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Shunyata Research Designing Silent Systems for recording, film and music

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Old 05-06-2019, 07:12 PM
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Default Shunyata Venom and Delta Interconnects: An Impressions "Review"

I rented some Shunyata Venom and Delta RCA interconnects about a month or so ago, back when I first posted about my experiences with the new Shunyata Alpha USB cable.

I wanted to try the Shunyata Venom and Delta ever since I bought a Venom SPDIF cable to use with my Schiit Eitr, back in 2017, and I was quite impressed with it.

So, I wanted to see how the interconnects would fare.

My current cables are a mix of Audioquest Columbia and Colorado. I currently have Columbia on the Bob's Devices SUT to the phono stage and between the EAR 324 phono stage and the CJ CT-5 pre-amp.

AQ Colorado is currently between my Schiit Gungnir Multibit Gen5 USB DAC and pre and between the pre and CJ LP70S power amp.

For this test, though, I ran each pair of cables under test using the two RCA outputs of Gumby; these are identical outputs, and I just ran them into the Tuner and CD inputs of the CT-5, respectively. This allowed me to make identical and effectively instantaneous comparisons between the cables under review at push of a button the remote.

Music was a range of content, from Melody Gardot's The Absence, Antonio Forcione's Touch Wood, Grant Green's Idle Moments, Kenny Burrell's Midnight Blue, Rodrigo Y Garbriela's eponymous Rodrigo Y Garbriela, Ella Fitzgerald's Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie, Sarah Vaughan's eponymous Sarah Vaughan (with Clifford Brown), Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Ella and Louis, Vol.1, and The Academy of St-Martin-In-The-Fields seminal recording of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons on Argo with the astonishing Alan Loveday on violin.

Overall, lest I run the risk of ruffling anyone's feathers with respect to brand loyalty, let me say right off the bat that these are all very fine and lovely-sounding interconnects. I've been running the AQ Columbia and Colorado ICs in my system since 2014 or thereabouts and have been very happy with them, and I am presently still using them. They were a major step up over the Zu Mission ICs I was originally using.

The Audioquest Columbia and Colorado are now both discontinued models, having been replaced with Audioquest Water and Earth, respectively, as far as I can determine. While they were in production, Columbia sold at an MSRP of $500 and Colorado sold for ~$900 or so for a 1 M pair of RCAs.

The Shunyata Venom I tested sells for ~$350, and the Delta sells for ~$1000 for a 1M pair of RCAs.

When listening, I compared the Columbia to Venom, Venom to Colorado, Venom to Delta and Colorado to Delta.

Overall, these are very high-quality, all copper interconnects are very close in sound quality to one another. For any "audiophile" sonic quality or attribute you'd care to list, they are all very, very similar in character to each other. They all sound musical, sweet, open, clean, spacious, and a quiet with a very slight warm-ish quality to them that makes listening to music very enjoyable. They are also all so close in these qualities, that picking out differences between them is not easy, and these differences are small, overall.

Where I heard differences, was not really "in the music" but between the music: the Shunyata Venom 3 was slightly quieter and "blacker" between notes and lyrics; the noise floor appeared to be just ever so slightly lower. AQ Colorado was then slightly quieter and "blacker" than the Shunyata Venom 3, and Shunyata Delta was slightly quieter and "blacker" than AQ Colorado.

I would say the differences between them, from AQ Columbia to Shunyata Delta are, at most, 10%, but on the whole and for the majority of the content, even less than 10%. When the these small differences were at their greatest, it was on only certain portions of certain musical content, which is why I used such a broad range of musical content for evaluation.

On the whole, though, I was quite hard-pressed to tell a difference between these cables. On some content, you literally could not hear any difference whatsoever, period. For content where you could hear a very slight difference between cables, I attribute this to those recordings having either superior miking, recording, and, most importantly, mastering, where the intrinsic noise floor of the recording was lower so that it allowed for some discernment on differences.

Soncially speaking, I would say that Shunyata Venom gave maybe 2-3% more "quietness" and "blackness" than AQ Columbia, Colorado gave maybe 2% more than Shunyata Venom and Shunyata Delta provided maybe 2-3% over AQ Colorado. And that's it.

