Ethereal Cable - Video Package - Review/ Demo
dorokusai
Posts: 25,577
Please refer to this thread before posting:
CABLE DEMO PROGRAM - GUIDELINES
DEMO # 9 :
Ethereal Cable - Video Package - 2M
TheGrayGhost(Cliff) found this company in his travels, and uses them in his system. He dropped a note to Ethereal about the PCSP, and they became very interested in our little program.
Brent McCall, Ethereal Cable Pimp Daddy, contacted me, and we worked out some cool stuff for the forum to demo. I'm impressed with the quality and presentation of the cable so far...I'll leave the listening to you.
Thanks to Cliff, Brent and the crew @ Ethereal for joining us and contributing to the effort.
I am going to post some great comments that Brent spoke about in an email to me. I think it basically sums up their product, and enthusiasm about manufacturing them for the common folk. It's great to see another grassroots type approach to what can be a completely off the wall product.
Ethereal keeps it simple, solid and effective.
The Cable-
My cables are made in the Pacific (china & Taiwan).
We do not hide this fact. It allows us to build a high quality product at a midline price.
You are correct in your assessment of my product as far as design influence.
When I started this project I purchased all of the cable lines that I could find in LA and on the net (about $15,000).
We ran all of the cables thru a series of test (freq. response, noise rejection & noise floor).
What we found was that regardless of brand or design there were several constants.
1. R & L cables out of same package had between 3 - 12 db differences in freq. response
2. Noise rejection showed same
3. Noise floor also varied
There were however two types of cables where we saw same results from multiple pieces and brands
These were RG/6 provided by Time Warner, Comcast & home-made and CAT5 with RJ terminations.
At first we were boggled. How can the same product vary so much?
We finally cut all of the plugs off and did the tests again.
Whoa! Big change.
This time the R & L looked the same (in fact it pretty much all looked the same regardless of price or brand).
With 3 exceptions.
The RG/6 and CAT5 were the same as the first test, and one type of cable performed below the norm again (used multiple wire gauges for different freq.'s).
From this we dismantled all of the plugs.
What we found was that the common thread with all of the RCA cables was 2 solder points (tip and stem).
Upon further inspection it was noted that no 2 plugs really looked the same as far as quality of solder work and quantity of solder applied.
It appears to us that the gap between the tip and stem works as an RF antenna and also that the quality of the solder work can and will effect capacitance and inductance.
The cables that performed will in both rounds were crimped.
That was our epiphany.
Since I had been making my own cables for years (I am a custom integrator) and the cable can make long runs general built by untrained employees work with the crimped terminal.
I felt this was the best way to build my products.
We did not reinvent the wheel.
What we did was use tested and sound construction methods, high quality multi-strand center conductor coax and design an excellent shield crimp terminal for it.
The center conductor is soldered, the pin is then placed in the dielectric sandwich, pressed into the shield sleeve with the braid/foil sliding over the sleeve and then crimped with a 3/4" ferrule.
As with several other companies we also place a convex spring/sleeve inside of the insertion point ( I do not like cut barrels they tend to pull RCA plugs out of the back of receivers Denon/Yamaha in particular).
My goal was to have all of my products perform the same cable to cable to cable etc.
We/I felt that this would provide us with a cable that would perform in the $150/$300 range for typically under a $100.
As it turns out we have a cable that does even better than that.
I do not profess to be the next Nordost, Kimber or even Audioquest. Nor do I want to be.
I am after all trying to make a living. I know what it cost to build my product, I know what a dealer needs to make and we can do this at a price/performance ratio that is very good for the end user.
Having said that, I have not yet been embarrassed by my product in any comparison even when price was not an issue.
www.etherealcable.com
CABLE DEMO PROGRAM - GUIDELINES
DEMO # 9 :
Ethereal Cable - Video Package - 2M
TheGrayGhost(Cliff) found this company in his travels, and uses them in his system. He dropped a note to Ethereal about the PCSP, and they became very interested in our little program.
Brent McCall, Ethereal Cable Pimp Daddy, contacted me, and we worked out some cool stuff for the forum to demo. I'm impressed with the quality and presentation of the cable so far...I'll leave the listening to you.
