Miracle cable, a polished performer

Today I am going to write about a humble speaker cable, code name Miracle. This is a prize I brought back from Taiwan. This speaker cable was a plain jack transparent PVC jacket loosely housed 4 twisted solid wires in a pair, 2 twisted wires cable per terminal. Not a whole lot of copper inside. It looks like a Nordost clone but not in sound.

I was warned they sound best at 2.46 meter or even better in 3.69 meter, an exponent of 1.23 meter. Miracle has been rigorously tested to come to such conclusion, it allows the fullest sonic flavor. Mine is a 3 meter in bare cable, no banana plug or Y spade. Hooking them up directly without banana plug or Y spade aka poor man's audioing. Connectors introduce sonic signatures or sonic contaminants, depends how you look at it. The cheap is of brass. And brass conductivity is not good, 28 as in reading compares with 100 with copper. Anyway, the cost of fitting the entry level Furutech connectors exceed the cost of cable. You can figure the price of Miracle.

Miracle is of high purity virgin oxygen free copper from Finland and cable drawing is done in France. One has sourced from the same vendor and draw in Taiwan but the sound was not convincing. So, there are some hidden manufacturing techniques in the drawing. The reviewed Miracle comes from France.

Sound impression

Without much ado, I hooked the cables up in my system to hear what they have to offer. A minute into the track, I found myself melting in my chair. Hardly any break in, Miracle sent my resident cable, Canare packing. No, I ruled out anxiety as excitement when assessing Miracle. Worst case scenario, I just chuck Miracle aside and bury the story. They are not thick enough to hang my neck and I hate the acetic of being a Jackass.

Let start with vocal, aha, this is where the prize is laid. The vocal regains succulent, fertile voices. The forwardness in the mids largely responsible to this bodied display. I welcomed the slight chestiness, to accord voices a touch of groan. This brings about a perceived maturity, more fat under the skin. What's a smooth performer. I know one guy who incorporated a small sub to his center speaker, loving it.

I want my Luciano Pavarotti to sound like Luciano Pavarotti not Placido Domingo or anybody else. Nobody comes close to Pavarotti's iron hung, not Jose Carrerras, not Mario Lanza. Powerful, deep voice. And Jacky Evancho had me fooled for a mature soprano belies her age. Anyway, I rediscovered her silky voice with Miracle which I had misjudged her in the past. Her tone is polished, the sax sounded sexier, the drum has more drum skin effect and the violin has denser tone. Bye-bye jarring notes. But, will the forward mids tips over the tonal balance to cause adverse effects? Read on.

Highs has profound effects on listening fatigue. Our ears have limited tolerance to screeching highs. I know it will make me turn off my stereo. Likewise, highs must also behave like sub bass, not calling attention to themselves. I have long dumped the grandiose sound inclination that Hong Kies were heavily propagating, a coat of gleaming fie sugar on your doughnut. Not real, man. Highs should only present when called upon. The quality of highs is measured by extension and graininess. The ease of extension makes the sound airy, relax and respond to music swing. Spiccato and staccato, you can hear the fascinating the string reverberations at ease. And the overtones, the second order harmonics is fantastic, our hearing is adept at discerning these things. The soundstage expands laterally.



Typically French, Miracle presents highs with a degree of coquettish. As with everything French, listen to the works of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Camille Saint Saens or Hector Berlioz, not to wander too far. Operatic Bizet's Carmen suite is one exemplary of Gypsy influence. Django Reinhardt not excluded. France is a lovely melting pot where the cultures from eastern Europe and northern and western Africa meet. The extended highs is a glaring trade mark of French. Images benefit from specificity, it makes possible to follow the movement of images like Harry Belafonte live recording. Harry talks to musicians behind him, turns head, teasing the crowd etc. Mr Belanfonte is such a crowd pleaser. Strings, guitar, chimes, cymbals, triangle and bell shine, giving a sizzle to the music. Sopranos and female voices enjoy an ethereal beauty, certainly not mechanically cold and robotic.

Miracle does not offer much bass volume, this is not to say the bass is deficient. Bass grunt is relatively shorter. What Miracle lacks, it makes up with bass agility and bounciness. Miracle redefines double bass and cello while others murk them, giving ways to percussion to make greater impacts. There are many speaker cables that deliberately boost the bass to meet pop, jazz and rock appetite. To be honest, all are not in the wrong. Just different in sonic expression and how you look at thing.

Conclusion  

I waxed lyrical about Miracle here not because I bought it. Miracle is a great speaker cable for entry level or even mid fi. It is said Miracle replaces many garden hose speaker cables costing many times more. The owners are cashing in on these garden hose variants relegating them into reselling markets. The expensive one could be a different story. Personally, I prefer thin and not too stiff cable. The fact that Miracle makes me discover how grainy my speaker cables suffice for the switch. I also can't stand sluggish and vibrance-less sound. Better go fly kite. As Miracle done its time, it has got even better. Thumb up!

The lit fella, Jordan Watts

This is a follow up to Alan visit. The second system that we listened to was DIY Jordan Watts speakers based system, same system in different setup. The DIY Jordan Watts project is manned by Alan and with the help from his son. Box is of solid wood, Cenggal Mas if I remembered correctly. Cenggal Mas is one of the Asian densest wood, as to minimize box resonance. The radiators help to offload standing bass energies, would result a longer bass grunt. Aesthetically, Cenggal Mas veneer is not that pleasing like nyatoh. The fit and finish is good, far from amateurish. So far, that's how I read Alan's logic of engineering.

