VDH – REVELATION HYBRID

מפרט יצרן

עוד על כבל זה בכתבה של המגזין היוקרתי Stereophile:

Martin Colloms auditions van den Hul’s
The First interconnect and Revelation loudspeaker cable

Consequently, the Revelation is of hybrid construction, combining a heavy coaxial cladding of fairly high-resistance conductive carbon-fiber-loaded plastic extruded over a central multistrand core. Here there are 296 strands of 150µm OF copper conductor heavily clad in silver and arranged as a single rope. A.J. van den Hul speculates that the close contact of the partially resistive outer jacket has some influence on the skin-effect properties of the composite, providing some kind of lossy, dispersed yet contiguous contact with the main conductor, this relevant at higher frequencies.

The cable’s conductor array is completed by a spiral 16 polyethylene-insulated bunches of silver clad copper, each 42 strands of 150µm diameter. The whole assembly has very little bulking incorporated, and, with the silicone-based Hulliflex outer jacket (inert, halogen-free), comes out at 0.5" in diameter. Each cable is one leg of a channel; two lightly twisted together by the user are required for each channel, thus requiring four for stereo. A three-turns-per-meter twist helps keep down loop inductance and mechanically holds the conductors together, negating unwanted independent or co-vibration. The 2.5m review length had a loop resistance of just 0.027 ohms.

Not knowing whether to put the cart before the horse, I decided to begin this report with an exploration of the Revelation speaker cable in a couple of familiar systems.

Sound quality: Revelation

Reference cables included old and new Siltech ribbon — long-term favourites — used in short, almost affordable lengths! (Siltech is now distributed in the US by SOTA.) My reference for dynamics is Naim NAC5, while Kimber 4AG is beautifully delicate and transparent. Power amplifiers are the Krell KSA 150B, Jadis Defy 7, and Meridian 605. Initially the WATTs/Puppies were used as designer David Wilson would wish: as a three-way speaker with single input terminals, the “speaker” including its Tail connection to the WATT, this a custom assembly by MIT.

All the cable lengths were 2.5m for this test. Compared with Kimber silver, the Revelation was just a little bright and sparkling, with just a touch more treble gain. Given the very high Kimber performance, this is praise indeed. Midrange was first-rate in terms of tonal quality — a mix of Siltech and Kimber, but more dynamic than either. More on the mids later; this first comment must include the remarkable performance in the bass.

It really did sound as if the Puppy’s bass was faster, more extended, and capable of more slam. Thundering bass thundered better; on these occasions, the whole room seemed alive with highly controlled low-frequency energy. The perception on an improved foundation to the music was unmistakable. Given that the test lengths of Siltech ribbon and other cables were also of very low resistance, the changes in bass extension and precision were unexpected. On the other hand, when I assessed the effect of replacing a copper woofer voice-coil with one wound from pure silver, I found a similar result. While the objective in my experiment of replacing copper with silver had been to achieve greater transparency and neutrality in the midrange, I also found that the bass had improved quantitatively — an unexpected bonus.

The review test sequence continued with the wholly successful replacement of the Puppy Tails with 1.5m lengths of Revelation.
In a rarefied cable context, significant improvements in midrange clarity, depth, and dynamics were audible with the Wilson system. Despite a discernible but wholly acceptable increased “brilliance,” the system portrayed perspectives better and was not so forward-sounding (a residual problem with the WATTs in some rooms and/or systems). Higher sound levels were possible.

Somehow, this cable seemed more capable of defining those important silences between the notes. Although dry recorded acoustics were rendered almost painfully dry, the cable’s revelatory powers were illustrated by the remarkable atmosphere and ambience recovered with truly reverberant program.
Last but not least, this cable had rhythm. Music was more involving and more exiting. Percussion timing was clearly laid out, lending a winning degree of pace. With that spacious, big acoustic — one which was nonetheless excellently focused — came an involving, upbeat, lively nature.

The Revelation speaker cable is clearly a state-of-the-art product

Stereophile