Steve's review:

 

Ali, 

Just want to say, when I last listened to my MIT SL 12 speaker cables, I enjoyed having pinpoint imaging, a full beautiful sound stage, and I was totally satisfied; so, I thought. 

 

I initially purchased Artisan Silver cables for the beauty the Ultimate Silver cables brought to the table, but I made the mistake of purchasing a Nth Degree and then I needed to replace all my cables ~ again. 

I was in love with this cable and had to replace them all; well except for one between the Pre-Amp and Amp, I’m using the Ultimate WBT and currently do not have any desire to change it out due to the sweet, clear, beautiful sound the Ultimate WBT interconnects bring to the table; otherwise I’m all Nth Degree cabling; which I consider a very beautiful black flexible cable with a high degree of resolution. 

I do have one power plug in the Ayon Triton Amplifier, which I immediately noticed a difference in the bass definition, sound stage refinement and clarity of the music. 

 

Right after plugging in the Artisan Silver Ultimate Loudspeaker cables with WBT banana/spade connectors, I heard better defined bass, very impressive BASS notes! Within the first hour the instrumental images started to become more defined.  I was hearing darker background.  Less distortion. 

At the 5-hour point, I could clearly hear what had been causing my stereo image to be slightly off; it was my ceiling (my stereo room is in the basement); the left speaker is half under an 8.4-foot ceiling, the other half under a 9-foot ceiling.  Luckily, I was in the process of finalizing room treatment, and placed some diffusers along the 8ft to 9ft side/ceilings and now I have a solid and layered center image. 

 

24 hours into listening and need to stop and write about these loudspeaker cables because they are opening.  A wide and deep sound stage, it is completely clean, every detail, sound, tone, layer stage with depth and width beyond the speakers.  sounds coming at me from both sides of the room, not the speakers and it starting to build great depth in the sound stage. I’m now hearing all the micro details.-I wish I had not taken so long to purchase these cables.  With everything being layered out (depth and width) as clearly as the sound stage is I cannot imagine what the next 25 hours of break ‘in are going to bring, but here I go.  

 

30-hour point:  These loudspeaker cables appear to eat distortion; as they break in; more and more clear the sound is.-Note:  I’ve purchased power conditioners and DC removal devices in my system; all greatly lowered the noise floor, but these loudspeaker cables seem to eat distortion and keep giving me a clearer picture into the sound; much better than any other power equipment/conditioner/adjustment has ever made to my system. 

 

Streaming, I now have full 3-dimensional images, whereas before streaming provided a flat thin image; now they are as pronounced as record/album images.  Radio over the air is excellent; I used to use my McIntosh MR77 for background sound, but now music is so beautiful, I now have a deep wide layered soundstage, with 3D imaging.

 

45th hour:  DYNAMICS; Difference in soft and loud passages is huge now.47th hour:  The DYNAMICS are amazing!!!!!!!!!6pm 1/12/202350 to 80 hours in:  DYNAMICS!!! Found myself getting startled.I’m convinced these cables somehow grounded my system and I have the lowest noise floor I've ever had!  

 

1/23/2023: I came back here to write more, but the music is forcing me back to my listening seat…. 

 

1 February 2023. I’ve finally made it back to this review.  The sound of my system is so addictive that when I turn it on, I find it difficult to do anything; it’s like I’m strapped to my chair.  Everything I’ve stated above has all been greatly enhanced to the point of me NOT wanting for more. The sound stage is so defined that I can go up and take over air playing the musician’s instrument.Everything is still improving and I’m at about 120 hours in; the sound stage is getting more solid, defined, dynamic/musical with more details, darker, deeper soundstage, instruments sounding more real~!  

 

Once again Ali, thank you for being the Artisan you are and sharing your talent with the world. 

Best, 

Steve

 

[Wow! Thanks Steve :-)]

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******

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Towards the end of February, Steve came back with these updates - including a fascinating summary of his whole system: 

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Ali,

Ref: Artisan Ultimate Silver Dream Speaker cables with WBT connectors.

Hope you and family are doing well.  I appreciate you fast mailing these cables, they got here so fast I wasn’t expecting them. It was a nice surprise for New Years.

It’s day 47 and 200+ hours in; the sound is so clear and present. Dynamics galore; highest of resolution and always getting startled/surprised.  It’s like I’ve upgraded my whole system. 

 

I’m so impressed with these,  I had to do a follow-up.  Here’s what I’m hearing on a couple of my music choices:

- Quavo, Take Off, Only Built for Infinity Links:  14th song, Integration, at 2:57 in, there are 2 girls talking and on my old speaker cables I could barely make out what they are saying; but are now clearly having a conversation.

--15th song, Big Stunna, at .14 into this song there is a deliberate out take of breath from the right speaker eerily displaying itself right by my ear; this keeps occurring throughout the song.

 

- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Return of the Dream Canteen: Last Song track 17; The Snow, has the stage clearly layered, and I can see/hear where each musician is playing their instrument and how the recording engineer has put a guitar player up front, behind it is a drum going from one speaker to the other; singer is third layer @center stage; the synthesizer 4th layer, moving around; and in the farthest back left corner a wood block is being hit; it’s incredible.

-Ozric Tentacles, Curious Corn:  This is an Electronic cd I used to think was one of my best sounding, until I reached 200+ hours on the new speaker cables; now I can hear it’s compressed somewhat.  It still sounds great; lots better than on my old speaker cables, more details, sound staging, punchy, but these cables let me hear right through to the recording and the compression they applied.

 

For me, these are the most vividly detailed, accurate tonality (dynamics, expression, texture, and tonal color), holographic 3D imaging, lifelike sounding speaker cables I have ever owned or heard. As stated before, I am no longer in want.  The Ultimate Silver Dream Speaker cables with WBT connectors are the best audio purchase I ever made in my pursuit of audio Nirvana.  Let alone the cost to performance ratio is incredible.

 

I’d like to take a moment to thank you for all the service you have provided me in the past.  Especially when you repaired the Nth Degree interconnect, I let my local audio dealer try to fix…. ouch, I bet that was a mess when you got it. Thanks again for fixing it.

You’re appreciated Ali, please keep doing the great work and service you provide.

Cheers,

 

Steve in Cheyenne Wyoming

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Here's an update on my current system:

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Amplifier: Ayon Triton III  

Preamplifier:  Ayon Auris II   

Speakers: Custom Emerald Physics 4.8 

Cables:  Nth Degree on all sources and WBT Ultimate Silver Dream between Amp and Preamp; and now finally Ultimate Silver Dream speaker cables.

Sources:  Sota Nova w/vacuum turntable, using Sumiko Blackbird cartridge; McIntosh MR77 tuner; Sony XA5400ES cd play; iFi ZenStream; MyTek Liberty One Dac.

Subwoofers:  Seaton Submersive HP  with HP Slave; another Seaton HP Submersive without slave; 2 home built sealed 18" subwoofers with dsp (that's 6each 15" and 2each 18" subwoofers, for a total of 8 subwoofers.) Bass is expensive, but if there is a deeeeep bass note in a recording I will feel it, even at low volume!

Dedicated Room:  16 x 27 with room treatment

Power: Dedicated 20Amp line; using Core Power Technologies Equi=Core 1800 and Core=Equi 1800

 

 

[Thanks again Steve - you're very good for the ego! :-)]

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