, well, off and not anything close to what it should be!
That said, the Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 ethernet cable now sits at the very top of our cable category and this, easily, finds them more than worthy of our GOLD KEYNOTE AWARD for excellence. Highly recommended.
Pros: An exceptional ethernet cable that will immediately cue one in to what has been missing, in some cases entirely, from their music and in no small measure—a revelation.
Cons: None.
The Company
Audience
Audience Hidden Treasure CAT 7 Ethernet Cable: $1,150 (2m)
audience-av.com
info@audience-av.com
760-471-0202