My complete system combination includes the signal resource of SACD/CD SCD555ES from SONY, A3.2 integrated unit from MUSICAL FIDELITY of England, ProAc T2000Si bookshelf speaker, signal cables from VHD, all of which are so famous that they are recognized as the "Star" on the recent market with top-grade quality. SONY SCD555ES conveys clear, exquisite and fluent tone with strong expressive force in details whose quality can compare to the relative machine with double price, therefore, it is rewarded the top-level sound resource by the audiophile magazine 《Sterephile》.It’’s deeply believed that with the amplifier of Audiolab or Mclaren, ProAc T2000Si will have excellent performance, however, I feel the tone is not very mellow and the verve of the music and note is not full enough, so I choose A3.2 Amplifier of MUSICAL FIDELITY instead. After two years' adjustment and adapting, this combination generally possess excellent performance to defeat other combinations at the same price.

Until recently, I am still very satisfied with this combination. If it did exist some disadvantages importunely, I have to admit that it is a bit short of dynamic remains and calmness when playing orchestral music, besides, because of the small size of the listening room, the sound field is a bit narrow. Certainly, it is impossible to change the house, but I believe, all the disadvantages can be reduced by replacing parts of the combination. Considering the high quality and price of the three units of this combination, If I replace any one of them in the hope of the great impress in the sound quality, it would cost a lot of money, and what I worried about more is the “chain-reacting" which might result in the replacement of other units. Since the end of last year, I tried quite a lot of cables, but it is a pity that I did not find the very product with reasonable price and quality.

The researches on homemade cables started the end of last century, but without our own superiority in technics and crafts, the core of the cables had to adopt the foreign materials. So most of the audiophiles preferre to buy the imported products. One of my friends has ever recommended me the FA-2 Signal Cable and FS-2 Loudspeaker Cable of Xindak, for it is well appraised. Not long ago he asked me again if I would like to try the top-grade Loudspeaker Cable: FS-Gold ("FS-G" for short), of course I accepted with great hopes. Two days later, I received an express delivery wooden box covered by blue velour from him. As soon as I opened it, “Wonderful" I cried out! On the golden silk, two big loudspeaker cables laid fairily, with the most famous and excellent banana plugs and furcate plugs original from WBT of Germany. The locked-structured banana plug is used to connect the amplifier and it can be locked tightly by circumrotation while the Sandwich structure furcated plugs are used to connect the speaker. On the both ends of the cable, there equipped a pair of well-polished metallic cylinder which could shield the interferential mobile waves outside and is very good for pure tone. Additionally, the foil-type cable is connected with the cylinder and stands for the cathode. The coat of the cable is made of plush nylon with micromesh and close-grained texture, whose craft design is even better than many imported expensive loudspeaker cables.

Xindak was founded in 1988, whose pre-company is chengdu xinda audio and light equipments factory. In December of 1992, Xindak pioneered an enterprise in “HI-FI audio?in chengdu, and started to use “Xindak" as the brand. Soon after its foundation, it indicated the end of the period that the imported products monopolized the audio market. The following products such as XA8800M, XA6900SE, XA6800, A100,A200B, CD/VCD dual-channel player, Compass series speaker and so on won the prizes on the audio appliance exhibition in quite a few years.

In 2001, Xindak started to develop HI-FI cables; and in 2002 it attained a patent for the original F series flat foil-type speaker and signal cables; later on it developed well-appraised F series alloy foil-type cables; in the end of 2002, on the base of F series foil-type cables, the company developed F-Gold Flagship series cables. It goes without saying that Xindak has become the most famous HI-FI cables manufactory which covers the whole grade including low-grade, mid-grade and high-grade audiocables.

F-Gold series cables Adopt gold and silver alloy as the base material, which is smelted through world’s most advanced vacuum smelt technology. It has been known that the metal conductor with the best dielectric property is pure silver, then goes gold and copper. But the problem is that when the silver is smelt to form certain shapes as required by the method of hot melt, the molecule of the silver is cooled one by one, so there will form particles of “crystal pearls",just like steel balls in a container where there might be many interspacing and cavum between each ball. When the current signals meet such interspacing and cavum during the transmitting, it will change the direction instead of following the straight line, which might slow down the transmission speed, thus causes loss to the dynamic and micron dynamic of signal transmission. To best make up such loss, we have adopted the most advanced and expensive method: gold filling method: evenly mix 5% 24k pure gold into 95% 4N pure silver molecule interspacing to ensure straight pass of audio signal and thus ensure rich overtones, maximum increase of transmission speed and minimum the bad influence caused during the cooling process.

The top-grade F-Gold series include 3 types of products which are: FS-G Loudspeaker Cable, FP-G Power Cable and FA-G Signal Cable. And what I received is FS-G Loudspeaker Cable which succeeded the Sandwich structure of FS patent foil-type cables, but it replaced the gold and copper alloy of FS-2 with gold and silver alloy. It is said that in this way the details of the music would be much richer, the transmission speed, dynamic and micron dynamic would also rise greatly. So, isn’’t it the very cable I have been looking for long? Is it really as good as the company said? Only the ears can tell the truth.

On that night, I tried this cable as warm-up at once. First of all, I used Audioquest CV6 for audition for about half an hour, and listened carefully to the “Night Thoughts”and “Sinfonia of Dagger society?of Hugo. After that, I tried the new FS-G loudspeaker cable. With the same two songs, I found that there are obvious changes in the sound. Compared with CV6, the tone color of Xindak is brighter, quicker and more regular, and the sound stress is greater, too. And according to the two drumbeats of “Sinfonia of Dagger society? I felt that it has stronger ability in controlling and the low frequency is more agglomerate. I am really overjoyed to find out later all the superiorities above are just the beginning.