It has long known that Alan champions vintage gears, promoting out of the radar of most fi vintage gear. Price has been reasonable, hence, giving good performance and cost. These days, anything that bears big name like WE or Klangfilm and history are crazily priced. There are collectors all over the world willing to pay good money for them, for nostalgic or investment reasons. A remembrance of the golden era of audio, perhaps. It is difficult to put a value on sentimental reasons. Form factor, mini refrigerators fall out of place today due to space constraint, slim tower or book shelf speakers are the darling of urbanites. Scarcity of space in urban command a premium. Secondly, the low wife acceptance factor is also the reason for the decline of mini refrigerators.

Power conservation is hardly a valid reason for fi to go green. Class A amps will never go away. Anyway, amp is a mature technology. Digital and speaker are the cash cow, attracting a lot of entrepreneur's attentions to cash in. Some one will make their cash register rings.  

A little check on Jordan Watts, Jordan was the first to use metal cone driver for wideband application. Yes, you have guessed right, a single driver to cover all frequency spectrum, no crossover as per se. The idea of using stiff and light material for speaker cone drives the exploration using aluminium, magnesium, ceramic and berylium. And all these drivers achieve varying degree of commercial success. Nevertheless, it is almost an infinite of matrix of speaker building. It is a good advice to read the objective of the speaker designer before shortlisting them. Acoustic Energy AE1, goes down in the loudspeaker history as one of the speaker that defy the law of physics, squeezing bass volume that never before heard from a small enclosure. The designer, Phiul Jones wanted to create a small speaker with jaw dropping dynamic and sonic precision. Time waits for no one, AE1 as of today sounded dated.

Alan must have savaged old 4.5" Jordan Watts drivers, affixed them onto a box which is about the shoe box size of the legendary LS35A if not any smaller. In order to expand extreme bandwidth, Alan opt for ESS Heil Air Motion AMT tweeters and passive radiators to realize his objective. Suffice to say, you do not obtain linearity from a single driver to take on wide bandwidth. Hence, two way, two and a half way and three way are the choice of modern speakers to coup with hi res media via an introduction of crossover. We shall see in a coming decade if active speakers are game changer. Guesswork is being taken away. If so, this will put a lot of amp companies.

One front two back formation

On the metal stand, Alan sits three ball bearings on a wooden pockets to isolate the speakers from sitting on the metal plate. Sitting directly on the stand will veil the sound, albeit a gain in bass weight. I have had a fair experience with Yamamura foot, they do wonder to the bass but on the downside, they move quite a bit. Image specificity is compromised.

Driven with puny 8W Secret Audio 300B monoblocks, I immediately felt that it was a punishing act for Jordan Watts to fill the room. And Jordan Watts will not shame away telling they are not happy pushing them hard. They introduce distortions, alas, 4.5" drivers can only move so much air.

Metal driver has two distinct advantages, structural integrity and pace. Smaller diameter further enhancing structural integrity, to allow for a more pistonic lateral movement. Less crazy bounces. As such, you will hear a cleaner and less edgy sound compares with driver of paper and plastic made. Some will notice metallic flavor but this is not a deal breaker. You now see the return of metal tweeters. Go ahead with paper or plastic driver if you prefer romanticism. Metal drivers are not alone, joining the race are more exotic drivers like carbon fiber, composite materials, diamond, ceramic, magnesium, alloy etc. These days, coloration in high end audio is a plague.

In this system, tube helps to curtail the metallic character, so much so that I was enjoying the music and forgot about metallic-ness. Tube inevitably adds body and blooming to the sound, giving more "human" to the sound. Decidedly, there was a lack of immediacy and presence with certain music. I felt disconnected with the music when listening from 9 to 10' away, especially on more demanding materials. My instinct tells me to move my seat right up, to 5',. Things began to take a dramatic change, for the better. More palpable, more immediacy and vastly improved enveloping effect. The feeling of being enveloped in music is a sensational feeling, like in a live event. Your skin feels the music.

Pity, I did not try other positions to validate my thoughts like reducing the speaker to speaker distance or toe in or listening as in soundfield, aka Audio Note method. I hold on to my principal, touching people gear remains a taboo unless permitted.

Sound impression

Voices hang nicely in the air with steady locality. Sweet. The crossover-less is magical with voices, nothing ever come close to it on vocal reproduction. Voices are intact with none of the oscillation between the tweeter and the midrange driver. The detail is aplenty, afloat, courtesy of ESS Air Motion tweeter. Nice. Pace is good, giving the needed groove to the music. Overall, the sound falls into slightly warm side of neutral.

The downsides, Jordan Watts could not go loud. They will protest when pushed hard. No, they will not provide the majesty of full orchestral works like Mahler or Stravinsky's works, you got to pay a lot more to get it. The bass seemed to roll off slowly and smoothly from 100hz. And they will not shake the room the way many mammoth speakers able to. However, I can't lie that I am yearning more bass, more, more and more. Since you can't use a more powerful amp, get help from wall boundaries to increase bass volume.

If you valued soundstage and non fatigue listening, these Jordan Watts might just be your ticket to sonic haven. Sit back and enjoy the music.