Audioquest King Cobra - Review/ Demo

I expected the AudioQuest King Cobras to be good. I own some AudioQuest G-Strings/G-Snakes, Sidewinders and Diamondbacks and I am a fan of the brand. I was dissappointed the minute I put the King Cobras in the rig and turned it on. The best description I can use is "veiled". This seemed especially noticable to me with voices, both male and female, and not so much with instruments. The overall soundstage and imaging was good. The bass with this cable is extremely good. Very tight and detailed and is the best of any the cables in the Cable Swap. The construction of this cable is very good and in general the SQ is ok....much better that any of the generic mass market varieties out there. I kept going back to these cables to see if I would get used to the sound. I just could not get over the veiled quality that I perceived.

To be fair...this could simply be that these don't sound like the AQs I own. Several people have commented that the AQs are a little too bright for their liking. It is possible that these are just a more laid back AQ.

I expected these to be better than the AQs I own because they were higer up the ladder from a Co. I think highly of, they are more expensive, they are supposed to be better, etc, etc, etc. IMO they were not. Others may feel/hear differently. That said....Don't let my impressions keep you from demoing these cables.

For all of those naysayers that say the differences one hears in cables are based on preconceived ideas of what you are expecting or want to hear....IMO this pretty much blows that theory out of the water.

Shack, I found the same going from Copperhead to Diamondback. I could tell that the DB was probably a more nuetral cable, but the loss in soundstage depth made them sound flat and lifeless. Bass also sounded a touch more realistic, but again, I did not like the 2-dimensional sound.

Sometimes bigger isn't better.

Early: If you're happy with what you've got, leave it alone brother...LOL