Cable Asylum: Basically a shoot-out between Siltech G5 and HMS by Rhoeni

My name is Mathias and I am Tekundaâ€™s brother. I know that my brother has promised here not to post for a while, so my posting has nothing to do with this.
But this is an open forum and I also have a story to share, like any other audiophile sharing his cable story. I think this is the reason for the existence of this forum.
And if a post is somewhat controversial, isnâ€™t that the pepper and salt for such a forum?
Or are you all happy to keep on answering the 100th person, who wants to know, if spades or bananas are better?

So here is my story and you are free to do what you want with it.

My brother has helped me and my father (Yes, I do live with my father) to put together an extremely revealing dream system in my home in Germany, because I felt that after the death of my mom, who lost a 5 year battle to cancer, my father neeeded something to sooth his soul. And what is better than music for such a purpose:

4 Double Kronzilla monoblocks, the Nagra PLP pre-amp, the new Lindeman D-680 SACD/CD player and the Imagine electrostatic speaker system (which is called the German ML Statement) http://www.monitor-db.de

My goal was to gather the very best components I could afford, so that I would be set free from the never ending pursuit to find something better down to road. This system will be tweaked now with room treatments to the point of finesse, where I will be completely satisfied and then it will stay with me like that for a very long time, no matter if "something better" will lurk around the corner eventually.
Of course, the question which cables to buy for such a revealing system, came up in discussions with my brother.
Although my brother is now in the audiophile cable business, it did not mean that I had to buy the same cables he sells. He lives his life and I live mine. I wanted to own the best cables I could afford, regardless which brand my brother sells.
We had our German audiophile friends bring their cables and did a little private shoot-out. Known American and European brands were tested (I will not name the other cables, because I do not want to start a cable war, I only plan to share only my personal experiences). Let me just mention that one brand we had were the Siltech G5. The Siltech G 5 for $7.500 per pair of interconnects were the very finest pair of interconnects I ever heard in my system. But since cabling my system with Siltech G 5 would have cost me around $80.000 - due to my active cross-over I need 6 pairs of interconnects and 4 runs of the $19.000,00 Emperor speaker cables for my 4 speaker blocks, so do the math yourself â€“ I, in my maybe typical German manner, everything comparing to how much of a Mercedes I could buy for my money, decided that for $80.000 I can buy a very fine S-Class Mercedes. (And we are not even talking the 10 power cords I need for my system)
So due to costs,the Siltech were off the table. Now the HMS were put into the system and for a tiny fraction of the cost of the Siltech, a pair of Gran Finale interconnects cost $1190 and the speaker cables $2360 per run, I experienced about 90% of the Siltech sound, which, in my system, would be at par with the also quite expensive Valhalla.
Since I did not experience a better sound with the Valhalla and the Siltech cables far beyond the price I would want to pay for cables, the only prudent choice was really to use the HMS Gran Finale throughout the system.
This is now the most musical system I can imagine.
The biggest soundstage I have ever experienced, extremely fast (for my ELS speaker I need a very fast cable and the Gran Finale delivered big time, it is even faster than the Valhalla, compare the numbers if you like)) So in one word, I have a system I will enjoy for very many years to come and the Gran Finale represent a vital part of it.
I had the engineer of BMC dipole subwoofers, demonstrating a new type of sub woofer, going down to 16 Hz and especially made for high-end systems and a great match for Imagine ESL. He told us that he had been traveling all over Europe for the last 12 month, providing home auditions for his subwoofers.
He said in all this time he has not heard a similar musical system. When ready, he believes that my system will be one of the worldâ€™s 20 best systems. (His opinion, I am just in love with my system and could care less where I stand in comparison to other systems)

So let me give you an advice: Cables are system dependant
How will you know how a pair of cables will sound in your system, if you have not auditioned it?
The HMS has consistently proven to perform, now in my system and my brother told me (and I have no reason not to believe him, he showed my emails after emails of satisfied customers) that out of his hundreds of customers, only 10 have so far sent the cables back, and not every time were performance issues the reason, but also finical issues, so ten out of hundreds of satisfied customers is a pretty good margin, if you ask me.
There are very fine cables out there, no question about it. The Gran Finale is not THE best audio cable in the world. But with the Gran Finale, we audiophiles now have another alternative, to get our system to the top of the hill, we all yearn to reach. And since all other cables competing in the same ball park are, in my humble, personal opinion, outrageously expensive, maybe the Gran Finale will represent a viable option, not only to get a great sound, but also to save a considerable amount of money. I admit that I fell in live with the Siltech G5 sound, but I am extremely grateful that the HMS was offering 90% of this sound for so much less. If not, I would have had to make a hard decision: buy the cables and forget a new Mercedes next year. Now I can own both and am extremely happy with my system. And because I am really, really grateful to HMS for offering such a great product, for such a great price, I felt I wanted to give something back to HMS, by writing this post.

And so all of you interested in buying first class cables, you must audition the cables in your home, with your system.
A dealer will not be able to copy your setup: your listening room and your components. And both is so very important. Limit you choices to about 4 brands of cables, look for dealers, who offer you a refund policy and include the Gran Finale in your listening tests. These cables can compete with the very top and do not forget to also look at the price-performance ratio, which a product is offering. If you have unlimited funds, go with the Siltech G5. If not, I just told you how to proceed.
And look at who makes what statements about what cables. Look a bit at their backgrounds With the HMS Gran Finale, being such a performer for such a reasonable price, of course this whole cable discussion will get political sooner or later. I, as a regular guy from next door can even understand that every manufacturer, who was not used to competition until the Gran Finale showed up, will get more than nervous, if a new competitor appears, not only offering similar performance, but a far better price. Even HMS would.

So audition cables and trust your ears. If the companies have a refund policy they will honor it, or they will disappear. So no harm for you to include the new kid on the block, or go straight for the Siltech G 5.

And it is just no fair to compare the Gran Finale to cables like the Transparent Opus MM, which sells for $30K. I hope that a 30K cable will perform better, but I am also darn sure that the Gran Finale will have come close. Very close! and this for $2.400,00. But almost nobody spending $30k on a pair of speaker cables would ever admit this.
I give you one example: VW just brought out the new Phaeton, a car which has potential to even beat the S-Class Mercedes. Independent sources will confirm this, but ask a S-Class Mercedes owner or Daimler-Chrysler.
The Phaeton might be the better car, but right now the S-Class is the better status symbol. And the same applies to the Gran Finale and cables like Siltech and Valhalla.
Many people who do not care about prices will show off with their cables, in order to impress their audiophile friends.
I admit, the Valhalla still has the better status symbol ranking and a 30k cable will hopefully perform better than the $2.400 HMS Gran Finale. So these people will always defend their cable brands, no matter how good the performance of a newcomer is.
I afforded the Siltech G5 if I really felt that this was the cable I need to be happy. I am glad it was not and could get so close to the Siltech sound with the HMS that it was not hard to make a decision: I rather ride in a status symbol, than having it coiled up behind my components.
But this is just my personal choice.

http://www.kraudio.com (Open in New Window)