After about one week, I decided to have a formal test for FS-G. Before the formal audition, I tried the Audioquest DV6 at first. After two songs, I found I could not stand anymore, because compared with FS-G, DV6 performed really not as good as FS-G no matter it is on the speed of music, transient changes, dynamic extendibility, details in music, the stretch both in high and low frequency, sound field or t he sense of spaciousness.

With a sigh, I replaced it with FS-G. When I put it in the corner of the wall, I felt really sorry for this might be the swan song of CV6.

Let me express my feeling with the start of human voice. It is well-known that the voice range of CaiQing is very broad, with FS-G Loudspeaker Cables, I found her voice is clearer with more architechtures in details and broader music field and the tone is not only regular but also nature with a sweet and mellow breathe.

Many cables have the adjusting function, which might make the sound sweet and beautiful instead of pure in intermediate frequency, mellow and clear instead of sharp in high frequency or strength the bass and make it thicker. But as for FS-G, the tone color is balanced and it can impress the sound quality in whole frequency and make the tone extra-transparent. The tone of CV6 is very beautiful in intermediate frequency and more full-bodied than CV4. But compared with FS-G, I feel that it is not natural and transparent enough on the sound extendibility. At the same time FS-G has the excellent ability in expressing complex details, and what the more attractive is that the tone is transparent but not thin, not like some cables that just have excellent analysis ability, but the sound is very dull. Take CaiQing for example, it supplies the particular details which other cables at the same price could never express in the past, and I can not help listening to the song again and again for the magic and magnetic voice.

When playing fiddle and viola, the twang is not as thick and mellow as CV6, but listen carefully, you will find out the thickness of CV6 is at the cost of the loss of particular details and micro dynamic. On the contrary, using FS-G, the tone of the fiddle is fluent and exquisite besides extraordinary details and super dynamic, and can be translated between effeminate and strong freely without any distortion and difficulty. While playing Piano Concerto No.2 of Brahms, the expressive force of sound field is powerful with excellent analysis ability, along with the stabilization of the shape and orientation of the music instruments; while playing Beethoven sonata, the sound of the violoncello is warm and full of emotion, especially stable in low frequency. I am overjoyed to find the overtones of the piano are exceptionally clear and the extensibility and the spaciousness in high frequency are also amazing.

Compared with VDH Inspiration Hybrid, the extensibility in high frequency is the same exquisite and transparent while playing “Opus 57?Additionally, It has strong musicality and metallic clangor along with the brightness of the piano. At the mention of analysis ability, noble tone color and rich spaciousness brought by the the high-purity silver foil, FS-G is as good as Inspiration, even the elegant expressive force in high frequency is more gorgeous and splendent, let alone the extra-extendibility is too far behind to catch up with by CV6.

The bass and mediant expressive force is clear but not exaggerated with rich architechtures of music. Through “Tutti? ?812 sinfonia?and “Sinfonia of Dagger society?#65292;we can feel the high speed and shorter extension in low frequency along with the excellent expressive force in quality which is much better than CV6. In “Dragons Rising and Tigers Leaping? the aftertaste of the drumbeat is more continous with incredible flexibility and tenacity.

Incontestablely, ProAc T2000Si has clear and pleased tone color, which ensures the strong expressive force with varied equipments at the same time. However, the sound reproduction ability might be affected if the quality of the equipments is not very good or the tone of the equipment is too thin. Adopting the transistor as the driver, of course the tone might be mellow and sweet, however, in this way some of the dynamic ability and analysis ability might be lost. That is why I choose A3.2. The excellent resolution makes the performance of the cello and tom-tom so wonderful with full power, which makes me highly addictive.

As for the orientation, take Ambuscade from All Sides for example, because of the wobble sometimes, the lute is orientation is not unmovable in the middle of the two loudspeakers, but 10cm or more to the right sometimes. When CV6 is playing this section, the orientation for the lute is a bit blurry. On the contrary, with high analysis ability FS-G can express not only the delicate differences clearly, but also the fast movement of the fingers.

During the listening to different kinds of music, FS-G has indicated that its broad dynamic range, free controlling ability and rich details have reached the HI-End level. But, what about the musicality? Actually, as time passed by, I have kept on telling myself that my purpose is to find out its advantages and disadvantages. But in the end, I find out that I am highly addictive and can not live without it anymore. No matter it is sad or happy, angry or pleased, my feeling is deeply immersed in the natural and fluent tune. Even the melody is over, I can hardly come back to earth.

Compared with FS-G, the high Performance/Cost Ratio of CV6 loses its meaning. I remembered the Nordost Loudspeaker Cable with more than double prices I have ever used last year. Al though the surprises brought by FS-G is inferior to Nordost, I am still strongly attracted by its excellent expressive force in analysis, dynamic details, fluent rhythm and musical emotion.

From Cable Cooking to the end of trial use, FS-G has worked for just 75 hours. Normally speaking, the cable can be totally mature only through by "cooking" at least about 200 hours, but I am determined to conclude is that: FS-G is the best of all my combinations at the same price. With clear and transparent tone color, rich and real details and strong dynamic drive, it goes far beyond other homemade cables, even compared with much more expensive imported cables, such as VDH Inspiration, Audioquest Caldera and Ecosse CS2.15,it still has absolute advantages. If you want to change your cables, you can’t miss it!

Next: The first glance on integrated amplifier Xindak XA 6950 (2005/4/13)

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