I would think that the Shunyata cables were ever so slightly quieter than the AQ cable counterparts because they represent a newer product design and likely a more advanced design embodiment with respect to control over noise and concomitant maximizing of the recording signal. But, again, we're talkin' differences of a few percent, here.

As far as value for money here, given the "law of diminishing returns" corollary in high-end audio, the big value proposition here is Shunayata Venom. At $350/1M RCA, Venom is 30% lower in price than the discontinued AQ Columbia when it was in production, and very slightly quieter & blacker with respect to the noise floor. Its also 42% less than the current Audioquest Water (which, with its 6-layer noise dissipation system, might be a skosh quieter than Columbia; I have no idea how it compares to Venom, so please don't ask).

AQ Colorado and Shunyata Delta are both fine cables, and a subtle but real step up from Columbia and Venom. If price were not a consideration, I would get the Shunayta Delta, which is the cable I kept switching back to when it was in the system and I was just listening to music, and not doing "evaluations". As with all Shunyata products, as you move up the product line, you just get more and more Shunyata "goodness".

As for which cable I prefer between AQ Columbia and Shunyata Venom, I'd have to say that their respective audio qualities are so close, there is very little to choose between them, sonically. However: the Venom, for my components (YMMV), has superior RCA connectors, and grip the CJ RCA jacks more firmly than the Columbia/Colorado RCA plugs. Also, the Venom is more flexible than Columbia or Colorado, and does not have the DBS "bricks" on them, so they are also quite a bit easier to route and dress behind the audio rack. And, as I mentioned, with respect to for value for money for new cables, Venom wins hands-down, in my book.

For $350 you can have an IC that can compare very favorably with an interconnect selling originally for almost $1000.

Wrapping up: I did this performance evaluation to see, based on my experiences with Shunyata's interconnects, if I should "upgrade" to from AQ to Shunyata. The answer, like most things, is context-dependent. I don't see any reason, at this point in time, to switch out my entire IC loom. That being said, I've ordered a Venom RCA IC to run from my Bob's Devices SUT to my preamp as routing it will be simpler and much easier than dealing with the DBS bricks. With time, I may switch over to Shunyata Venom, piecemeal. If I can get find or get good deals on Shunyata Delta RCAs over time, I may snag a couple of those as my discretionary audio budget allows, but, after this experiment, replacing my ICs is not as high a priority as determining which Ethernet cables I want to settle on, or perhaps getting a Zen Innuous Mk3 Mini music streamer.

If I were putting together a system from scratch however, I'd be getting all Shunyata Venom RCA ICs, as these represent a superb value for money.

Cheers, gang.
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Last edited by Puma Cat; 05-07-2019 at 03:29 PM.
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Old 05-06-2019, 09:42 PM
John Jordan John Jordan is offline
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Great Evaluation Stephen!

Again, we see the subtle differences between cables.

From your thoughts and what I have "read between the lines" of others, moving from Venom to Delta seems relatively fruitless and the logical jump is to Alpha.

Sigma is reserved for the pallet that depending on circumstances prefers a '99 Margaux over a '00. (So to Speak).

As always, everyone's milage varies and this kind of open discourse allows us all to better determine which path to follow!
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Old 05-06-2019, 11:28 PM
jzzmusician jzzmusician is offline
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Thank you Stephen for your excellent review! I've got a complete mish mash of cables and am in the process of "tightening up," my interconnects.

I first purchased the Venom USB. I love it so much I ordered the Alpha. It should be here this week! (I hope)

I only have one pair of interconnects and that from my DAC to my Luxman. I may have to email the "Magician," AKA Ivan about a pair.

Thanks again,

Bob
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Old 05-07-2019, 12:00 AM
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Originally Posted by jzzmusician View Post
Thank you Stephen for your excellent review! I've got a complete mish mash of cables and am in the process of "tightening up," my interconnects.

I first purchased the Venom USB. I love it so much I ordered the Alpha. It should be here this week! (I hope)

I only have one pair of interconnects and that from my DAC to my Luxman. I may have to email the "Magician," AKA Ivan about a pair.

