I'm pleased to present the highest quality cable available to discerning electronics aficionados like yourselves.
I present to you, Masterbuilt Audio.
Discerning audiophile journalists at The Absolute Sound wrote a gem of an article linked below. I submit an excerpt:
The roots of MasterBuilt Audio can be found in the U.S. aerospace program, where these contractors developed wiring systems with low-reactance cable for use in the Apollo lunar missions and other NASA projects, such as the International Space Station. When the founder of MBA first chose to study metallurgy and electrical engineering, it was never his intent to design products for the high-end audio industry.
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/masterbuilt-audio-reference-cables/
MasterBuilt Ultra Line are the apex of audio cables. Although extremely costly to produce, the performance is well worth the price to music lovers who own the world’s finest audio systems. Your speaker cable is the final leg in the signal path of your system and can drastically affect the performance of components both in front and behind it, regardless of quality. Ultra Line Speaker Cables are the finishing touch in your quest to reproduce a simulation of live music in your home.
MasterBuilt utilizes a proprietary alloy made from precious metals developed by the U.S. aerospace industry to approach as close to a zero resistance state as possible. The resistance of the Ultra Alloy is so low that a minute voltage pulse would travel through the cable without audible loss. This trait is critical for use in speaker cables by providing purity of sound, image focus, and an incredible dynamic range.
If you own a world-class audio system and haven’t auditioned the Ultra Line of audio cables, you owe it to yourself to hear how these award winning cables will drastically improve your system.
SPECIFICATIONS
Outer Jacket: High Density Thermoplastic Elastomer with Polyester braided sleeve
Construction: Low EMF Hexagonal
Conductor Insulation: Fluoropolymer
Conductor Material: U.S. laboratory grade precious metal alloys, proprietary formulation
Conductors: 16 wires for single wiring & 32 wires for bi-wire; each group is suspended in an isolated housing
Gauge: 10 AWG per leg (Positive & Negative)
Cable Power Rating: 100 Amps max
Terminations: German high performance copper alloy connectors
Finishes: White (standard), Black (upon request)
AVAILABLE CONNECTIONS
BANANA
SPADE
SINGLE RUN
$23,000 - 2.5 Meter
$2,000 - Each Additional 0.5 Meter
BI-WIRE
$35,000 - 2.5 Meter
$3,000 - Each Additional 0.5 Meter
They're also happy to sell you IEC power cable for $17,000.
Pay attention to the amperage rating and gauge thickness.
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT POWER CORDS: Audiophiles should realize that the first component in the system is the power cord. This “first component” must be distortion-free and able to conduct a very large amount of current and voltage into the component. It is known that the musical signal consists of voltage and current sourced from the a.c. wall outlet, and the component simply “modulates” that power into a musical waveform. Inexpensive power cords that come with most components will add distortion or remove quality of the signal. For that reason, a high quality and non-reactive cable should be used; once the signal has been corrupted, it is impossible to reverse this damage regardless of the quality of components that follow.
While incorporating the highest levels of MasterBuilt insulation and winding geometric technology, the Ultra Line have one significant advancement over all other lines by utilizing conductors made with a proprietary alloy from precious metals. This super-pure transmission path provides a distortion free signal to your electronics that is unmatched and results in enormous levels of dynamic range combined with high resolution of fine detail. By installing Ultra Line power cords to a system, listeners are able to hear details never before experienced from their reference recordings. Ultra Line are by far the apex of power cords and as such, belong in only the world’s finest systems!
POWER CORDS
Please specify IEC-A15 or IEC-A20
$17,000 - 1.5 Meter
$2,000 - Each Additional 0.5 Meter
SPECIFICATIONS
Outer Jacket: High Density Thermoplastic Elastomer with Polyester braided sleeve
Construction: Low EMF Hexagonal
Conductor Insulation: Fluoropolymer
Conductor Material: U.S. laboratory grade precious metal alloys, proprietary formulation
Conductors: 17 (8 Hot, 8 Neutral, 1 Ground)
Gauge: 10 AWG per leg (Hot and Neutral), 12 AWG Ground
Cable Power Rating: 100 Amp Max
AC Power Connector: α (Alpha) Pure Copper Rhodium plated conductor,
with Nano Crystal housing and Earth (ground) jumper system
IEC Connector: α (Alpha) Pure Copper Rhodium plated conductor,
with Nano Crystal housing and Earth (ground) jumper system
Finishes: White (standard), Black (upon request)
The article about this cable dives off the deep end.
I replaced every cable in my system with an equivalent length and type of MasterBuilt Audio Reference. The full loom included four single-ended interconnects, one USB cable, one pair of bi-wire speaker cables, and nine AC cables. The retail price of the loom in this configuration was $70,775.
All cables take time to season and settle, but the MasterBuilt Reference cables seemed to require a longer run-in time than I’ve come to expect, even when using my cable cooker. As a reviewer who must routinely substitute cables and other components, I’ve invested in a cable burn-in device. The unit I own, the AudioDharma Cable Cooker 2.5 EFS, runs a continuous square-wave frequency sweep of about 1 VAC for interconnects and 22 VAC for speaker and power cables, oscillating from 0Hz (DC) to ≈ 40kHz, and back. Several days on this device is more effective than many weeks or even months of routine play. And in my estimation, it affords more effectual, not just more expedient, results that are unattainable by simply dropping the cables in place and playing your favorite burn-in material.
