REVIEW: Michael Wolff Silver/Gold/Carbon Interconnect Cables

Here is my latest IC review, as posted on www.head-fi.org, THE headphone website on the web.



Website:
www.wolffaudio.com

Pricing:
$475 for a 1 meter pair.

Test Bed:
Sony SCD-555ES SACD player with full sacdmods.com modifications

Ray Samuels Audio HR-2 headphone amplifier

Sony MDR-R10 headphones

Intro
So, suddenly, in the midst of my Grover Cable reverie (http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=129048), I was sent some new interconnects from Michael Wolff. Honestly, I didn’t really want to install them. I just loved the Grover sound, as you may have read previously, and once you find something you like (particularly in a cable, which IME is especially difficult), the last thing you want to do is interrupt the "feng-shui" of your system and introduce something that requires more burn-in and for which there's no guarantee of enjoyment after all the endless waiting for them to max out.

I thought the Grovers were the best audio cables I’d ever heard up until that time (about 25 models from around 15 manufacturers so far). And the price was so absurdly low, it boggled my mind. I honestly didn’t think the Grovers could be improved upon.

But that’s the thing about audio-- until you’ve heard something “better”, the “best” you’ve heard up until then is still the best you can really imagine. How can you know what you aren’t hearing, until you hear it? The Grovers in that respect were a real ear-opener. For me, they expanded my mind as to what a cable can actually do for the sound of your system. In many ways, the Wolff cable expands on what the Grover does so well, while adding some extra twists, and a special flavor of its own.

As you may know, Michael Wolff and Grover collaborated for a short while on a set of interconnects called the “Empress”. Since then, they have gone their separate ways, and Wolff has further refined his interconnect cables until they reached the current version. They don’t seem to have a name of their own, Michael is happy for you to call them the “Michael Wolff cables”.

Design
In addition to using ultra-pure silver and 24K gold conductors, Wolff’s cables are unique in their use of carbon. Obviously carbon is not a metal, so it must possess some unique characteristics that contribute to the unusual sound I’ve heard with his ICs. In addition to using carbon as an actual conductor, each gold and silver conductor is itself treated with carbon through Wolff’s own process which is said to help the cables reject and suppress the effects of EMI/RFI noise.

I’ve also never owned any cables with gold as a conductor, and frankly, looked somewhat askance at cables with this seemingly dubious “feature”, but now I guess I have to open my mind to the possibility that yes, gold can in fact bring something “special” to the table, if Wolff’s new cables are any indicator.

So, anyway, these are highly unusual cables, with some novel and innovative design features.

Build Quality
These are some sweet looking cables, very nice build quality. They are extremely supple and flexible, very light weight. The deluxe WBT connectors alone have a retail cost of $100, and are one of their latest models.



Here is what the manufacturer has to say about them:
“nextgen™ RCA plug with conductor material made of fine silver, platinum plated. Two-piece clamping sleeve, cobalt blue. The central contact unit can be removed for ease of installation. Transmission bandwidth: 1 GHz. Eddy current free.”

These new connectors are a little hard to install until you figure out how to attach them. They don’t look like they unscrew, but they do. You need to loosen them so they can be fit around the female RCA cap, then carefully tightened while keeping pressure on them so they don’t slide back on the cap. Once you figure it out, it’s a snap.

Review
Here are my impressions of the new Wolff cables, using the Grover UR3 as a reference.

Transparency/”Air”
Is it possible to create a cable that is even *more* transparent and with greater air than the Grovers? Apparently, yes. Switching back to the Grovers, one notices a slight veiling and foggy-ness, the sound is thinner and leaner. Background is a grayer shade of black. This is apparent immediately. Switching back, you notice that sounds positively leap out of the Wolff cable. It’s like turning the “vividness” button on. Everything is more clearly delineated, and more distinct, which yields a higher palpability factor.

