Crystal Cable is coming!

The hifi community has always been distinguished by one general fact: “It’s a man’s world.”

But that, my dear hifi-loving macho friends, is in the past—completely over and gone, in fact. A certain lady has entered the scene, and this lady ‘sings the blues’. The Dutch have added another cable brand to their already illustrious range of top cables, and the woman behind the shielding is Gabi van der Kley.

Crystal Cable is a specific product with a very personal feminine touch. Ms Kley abandoned the traditional cable maxims and found new techniques of shielding and conductivity. Result? No more cables the size of a garden hose, but small and elegant wires instead. Suddenly less is more. Have I always been wrong?

I hooked the Crystal Cables up to my reference set one by one. At first a Crystal Reference interconnect went from the VPI turntable with Clearaudio Discovery cartridge to the Lamm LL 2SE. This is the place where any cable has to show what it’s got up its sleeve. The first thing that immediately caught my attention was the huge soundstage; truly 3D. And this was just the start!

The next strong parameter was micro dynamics. I could easily hear the true sound of each instrument because the sound was presented firmly and faded away slowly, this was more than excellent. This is truly high end with very little comparison. These cables don’t come cheap, but their performance outweighs the price easily.

But we’re not finished. Another pair of Crystal Reference went to the power amps. This resulted in an even more pin-pointed stage with lots of drive. At first I was afraid I might have to turn up the subwoofer that supported the Verities but this was definitely not the case.

After listening to a complete set I still had the power cords left. And they too were exposed and had to compete with some of the world’s finest power cords. And I must say they did surprisingly well. Drive in the lower octaves and the overall dynamics improved yet again. This was clearly the result of the overall synthesis, because every part of the system was now hooked up with Crystal Cable.

Remember that this product has just debuted on the world market, so you won’t be surprised to hear that Crystal Cable went straight to the top of the league. I have heard several other cables that cost three times as much, but offer the same performance, and nothing more. And what a performance! Plenty of drive, extreme high resolution (without the tiring effect that is often associated with this parameter), and perfect tonal color. This all takes place in a huge 3D soundstage.

Last year my big discovery was that NAT triode amps are a sonic marvel. This year, I have no doubt that it will be Crystal Cable!