Atlas Hyper Interconnects: Asymmetrical and Symmetrical

paradiziac

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There's a few of these at knock-down prices at the moment, they seem to be discontinued. A bit odd as the Hyper interconnects are quite new (replaced the Voyager and Navigator IIRC).

So maybe some folks would be interested in a quick review.

There were a few reasons I decided to pull the trigger on the Hyper Asymmetrical. I'd already reached the conclusion that my Mark Grant GD1500HD / Atlas Questor might not be doing my system justice and I should look around for something else to try. The Mark Grant seemed a bit strident and fatiguing on vocals compared to the Questor, which itself was less objectionable but neither did it seem that amazing. Another reason, I like the Atlas philosopy of sonic neutrality and their integrity in publishing technical data. Also, the Hyper interconnects are OCC copper, as is the speaker cable I currently use (Precide MDM Ace), so I figured there might be synergy there. And I have some Atlas Hyper 3 speaker cable as well, just in case I decided to go for matching gloss black (LOL).

The effect of the Hyper Asymmetrical was pretty obvious. More detail, as in the old cliche of hearing stuff on tracks in your collection that you didn't know was there. More than that, listening became completely unfatiguing. I could hear the textures of saxes and trumpets etc instead of an indistinct blaring and the decay of cymbals suddenly sounded very good indeed. Voices just sounded unforced and natural.

So following this, I decided to see if the Hyper Symmetrical was any better. And yes, it is--though the improvement is subtle. Just a bit more texture/body and slightly more ambient detail--it's easier to tell the difference between Spotify and FLACs now as the FLACs are just more 3 dimensional and have an airier feel.

Overall, I'm very pleased, though I wouldn't urge anyone to spend money on cables willy nilly and home demoing rules. I guess the improvement I noticed with the interconnects wouldn't have been anywhere near as great if I didn't have decent OCC speaker cables that retail at around 70 Euros/m...

Also, I think the effect of cables is amp dependent. My Mystro improved significantly whereas the A21a was seemingly unaffected, though I didn't listen much, such was the improvement to the Mystro. So...Y-M-M-V!

Next stop for me is to try some Crystal Piccolos as I'm curious if silver/gold alloy and a very thin dielectric will be better. And then I'll try to demo some Tellurium Q black I/C and S/C. Might as well do the job throughly...
 

paradiziac

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paradiziac said:
Next stop for me is to try some Crystal Piccolos...

Which I did.

It comes in a nice velvet bag which makes it seem like jewelry, if you're into that kind of thing! Very well-reviewed a few years ago when it came out. It has an interesting construction, the conductor is a 0.3mm gold/silver alloy, and the diameter is 1.3mm including insulation.

Not bad at all, good detail without brightness and a neutral cable overall. It didn't blow me away for the class of cable (it was listed as £260 when new, current used price seems to be £90-100 for 0.5m though I believe they were given away with a mag subscription a while back). I kept it in the system for a few days and then let it go.
 

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