BETTERCABLES.COM Silver Serpent Anniversary Edition Red/Black Balanced XLR Audiophile Audio Cables (Pair - 2 Cables) - High-End, High-Performance, Silver/Copper Hybrid, Low-Capacitance - 1.5 Feet

These are solid cables. They are well-built, attractive, and come with the appropriate quantity of buzzwords and snake oil to satisfy any audiophile still rooted in the rational plane.For the irrationally-minded audiophile, it will be difficult to justify them because they are relatively inexpensive, don't come with a lot of truly exotic components and materials, and because "Better Cables Dot Com" doesn't sound as sexy as the brands and model names that come with a $3000/foot product.Here are the good things or the things that sound good on paper: They're made in the USA from domestic wire and imported connectors. The connectors are gold-pinned Neutriks, which will be familiar to anybody who has used XLR interconnects before. No, the connectors aren't rhodium-plated. They aren't surrounded by exotic hand-finished hardwoods or carbon-fiber sheaths. They aren't cryogenically treated. On the other hand, these are probably higher-quality (or at least same-quality) connectors than what were used in the studio to record the music in the first place.The capacitance is 13 pF/foot. This is very low, and exceptionally important for passive attenuator, unity gain, or low-gain use. The wire is 99.999% pure copper with silver coating.These are made with Nitrogen-injected hard-cell insulation. I have no idea what that means, but like I say, it's important for moderately expensive cables to come with their quote of busswords. They cable feels solid and is wrapped in an attractive braided nylon (presumably; material not specified) sheath that makes snags and kinks unlikely.Paired with components in the $1000-5000 range in digital and analog signal paths, I have a difficult time distinguishing these cables from examples that cost far more. Perhaps an even cheaper cable would also sound fine, but you don't have to be embarrassed by these when bragging about your system to friends, which is what really matters when you're paying a fortune for a balanced interconnect.

Update:Have been using this cable for a little longer, I just changed the rating from 4 stars to 5 stars!The entire system was turned on and baked for days. The fairly up front sound stage with the old cable literally "moved" back with the new cable and opened up. The speakers definitely disappeared completely. The sound is very delicate, detail and fast. I had a little concern with the tonal balance initially; it is now very neutral and easy to listen to. Even my wife commented on the sound improvement. It seems that this is the best value investment in my audio system.Original:I was using a pair of decent XLR cable between my pre-amp and power amp essentially from the time I bought this power amp. While the combination was reasonable, I always felt that it could be better. The sound stage was not very wide and imaging was quite poor. I tolerated that for almost two years because I was more focused on another bad hobby - photography. I thought it was the pre-amp but did not want to spend money on an upgrade.Long story short, I upgraded the (RCA) cable between my DAC/pre-amp and my amp for the system in my office. There was a distinct improvement. So, I thought I should do the same for the main system and this cable is quite reasonable in price. It is immediately clear that stage is now wide and deeper. And imaging is day and night better. I can now "see" individual instruments and performers.One thing I am not sure just yet is the tonal response. It will take some time to break in the cable and the reason for 4 stars only. I will update later. But so far so good.

I have owned (and still own) many high end cables by various manufacturers- Cardas, Nordost, Discovery, AudioQuest and others. I needed a 1 meter balanced cable for an Oppo BDP-95 I had recently purchased. I was using a 2 meter Discovery Plus 4 cable, which probably was close to $500 new, but didn't want the excess cable wound up and velcroed to a support on my audio rack. I saw these on Amazon, a source I had never used to buy any high-end audio (I have in the past been a bit of an audio snob, a fault I am trying to get over by being more open to new possiblilites and price/performance points) but after researching a little I thought the cables looked very promising and comparitively they are inexpensive compared to what I have become used to paying.I've used them now for a couple of months and for those that know what rave reviews the Oppo gets, I feel I am getting the full benefit of that performance in my system using these cables. I will probably buy more in the future and would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a well constructed great sounding cable- and save some money vs. the "designer" brands I mentioned above.

Excellent delivery timeframe and superb cable quality!

Super Produit Super Shipping A+++

These are well made. Using them to connect my Schiit Gungnir to my Moljnir2.

Great qualityGreat priceVery pleased

The sound open up,like a veil was lift,the sound is more lively,detail and very involving.Very good for the price,highly recommend.