Thanks again,

Bob
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Accuphase/Canton System: ACCUPHASE E800 INTEGRATED, DP570 CD/SACD PLAYER, T1200 FM STEREO TUNER, DG-68 VOICING EQUALIZER, PS530 POWER SUPPLY, CANTON REF K3’s, CANTON REF K5’s, SILENZIO MUSIC SERVER, HRS MXR REFERENCE MAHOGHANY RACK w/ M3X2 SHELVES, WW GOLD CABLES
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Old 05-07-2019, 02:44 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John Jordan View Post
Great Evaluation Stephen!

Again, we see the subtle differences between cables.

From your thoughts and what I have "read between the lines" of others, moving from Venom to Delta seems relatively fruitless and the logical jump is to Alpha.

Sigma is reserved for the pallet that depending on circumstances prefers a '99 Margaux over a '00. (So to Speak).

As always, everyone's milage varies and this kind of open discourse allows us all to better determine which path to follow!
Hi John,
Yes, on the whole I would agree. The differences between all the cables I evaluated was quite small, and on some content, I literally could not hear any difference between Columbia and Venom at all, they sounded absolutely identical.

Same applied to Colorado and Delta on the same content. There was a small improvement in quietness, clarity and overall transparency between Colorado/Delta and Columbia/Venom, but again these differences were quite slight, a coupla percent, on-average.

I bought my second Colorado IC at the end of 2017/early 2018, and when I got it, and put it into the second output on Gumby, I literally could not tell any difference between it and Columbia. I mean, absolutely no diffence at all was discernable. I felt kinda silly spending about twice as much money for as I did for Columbia. About a year later, I switched the out the Columbia IC from my EAR 324 phono stage to the CT-5 preamp with the Colorado, and heard a slight improvement in transparency, so maybe the Colorado burned in a bit over the course of a year, but the improvement was pretty slight.

I can't speak to how Shunyata Alpha or Sigma sound compared to Delta (or even Venom) as I've never heard them, but I don't have the budget to spend $8K on all Alpha ICs for my system. If I were going to drop 8 large on my system, it would be for a used C-J GAT pre, not cables. If I were to put any money (more than $1000) into Shunyata cables, it would be to upgrade the Shunyata Venom speaker cables (which I really like, BTW, particularly the STIS terminations), as I've read comments from Grant that, after power cables, speaker cables account for the biggest improvements in cable upgrades. Maybe some day....
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Lumin P1 streamer/DAC/preamp, Constellation Inspiration integrated TT: Michell Gyro SE MkII, SME V, Koetsu Urushi Vermilion, EAR324. Harbeth 30.2s, REL R-305, Shunyata Alpha V2 ICs, Alpha V2 SPs, Sigma XC, Sigma NRv2, Omega QR-s & Alpha NRv2 PCs, segmented Altaira SG stack w/ Alpha & Omega CGCs, Everest 8000 PD. Remote Server Room: Uptone EtherREGEN, AfterDark Master Clock & LPS, Alita, Battle Angel, (Akasa NUC Roon Core), iFi DC Purifiers (for SMPS used for Alita & router), Shunyata Gemini combo power distributor & Altaira-type CG GP-NR hub, Venom & Alpha CGCs, Shunyata NRv14 power cords for digital components.

Last edited by Puma Cat; 05-07-2019 at 02:55 AM.
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Old 05-07-2019, 03:06 AM
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Great review. Question for you, what's the thickness of the Venom interconnects? Also how stiff / flexible are they?
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Old 05-07-2019, 08:16 AM
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It would be great if you could put in the BJC interconnects and do a double-blind experiment and see if really a difference or just a placebo effect............................be honest Stephen.

Looking forward to the scientific results.