Yet even after being cycled through my cooker for what I have found to be the optimum period for most cables, the MBA References still took weeks after installation to offer their best. To be fair, I could have tossed them back on the cooker for another 12–18 hours, but I really wanted to hear them, so into my system they went. (Because such a cook-in device may require an expenditure that you don’t feel compelled to make, be certain to speak with your dealer about auditioning fully run-in cables in your system, as it makes a significant difference, particularly with this loom.)
I had some concerns early on, as the MBAs’ longer than usual run-in period initially left me wanting, until their abilities in revealing inner detail, microdynamics, and overall bloom and body fully developed. But mature they did over the next month to five weeks. Once they’d developed, I was offered remarkably good bloom with copious musical body, a crucial attribute that I find shamefully absent from several other pricey entrants.
After that final maturation, one of the first attributes to capture my attention was the MBAs’ ability to reach deeply into the nether regions of the bass, extracting detail and nuance with exceptional pitch definition. They created a solid sense of both the impact and skin tone from the kickdrum in the opening of The Eagles’ “Hotel California,” from the live Hell Freezes Over album [Geffen].
Audiophoolery taken to the next dimension over THAT song?!!!
“Conductor Material: U.S. laboratory grade precious metal alloys, proprietary formulation”
Meaning; 1% Copper, 99% Bullshit
Where's the gold?
Conductor Material: U.S. laboratory grade precious metal alloys, proprietary formulation
Conductors: 16 wires for single wiring & 32 wires for bi-wire; each group is suspended in an isolated housing
Gauge: 10 AWG per leg (Positive & Negative)
Cable Power Rating: 100 Amps max
Terminations: German high performance copper alloy connectors
AVAILABLE CONNECTIONS
BANANA
SPADE
SINGLE RUN
$23,000 - 2.5 Meter
$2,000 - Each Additional 0.5 Meter
BI-WIRE
$35,000 - 2.5 Meter
$3,000 - Each Additional 0.5 Meter
For that price I wouldn't want copper.
You might as well just buy a lot of gold blocks and do it yourself.
For a while now I've felt unscrupulous people are trying to one-up each other and see how far they can push it before even the most fanatic audiophile gives up. That being said, you don't need to sell many of these cables to make the whole endeavour worthwhile. That probably explains why so many try to push these kinds of products.
The website is only a year old on Wix.com.
Charge a lot of money for the cables, talk about the aerospace program and put it up on Wix.com.
They don't talk about any gold.
Contact: info@vonschweikert.com
They have been making speakers for years:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/VonSchweikErt.com
Mehh. Cheap stuff. I'm holding out for zero resistance superconductor cables.
And yet the numpty audiofools who buy this are probably using one of those $20,000 single-ended triode amps with 10% distortion at 5 Watts, fed by a phono cartridge with 2% distortion and no anti-skate correction.
And play hip-hop music with them.
Here's a joke; A cable terminology designed to size up the audiofools in bed and swallow their savings whole.
NASA doesn't have anything like that. They don't waste money.
NASA doesn't have anything like that. They don't waste money.
I'm pretty sure NASA has moderately reasonably built cables in their systems, because that's what these appear to be.
Mehh. Cheap stuff. I'm holding out for zero resistance superconductor cables.
I'll bet it doesn't take long for someone to start selling cables with a freezer attach to them.
"Our proprietary cooling technology developed by NASA for their breakroom hotdogs, cools the electrons below the noisy ambient temperatures for that cool and crisp sound!"
I can hear the money rolling in.
I am always reminded of this video when I read something like Nasa or electron alignment in audio cables and most of it is in there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ERMu825m4#t=1m52s"...trying to use scientific sounding words to make these cables sound like they're manufactured by Nasa."
Except this time from the contractors.
I thought contractors were there to build things cheaply and save money.
You can buy actual aerospace qualified wires for 2-3 € per meter...
“Conductor Material: U.S. laboratory grade precious metal alloys, proprietary formulation”
Meaning; 1% Copper, 99% Bullshit
I agree with you on this.
I admit I was stumped by his claim, after all since when is copper coated aluminium proprietary ?
"There's a sucker born every minute"
It appears Audiophools are on a mission to beat that time
I did some quick math and it may be cheaper for an Audiophool to book their favorite artists to perform live in their lounge room, say once a month
and just use standard kettle cords and figure eight speaker cable,
hidden under the carpet > strictly for 'aesthetic reasons' and so people and pets don't trip up on them
(and roll with that line every time religiously)
Just use 2 core HO7 flex as speaker cable. Readily available in 1.5, 2.5, 4.0 and 6mm diameters.
The mains cable, is it even legal to sell?
Surely the earth conductor should be able to carry the full current from any short and as the live and neutral are 10AWG, it should therefore be at least that size too instead of 12AWG?
Oh, and if we are going to work out the most expensive wire, then may I present:
https://highend-electronics.com/products/audio-magic-ultimate-beeswax-shd-fuse?variant=2513608638493$225 for 20mm of wire.
So, 2.5M of it would be a bargain at only $28,125 but that fails to account for bi-wiring which takes us to $56,250.
And then we need to think about multi-strand, so, let's assume a paltry 36 strands per cable:
36 x $28125 = $1,012,500
Oh, but there's two of them, a snip at $2,025,000.
Per speaker.
$4,050,000
Does it qualify for free shipping?
Does it qualify for free shipping?
I doubt that. If the company does things right, they should ship those cables in wooden boxes made out of precious woods. That can't be free!
Does it qualify for free shipping?
I doubt that. If the company does things right, they should ship those cables in wooden boxes made out of precious woods. That can't be free!
Even better, they could offer a carrying case for these cables that are lined with the hides of critically endangered animals that have been harvested, uh.. unsustainably!
I am buying a Tesla and driving my signals across the living room.
