igglebert:I found that the Chord Cobra sucked the life away from my system, lopping the top off is probably a contributor to that. It's certainly a sweet sounding cable that is well placed on brighter systems (my experience). The CSP gave a more natural and accurate tonal balance for me. It's all about system matching and preference though. This is what I wrote on another forum about my SHB Coherence LE and CSP experiences: I bought two Coherence LEs and put one between pre/power and one between CDP/pre, both replacing Chord Chameleon Silver Plus. The first two observations I could make (pretty quickly too) were that the treble seemed more lively and that the bass seemed a bit lighter although very punchy. This was quite attractive at first because my sub tightened up a little bit and the music was more forward, exciting, zippy and delicious (I love my Spendor's tweeters cool). After a couple of weeks I found the top end too much across all music types so put one Chord CSP back on to strike a balance. This added a bit more bottom end welly. I've lived with this combo for about two months or so. Now that I've had my CSP repaired I've resorted back to the pair of Chord cables. There's not a lot in it for the treble and the Chords are superb. The bass is where the biggest difference lies and I find the extra weight makes my system sound more balanced and natural. Conclusion? The SHB are superb value for money and have been put onto AV duties; TV-Pre and DVD-Pre. For AV I like a bit more treble (I guess that's a general AV versus stereo difference in many cases). They've displaced a Chord Crimson (£30) and Chord Cobra II (£60). When it comes to cables it's all about finding a synergy for your system, music tastes and room. Hats off to the gent behind SHB; I've thoroughly enjoyed his cables and will continue to do so! Hifi without the snake oil.
nice review igglebert ... dont want to be drawn into the SHB debate again, but can only speak from my experience ... I will be looking very closely at chord when funds allow ... will most prob see if I can get a demo pair to test on my hifi at home before committing
just out of interest, I did receive info from a very good cables engineer and to sum it up, this is what he said (which makes very good sense to me)
Its true that cables sound different. Probably some are deliberately over-engineered to sound the way they are (better or worse? with a little bit of placebo?). I was a big spender. Must have spent £3000+ just for cables (MIT, Audio Quest, Kimber) but shame on me coming from an electronic engineering background should have known better. Shielding as the priority, the basic principle for any audio signal cable is the same and one can not improve that much from a simple coax design. In my opinion any studio cable is as good as it gets. After all what you hear in a home setup came from a studio wired with proper studio cables and if one using a £1000 cable at home it would probably make it worse by altering the sound. Of course before listening a placebo pill fix may just make it worth £1000. One can improve sound better by upgrading speakers, audio sources, etc...
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