Ron
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Old 05-07-2019, 08:36 AM
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deafenears... Welcome to AA!
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MX136, MC1.2KW(10) MC2KW(2), MCD1100, MS750(2) MVP881, C1000C/P/T, MPC1500, HT-2 SUBS(2) HT3F(2) WS350(2) XRT2K, XCS2K, XR27(2) XCS350(2) JL GOTHAM v2 SUBS(2) SILENZIO MUSIC SERVER, LUMAGEN RADIANCE SCALER, SONY VPH-G90U 4K PROJECTOR, STEWART 120" MOTORIZED SCREEN, CINEMA-TECH SEATING, WW PLATINUM CABLES
Reference System: ACCUPHASE A300 AMPS, C3900 PRE-AMP, DP1000 CD/SACD TRANSPORT, DC1000 DIGITAL PROCESSOR, DG-68 DIGITAL EQUALIZER, T1200 FM STEREO TUNER, PS1230 POWER SUPPLY, HRS-SXR CUSTOM RACK w/ M3X SHELVES, TAD REFERENCE ONE MK2 LOUDSPEAKERS, WW PLATINUM CABLES
CAPE COD

MX150, MC501(2) MC1.2KW(10) MC2301(2) MR88, MVP881, MCD1100, MDA1000, C1000C/P/T, MPC1500, ESOTERIC K-01X 30th ANNIVERSARY (BLACK) SACD/CD PLAYER, G02-X CLOCK, HT3F(2) XRT2K, XCS2K, XR27(2) JL GOTHAM v2 SUBS(2) JL FATHOM F113v2 SUBS(4) SOUND ANCHOR STANDS(2) KALEIDESCAPE STRATO & TERRA SERVERS 80-TB, LUMAGEN RADIANCE SCALER, SONY VPH-G90U 4K PROJECTOR, STEWART 120" SCREEN, SONUS FABER STRADIVARI, SILENZIO MUSIC SERVER, FORTRESS SEATING, WW PLATINUM CABLES
Analog Rig: CLEARAUDIO INNOVATION WOOD, UNIVERSAL ARM w/ Da VINCI' CART, 2nd UNIVERSAL ARM w/ GOLDFINGER STATEMENT CART, HRS-MXR REFERENCE RACK-GLOSS BLACK w/ M3X SHELVES, AESTHETIX RHEA SIG PHONO-PRE, BRYSTON BHA-1 HEADPHONE AMP, WW PLATINUM CABLES
Reference System: BURMESTER 911MK3 AMP(3), 088 PRE-AMP, 089 CD PLAYER, 100 PHONO PRE-AMP, 948 POWER CONDITIONER, ACCUPHASE DG-68 VOICING EQUALIZER, AVID ACUTUS REFERENCE SP TT, GRAHAM PHANTOM II SUPREME ARM, BENZ MICRO LP-S CART, GRANDIOSO P1X/D1X STACK, G1X RUBIDIUM MASTER CLOCK, N05 NETWORK PLAYER, SILENZIO MUSIC SERVER, HRS-SXR CUSTOM RACK w/ M3X SHELVES, SONUS FABER AIDA SPEAKERS, JL FATHOM F113v2 SUBS(2) SOUND ANCHOR STANDS(2) WW PLATINUM CABLES

Library System: GRANDIOSO M1 MONOBLOCK AMPS, C1 LINESTAGE PRE-AMP, K1X CD/SACD PLAYER, G1 MASTER RUBIDIUM CLOCK, E02 PHONO-PRE, SILENZIO MUSIC SERVER, AERIAL ACOUSTICS 20T V2, AERIAL SW12 SUBS(2), CANTON REF K1’s, VPI HRX TT w/ SDS POWER SUPPLY, ORTOFON CADENZA BLACK CART, KLAUDIO RCM, SHUNYATA DENALI 6000/S v2, SHUNYATA OMEGA QR’s, WW PLATINUM CABLES
Esoteric/Bryston System: ESOTERIC C02-X PRE-AMP, P-02X TRANSPORT, D02-X DAC, G02-X CLOCK, BRYSTON 28B3 CUBED MONOBLOCK AMPS(4), BRYSTON BHA-1 HEADPHONE AMP, SHUNYATA DENALI 6000/S v2(2) EVEREST 8000 POWER CONDITIONER(2) ALTAIRA CG & SG HUBS, AMR-DP777-SE DAC, SILENZIO MUSIC SERVER, TAD REFERENCE ONE MK2 LOUDSPEAKERS, QUADRASPIRE RACK, WW PLATINUM CABLES
Accuphase/Canton System: ACCUPHASE E800 INTEGRATED, DP570 CD/SACD PLAYER, T1200 FM STEREO TUNER, DG-68 VOICING EQUALIZER, PS530 POWER SUPPLY, CANTON REF K3’s, CANTON REF K5’s, SILENZIO MUSIC SERVER, HRS MXR REFERENCE MAHOGHANY RACK w/ M3X2 SHELVES, WW GOLD CABLES
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Old 05-07-2019, 09:20 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Poppyhome View Post
It would be great if you could put in the BJC interconnects and do a double-blind experiment and see if really a difference or just a placebo effect............................be honest Stephen.