Air is really where the Grovers excel, and the Wolff cable does not lose any of it. In fact, the Wolff cables have a real effortless quality to them that doesn’t constrict the sound, which makes it easier for individual instruments to occupy their own space and be more fully realized. Some cables achieve their sound by keeping a tight grip on everything, clamping it down so it obeys its iron will. These cables tend to lack the sense of "air" and space, that for me are an essential part of the music. The Wolff cables achieve their sound by just letting it go. This lets each sound reside inside its own separate, three-dimensional pocket. You also get to hear a lot more of the room sound where the recording was made. These are all necessary elements to achieve proper imaging and sense of space, which makes a mere recording sound more like an actual event.

Soundstage/Imaging
Even bigger soundstage than the Grovers? Yes again. A/B-ing the two cables shows that big as the Grovers image size is, the Wolff’s is just that much larger. Really impressive, it wraps around your head instead of being a plane in front of your nose. I’m experiencing something new with the Wolff cables, in that sounds that move around the soundstage actually can come *forward* toward the listener and zip past your head. So it’s opened up a new dimension through my Sony R10s.

The Wolff's are more like painters than pen-and-ink drawers. Some cables draw only the outlines of the sound with nothing in the middle. You can never forget you're looking at a flat piece of paper. The Wolffs give the impression of thick oil paint applied liberally to the canvas, in bold and rich colors, which yields a more natural, fleshy and rounded 3-D environment. It's still a flat canvas, but your mind is now allowed to see it as a 3-D space.

Overall, the Wolffs have a big, bold and FAT sound. This really pays off when it comes to dynamics.

Speed/PRAT/Dynamics
Here’s the Wolff’s secret weapon, and it’s deadly. Don’t be lulled when you fire up a CD that starts with a single instrument and a lone voice mixed low. When the whole band kicks in, you’re likely to jump out of your seat. I’ve been startled a dozen or more times already. Despite being the least fatiguing cables I’ve ever heard (more on that below), they are also the most ferocious. Sounds contradictory, but it’s not. The sound they can make is highly energized and physical, with very high impact. Drums really kick, thump and snap. You get strong attack, like an unfettered release of energy, which is great if you like rock, and I do! Fantastic!

Treble
In short: BEST HIGHS EVER. These are positively the least fatiguing cables I’ve ever had in my system. Words like “clean” and “immaculate” may sound synonymous with “sterile” and “dull” or even “clinical”, but the Wolff’s highs are anything but. There is shimmer and sheen, almost a glistening quality. Liquid, luscious and sweet, with no hard edges at all, it fizzes and effervesces. Cymbals finally sound right in digital. Typically, to me, cymbals tend to sound hashy, harsh, hissy, spitty, and the sound sort of breaks up into a kind of white noise. Not so with the Wolff cables. Cymbals are appropriately brassy, the sound has the proper “BAAAAAaaaaasssssssshhhhhhhhhhh" sound that fully resolves. These highs are not rolled off in the slightest, they aren’t “polite” cables, yet they don’t sound “bright” like the Grovers sometimes can. You can crank the music to your heart’s content and never experience “treble fatigue”.

Midrange
Here is my favorite part of the Wolff’s presentation. But I think it’s the mids that would be the only *potential* red flag for a certain kind of listener.

Personally, I don’t believe in so-called “neutrality”. No two people agree on what it sounds like. However, my perception is that there is a certain type of listener who particularly obsesses over the concept of “neutrality”, and I have in my mind an image of the sort of sound that person is striving for. I don’t like that kind of sound, and the Wolffs won’t deliver it for you.

In my mind, there are people who pursue a form of neutrality which equates to a dull, hazy, lazy, soft, polite sound. Nothing sounds out of place because nothing can get out of place, it’s all screwed down to the floor, damped down with a wet blanket, flavorless and bland. Sure it’s “neutral” as could be, but FWIW I wouldn’t want to spend 2 seconds with a system like that. And, anyway, is that system really “neutral” or just “boring”?

