True Signal Audio cables

Initially listening commenced with an AURALiC ALTAIR G2.1 streamer/DAC sending the signal to a Townshend Allegri Reference preamp via Silver Phono cable which was also used to connect to the Moor Amps Angel 6 power amp, the final link was made with the Silver Ultimate speaker cables to PMC twenty5.26i speakers. This produced a detailed sonic picture with a strong groove courtesy of Mulatu Astatke’s vibe playing, that instrument sounding particularly vivid and shiny on the album Mulatu Steps Ahead [Universal]. Closer to home we had Althea and Donna’s ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ [Lightning], which sounds a lot better than you might imagine if you only ever heard it on the radio. Here the TSA cables give you a tight bass line and lots of instrumental and tonal timbre or texture, the cowbell coming across particularly clearly but not usurping the glorious bass line.

Rather more challenging is the Grateful Dead’s ‘Cumberland Blues’ [Europe ’72, Warner Bros] where the band lays everything on the line in what can easily become a mess if the cables aren’t up to the job. Here we get appealingly tuneful bass, lots of detail again and strong lyrical intelligibility, voices are well catered for by this cable, even when the backing gets lively you can hear the words clearly. Patricia Barber’s vocal on Company is a case in point, it’s elevated from the band and clear despite the muscularity of both double bass and piano on this track. Shifting from the Silver Phono to Silver Ultimate XLR between pre and power in this system produced a calming effect that is closer to the sound I’m used to. It’s still got plenty of drive and power but the increased relaxation allows finer details like fingers sliding on the neck of the double bass to come through.

I dropped in one of the Maestro power leads to the Altair streamer/DAC and noted a distinct increase in the solidity of sound, this came from greater leading-edge definition accompanied by greater bass weight which combined to deliver excellent image depth and greater contrast between quiet and louder sounds. It effectively lowered the noise floor presumably by filtering out some of the RFI coming into the power supply. Dynamics also benefitted and while this cable is more pricey than the one it replaced the result was definitely commensurate with the cost. Adding a Maestro to the power amp upped the ante some more with excellent imaging and both greater scale and focus, you usually get one or the other but this extra lead helped to both hone in on the various instruments and voices as well as delivering the reverb in the recording.