Thanks to Cliff, Brent and the crew @ Ethereal for joining us and contributing to the effort.
I am going to post some great comments that Brent spoke about in an email to me. I think it basically sums up their product, and enthusiasm about manufacturing them for the common folk. It's great to see another grassroots type approach to what can be a completely off the wall product.
Ethereal keeps it simple, solid and effective.
The Cable-
My cables are made in the Pacific (china & Taiwan).
We do not hide this fact. It allows us to build a high quality product at a midline price.
You are correct in your assessment of my product as far as design influence.
When I started this project I purchased all of the cable lines that I could find in LA and on the net (about $15,000).
We ran all of the cables thru a series of test (freq. response, noise rejection & noise floor).
What we found was that regardless of brand or design there were several constants.
1. R & L cables out of same package had between 3 - 12 db differences in freq. response
2. Noise rejection showed same
3. Noise floor also varied
There were however two types of cables where we saw same results from multiple pieces and brands
These were RG/6 provided by Time Warner, Comcast & home-made and CAT5 with RJ terminations.
At first we were boggled. How can the same product vary so much?
We finally cut all of the plugs off and did the tests again.
Whoa! Big change.
This time the R & L looked the same (in fact it pretty much all looked the same regardless of price or brand).
With 3 exceptions.
The RG/6 and CAT5 were the same as the first test, and one type of cable performed below the norm again (used multiple wire gauges for different freq.'s).
From this we dismantled all of the plugs.
What we found was that the common thread with all of the RCA cables was 2 solder points (tip and stem).
Upon further inspection it was noted that no 2 plugs really looked the same as far as quality of solder work and quantity of solder applied.
It appears to us that the gap between the tip and stem works as an RF antenna and also that the quality of the solder work can and will effect capacitance and inductance.
The cables that performed will in both rounds were crimped.
That was our epiphany.
Since I had been making my own cables for years (I am a custom integrator) and the cable can make long runs general built by untrained employees work with the crimped terminal.
I felt this was the best way to build my products.
We did not reinvent the wheel.
What we did was use tested and sound construction methods, high quality multi-strand center conductor coax and design an excellent shield crimp terminal for it.
The center conductor is soldered, the pin is then placed in the dielectric sandwich, pressed into the shield sleeve with the braid/foil sliding over the sleeve and then crimped with a 3/4" ferrule.
As with several other companies we also place a convex spring/sleeve inside of the insertion point ( I do not like cut barrels they tend to pull RCA plugs out of the back of receivers Denon/Yamaha in particular).
My goal was to have all of my products perform the same cable to cable to cable etc.
We/I felt that this would provide us with a cable that would perform in the $150/$300 range for typically under a $100.
As it turns out we have a cable that does even better than that.
I do not profess to be the next Nordost, Kimber or even Audioquest. Nor do I want to be.
I am after all trying to make a living. I know what it cost to build my product, I know what a dealer needs to make and we can do this at a price/performance ratio that is very good for the end user.
Having said that, I have not yet been embarrassed by my product in any comparison even when price was not an issue.
www.etherealcable.com
CTC BBQ Amplifier, Sonic Frontiers Line3 Pre-Amplifier and Wadia 581 SACD player. Speakers? Always changing but for now, Mission Argonauts I picked up for $50 bucks, mint.
Post edited by dorokusai on
Comments
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I only tried the component cables from the package. It was my first chance to try them out. I have a lowly Panny 27inch none flat screen TV and a Toshiba 3960 modded by MadMax. I liked the cables very much over the cheap RCA s-video I was using.SDA-2a, Anthem Pre-2L, Anthem Amp 1, MF A324 DAC, Rotel RCD1070
Senn HD650 Cardas, Mapletree Audio Ear+ HD2, Kimber KS1030, Bel Canto DAC2, M-Audio Transit, Laptop. -
CTC BBQ Amplifier, Sonic Frontiers Line3 Pre-Amplifier and Wadia 581 SACD player. Speakers? Always changing but for now, Mission Argonauts I picked up for $50 bucks, mint.
