You can listen to Quattro Fil critically for about 30 seconds. Beyond that your brain starts telling you: "cut it out; the cables are fine." It’s an eerie sort of thing; you want to listen for problems, but your brain takes you hostage and forces you to listen to music instead. It’s a cruel world for audio-hardware reviewers when you can’t even pick a good product apart because music is just too distracting.

One cool thing about the precise sound of the Quattro Fil interconnect is that it isn’t a result of some coloration or emphasis/de-emphasis of a frequency range. You play a recording that is very clinical-sounding itself (i.e., Devo, Kraftwerk, most techno music, etc.), and Quattro Fil doesn’t throw the balance over the top and make the music annoying or unlistenable. In fact, everything you play though Quattro Fil sounds good -- clean, clear and precise, but not sterile.

Bring on the challengers

First up, is the Nordost SPM Reference -- $1150 per meter pair and previously on my highly regarded short list. I’m keeping SPM Reference on the short list, but Quattro Fil is better. SPM has some extra bass warmth that isn’t there with Quattro Fil. SPM may be the better choice for a lean-sounding system, while Quattro Fil would be better for a system that already has the right balance. SPM is more restrained and less harmonically rich in the higher frequencies too. The highs just don’t float and resonate like they do through Quattro Fil. Furthermore, Quattro Fil is more dynamic-sounding and more transparent than SPM -- but not by a lot. You really have to compare well-broken-in and currently in-use SPM and Quattro Fil to each other to notice these differences. Use either cable after it has been sitting around unused for a week or more and many of the differences won’t be audible. I still enjoy the sound of SPM Reference and find it a worthy, lower-cost companion to Quattro Fil. If your system is a little over energetic on top and a little warmth-shy down below, SPM Reference could be the real deal for you. You should understand that I’m not talking about great gobs of difference here -- your lean and harsh solid-state gear from the 1980s or earlier isn’t going to become listenable with SPM Reference. We’re talking about small differences.

Moving right along, next up are the $1650 Magnan Signature interconnects. These proved again that matching levels is required to get an accurate relative sense for what the Magnan Signature cables really sound like. The 30k-ohm impedance of the Magnan Signature interconnects means you have to crank up the volume control a fair amount to get the same playback level. Once I got levels matched, there was a rather easily recognizable difference. Quattro Fil had a cleaner, higher precision, clinically perfect sound -- very neutral, very transparent. Magnan Signature sounded seductive, liquid, rich (like real cream in your coffee versus 2% milk). Magnan Signature gives up a slight amount of precision, mostly below 100Hz, for the heightened artistic flair it possesses. The Magnans did cymbals with a more realistic combination of "shshshsh" and "ring," yet I could not feel unsatisfied by the cymbals with Quattro Fil in use. Quattro Fil rendered Maria Marquez on Daboa’s From the Gekko [Triple Earth trecd 115] as a wonderful and expressive vocalist. Magnan Signature rendered her with glints of sensuality and fullness of tone that were small but attention-grabbing. The dense mix and high energy on many of the tracks on The Mavericks’ Trampoline [Uni/MCA Nashville 70018] are rendered with clarity and precision by Quattro Fil. On the same tracks, the Magnan Signature interconnect gives a sense of richness and roundness of tone that is most attractive and inviting. Both cables create a most pleasing sense of space and proportion -- large, precise, believable, and even enveloping with some recordings.

In the end, the choice for people shopping in this price range is going to be the sound that pleases them the most. These two cables don’t sound the same, but there is not a clear winner. During listening sessions, I would rarely find myself terribly interested in changing cables no matter which one I was listening to at the time.

Enough already; "it’s only a cable!"

OK, I’m almost outta here -- just a few overly obsequious sentences to close the review. (Nah, I can't do that to ya; let's get this over with!) Don’t ever tell me "it’s only a cable." Cables are too important to be dismissed that easily, and Nordost Quattro Fil proves it.

...Doug Blackburn
db@soundstage.com