Well, the Osborn Cables 'Silverlink' (silver single-ended RCA) have arrived and are now inserted in the main system and the Red Rose Music Silver One slipped into the headphone rig. I know many people who may read this don't believe that different cable manufacturers or construction methods have any impact on sound reproduction. I recommend those folks move on, nothing for you to see (or read) here. I obviously live in the other camp. Not night & day, but different enough to be noticeable. Also out of necessity, I try to stay away from the uber-priced models. For example the two reviewed here are in the $A200 - $A300 per metre pair range.
The 'Silverlink' has been running in over the last few days and has about 25 -30 hours on it now. At least enough for an initial evaluation I reckon. According to the manufacturer - "Osborn Silverlink is the result of several years of careful experimenting with many different types of cabling and insulation materials. Silverlink is made from pure extruded silver wire which is specially made for Osborn Loudspeakers. It is extruded into one continual length. Many reference cables up to $6000 per pair were used as comparisons during the selection phase. Neither I, nor any of my customers have yet found an interconnect to match the performance of the Silverlink. Silver Interconnects often suffer from a brittle top end and a restricted bass performance. The sonic purity, transparency, inner detail and soundstage of the Silverlink is quite extraordinary."



The RRM cable is nearly 10 years old so needs no running in. The spiel according to Red Rose Music - "Red Rose Silver One is our finest interconnect cable. Unlike many premium cables on the market, there are reasons why it is superior. The most important reason is that when we record music and play it back, Silver One reproduces the event better than anything else. It is a fraction of the cost of many high end cables, yet is made from pure silver wire in a true litz construction (many fine conductors, separately enamelled, soldered at the ends) with a teflon dielectric (teflon is the best insulator known).
Red Rose Silver One is the ultimate interconnect, outperforming all others in terms of accuracy and faithfulness to the original signal."

With the recently purchased Cambridge Audio DAC, and the relatively new Yamamoto amplifier and under-used after-market Sennheiser 600 cable, 'Equinox' from Stefan AudioArt, the headphone system is certainly still not at it's absolute best yet. But again, good enough to see if the RRM sounds like it does in the main system. Won't spoil the answer too soon!

First up, how does the 'Silverlink'. My first impression of the sonic signature of these cables is one of 'weight'. They impart a sense of 'seriousness' to the sound and a feeling of gravitas, like you are listening to something important. Detail retrieval is good, the hi fi artefacts on my test discs were laid out to hear. At this stage, they don't sound like the fastest cables I have heard in my system, but the pace is OK. I found the imaging to be very good with musicians placed clearly across the soundstage, but the overall size seems to be a bit smaller and a little closed-in / smaller compared to what I was previously used to. Despite this, there is good 'air' around the instruments & vocals. The mid-range presentation is excellent imparting a pleasing tone on some Phil Manning acoustic guitar on 'Two Roads' and the Sarah McLachlan piano on 'Angel'. I did notice a slight fizz on the trailing edge of the treble at times as well. Not perfectly smooth to my ears yet, as evidenced by some edginess in a sample spoken passage in the Chesky 'Ultimate Demonstration Disc'. In summary however, the 'Silverlink' is a very appealing cable in my system and I would expect it's strengths to consolidate over time and the fizz to disappear and image size to open up also. They are certainly not the same as the Red Rose Silver One, and may I say Viva La Difference'.

OK, now what about the Red Rose Music Silver One in the headphone system? The openness, previously evident in the main system, is easily recreated by the Wadia/Cambridge Audio/Yamamoto combo. And I think the speed of the Silver One is really a good match to drive the Sennheisers which can, to my ears, sound a little slow and 'plodding' at times. Mind you the 'Silver Ones' are only replacing 15 year old Monster Cable ICs so I would hope that they would impress a bit! Highs are clean and not brittle at all, and of course the mid range is excellent. Overall, the sound is OK, but I would have hoped it was more engaging. The combo seems bass-shy giving the music insufficient substance & impact. 'Stormy Monday' off the Allman Brothers ' Live at the Fillmore' just didn't jump out and grab me. Damning with faint praise, all I can do at the stage is to say that it sounds 'nice'. It may be my lack of experience of benchmarks of headphone sound. Or I could just blame the Senns........ And like all my systems, it hums from I suspect a ground loop problem as this system does not go through the Furman power conditioner. Aarrgghh.

More evaluation to be done on this combo. Will swap back to the 'cheap' Grado SR-60 and see if the above still holds.

I will post additional details to be added after longer listening sessions. Stay tuned!