Looking forward to the scientific results.

Ron
Don't own Blue Jeans cables. As for a DBT, I'd have to disguise the cables in some manner so that the administrator would not know which cables were which either, which would not be practical to do. As the test would have to be a proportions test, I'd have to identify at least 100 and ideally, 200 participants to conduct the listening with to have a statistically large enough sample N, and that would not be practical to do, either.

As I mentioned, in many cases, probably on at least on 50% of the content, the null hypothesis, Ho, was supported that there were virtually no audibly discernable differences between the two pairs of cables under test at a given time, so I honestly don't feel I was being influenced by expectation bias. To be honest, I did not think that it would be possible for cables from two completely different manufacturers to effectively sound virtually identical for many different recordings for any given 2 pairs of cables under test. I would've thought there would be some differences in "character" or other "qualitative attributes" not related to audio quality, but there weren't. I attribute this to both manufacturers using extremely high-quality and high-purity copper for the conductors, excellent dielectrics and terminations, design embodiments that are very effective for the rejection of noise, and a very high level of construction, such that both cables performed their functional transformations effectively identically.

So, at this point in time, I've made a decision to keep my present set of interconnects; I'm accepting the null and rejecting the Alternate hypothesis. I don't see any reason to spend a lot of money on cables for infrequent situations where there's a 2 or 3% difference in perceivable audio quality for some recordings. What this means is that while I was occasionally able to discern what I might describe as a "statistical difference" between two pairs of cables, effectively, there were no practical differences. And I'm only going to spend money on my system where there are actual, meaningful practical differences, not statistical ones (like the MAJOR improvement I heard with the Shunyata Alpha USB cable.)

The only reason I've bought one pair of Venom was for the connection between my SUT and phono stage. In my audio rack configuration, the AQ DBS bricks make routing the Columbia very cumbersome and the DBS units often pull the SUT out of position. I'm going to put a Venom in there to make the cable routing more manageable so that the AQ cables are not pulling on the SUT all the time.
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Lumin P1 streamer/DAC/preamp, Constellation Inspiration integrated TT: Michell Gyro SE MkII, SME V, Koetsu Urushi Vermilion, EAR324. Harbeth 30.2s, REL R-305, Shunyata Alpha V2 ICs, Alpha V2 SPs, Sigma XC, Sigma NRv2, Omega QR-s & Alpha NRv2 PCs, segmented Altaira SG stack w/ Alpha & Omega CGCs, Everest 8000 PD. Remote Server Room: Uptone EtherREGEN, AfterDark Master Clock & LPS, Alita, Battle Angel, (Akasa NUC Roon Core), iFi DC Purifiers (for SMPS used for Alita & router), Shunyata Gemini combo power distributor & Altaira-type CG GP-NR hub, Venom & Alpha CGCs, Shunyata NRv14 power cords for digital components.

Last edited by Puma Cat; 05-07-2019 at 09:53 AM.
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Old 05-07-2019, 10:32 AM
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Poppyhome Poppyhome is offline
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Thanks for the response, my bad — I thought you also owned BJC at one time..........
just looking for some real logical reasoning why one well made low-capacitance interconnect, with quality RCA connectors and heavy shielding may sound different from another while eliminating the eye candy.

Ron
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Audio by E
Canton
Canton
Bryston
Bryston
WireWorld Cables
WireWorld Cables
Stillpoints
Stillpoints
Bricasti Design
Bricasti Design
Furutech
Furutech
Shunyata Research
Shunyata Research
Legend Audio & Video
Legend Audio & Video