Tellurium Q impressions

paradiziac

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Jan 8, 2011
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I thought it was time to find out what all the fuss is all about, so I tried the Tellurium Q Graphite interconnect, and Green and Black speaker cable. Curious stuff indeed.

To sum up, they all did pretty much the same thing at their respective price levels, moving up the range just gives you more of the same. They give a bass boost, reduction in high frequency noise, bigger soundstage and incredibe separation and placement of instruments and a low noise floor. Depending on your system and what cables they are replacing, it could seem like "a veil has been lifted". You will certainly "hear things in your music collection you never heard before". They also make it easy to play loud as long as your room can handle the extra bass. If you were ABX-ing (!), you might be forgiven for thinking the amp had been changed to a pair of monoblocks. If these are the things you value, they would "wipe the floor" with many, even more expensive, cables.

For me, the TQ was initially amazing but ultimately I didn't like the effect on my music. Despite the highly desireable trait of removing a lot of high frequency glare, they weren't particularly natural/neutral/musical to my ears. I felt I was hearing a recording of individual musicians playing instruments rather than a band playing a song in a room. Sometimes all the extra detail was distracting as the background noises took away focus from the lead lines. Music just didn't flow for me.

For example, Nirvana's "Breed" was a bit weird on the TQ Black (which I found better balanced overall than the Green which was dull), lots of kick drum that I'd never noticed before, but a lack of bass guitar (which drives this particular track) and too much mid. So the track just didn't quite hang together. Neither my Precide MDM Ace nor my Atlas Hyper 3 cables did this. The Atlas, at over half the price of the Black, certainly isn't as objectively good, but at least it doesn't lose the essence of this particular track--I would say these other 2 cables are "neutral" whereas the Black is having some kind of effect on frequency and (perhaps) timing information. I also felt microdynamics isn't the strongest point of TQ either, if you listen to Adele's 19, her voice isn't as quite as expressive as for example, my MDM cables.

Maybe I should have given them longer to settle/my ears to adjust, but I did run in the graphite for a couple of days and the speaker cables were already burned in. Matching TQ interconnects and speaker cable did seem a bit better, so this would be the way to go IMO to experience what TQ can do in your system. It's just that by that time, I'd personally lost faith after the high initial expectations...

I don't think TQ cables are bad, they're just like any other hifi components. They have their strong points and if you attach importance to those points, they can be excellent value.
 

CnoEvil

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Thank you for the fascinating POV

I strongly believe that there isn't a right solution for everybody, and my recommendations are simply what impressed me....which is why I advocate TQ, Atlas and Audioquest. I actually own Cardas, for the way it retains the musicality in my system.

I know it is probably bonkers, but I like to let cables settle in for a few weeks, before making a full assessment.
 

paradiziac

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You're welcome Cno!

Agree about the audition period, although first impressions carry the most weight IMO...

I'd say they're still worth people auditioning--but just make sure it's against something in the same price range and beware about being over-impressed initially.

I think Tellurium Q, as a range, has an obvious signature sound with clear strengths and some weaknesses, so I do just find it a bit odd when professional reviewers apparently can't find a single bad word to say about it...
 
A

Anonymous

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I have had the pleasure of borrowing the tellurium black speaker cables with matching interconnects.

They are very good but the only real difference in my system was the bottom end, they did produce a little more bass but it was less punchy.

I could'nt justify the £560 odd price tag for such a small difference compared to my e-bay bought odyssey 4 & chameleon silver plus for £130.
 

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