Audioquest Wind vs Earth

[mulveling]

I'd agree that Fire is probably the sweet spot, but WBY bright? That's not been my experience; to me it's actually very slightly warmer, and smoother, with a bit more spatial information, than Fire - but to be fair my WBY's had the old-style XLR connectors (ugly purple monster BAXLR) when I compared the two. And the silver content shouldn't be any different from Fire to WBY; the only difference should be the larger air tubes and blue paint on the connectors. Tonally, the Fire was actually slightly more similar to WEL than WBY when I compared them. But again, that may be result of the more modern XLR connectors. Anyways, I cannot imagine even a current-version WBY being anywhere close to bright.

WEL Signatures are certainly far more expensive. But they're definitely top of the AQ line for their transparency, tonal neutrality, and spatialization. I've seen some good deals on WBY recently (a lot of which were splits from a longer pair, which can make for a good deal); maybe WBY is the new sweet spot if buying used? But if buying new, then definitely Fire is sweet.