The mids on the Wolff cable are anything but dull. They are vibrant, alive, organic, rich and lush-- dare I say, even a little “tubey”. Listening to the Wolff cables is like diving into a huge, rich and moist slice of chocolate layer cake that melts in the mouth. Mmmmmmmmmmmm… yummy! There’s a honey-like flavor to the mids, and a creamy-ness that never gets old, and simply makes *everything* sound good. You can’t wait to hear their take on all your favorite CDs, even the ones that you thought weren’t recorded so well are now at least palatable.

Now the question will arise, is this extra harmonic richness that is so pleasing to the ear, a “coloration”, or is it just that the Wolff cables are unleashing your system’s inherent (but formerly suppressed) ability to reproduce mids properly? That's a philosophical issue that I’ll let the neutrality-obsessives fret about. In the mean time, I’m going to enjoy these sweet cables! Personally I don't care how the seductive fatness got there, so long as it's there for me to enjoy.

So I would definitely put these cables firmly in the “euphonic” camp, so they may never be the darling of some members of “Team Neutrality”. That's their loss. Frankly, I would have a hard time imagining anyone actively disliking the sound of these cables, although I will admit that I do feel they tend to impart a bit more of their own character on the music than the Grovers do. But that slight bit of extra zest is a welcome addition, IMO, and I think most people would feel that way, unless you like to punish yourself for all your sins with a system that is to be admired from a distance by other neutrality-loving gear-heads, rather than actively *enjoyed* passionately by a bona-fide music-lover. Enough said.

Bass
IMO, as I noted in my earlier review, one of the only areas in which the Grover cable is merely “excellent” is the bass. Here is one area where the Wolff can be said to clearly have the edge, whatever you might make of its other qualities good or bad. Bass has extra firmness and more solidity, goes lower, and just plain rocks harder with bigger b*lls. Sorry, no other way to put it.

Conclusion
Incredible as the Grovers are, for me, the new Wolff cables go the extra mile, increasing my enjoyment of the music that much more, and isn’t that what it’s all about? They offer all the positives of the Grovers, with an extra flavor of their own that is unique to them, but extremely pleasing to the ear. I feel that in addition to offering a slightly higher level of performance in the areas mentioned, their irresistible added harmonic richness really puts these cables a good pace or two ahead.

So, now the big question-- what is that worth? The Grovers are still an absurd bargain. $140 for a cable that performs at that level is an obscene value. The Wolff cables are priced at $475, and based on what we know about their build quality ($100 connectors vs. the quaint stock RCAs on the Grover cable, pure gold instead of copper, and Michael’s unique carbon treatment and use of carbon as a conductor), we can see that the cable is priced appropriately for its materials cost. In that sense, it too, is a good value.

But at $475, I recognize that teeters it just on the edge of what the average Head-Fier is willing to invest in a cable. And that’s too bad, because you’ll be missing out on something really special. We now get into the esoteric area of trying to determine if it’s “worth it” to upgrade from the Grovers (if they are your reference). I can’t answer that for you, that’s a value judgement and a financial decision. I could say it’s 10% better, 25% better, 53.4% better than the Grovers, etc. etc., but what does that mean really?

All I really can say is that once in my system, I do NOT want them taken away. It would be hard to go back to the Grovers, good as they are, after having glimpsed the new Promised Land. So, I’ll be keeping them. Audition at your wallet’s peril!

 

Thanks Mark for the review. I'm staying with my Cardas GR for now but I will try to audition these.

 

Thanks Mark ... well written review!

I have the Grover SR II IC's which have been "wolffed" and think they're really great.

Wouldn't want to mess with their magic by sending them in for an upgrade. However I'll probably get a new Grover UR-x when I get a few bucks together as I've always been very pleased with Grover's cables. They are the only ones in my price range that I've tried that provides the sound I like in my headphone systems.

Your conclusion that they are both great interconnects doesn't surprize me.

 

Nice review, Mark. Well written as always, and real tempting indeed! I've been happy with my Grovers, but there is always a system in need of tweeking somewhere!