I have just read a review on the Inakustik Referenz LS-4004 AIR loudspeaker cables by Edgar Kramer from SoundStage Australia.
At $10,000 per 3mtr pair I understand that this particular cable is not going to be for everyone (which is a shame because it is very, very good). However there was one thread throughout the review that struck a chord with me.
Bill Low from AudioQuest once told me that no cable can improve a system, the best cable is the one that takes the least away from it. Common-sense when you think about it.
Edgar’s review mentions, more than once, the neutrality of this cable. That is it neither adds to nor takes anything away from the rest of the system. This allows the character of your components to shine through, and hopefully if they are also sufficiently neutral, this extends all the way back to the source – i.e. the music itself. All too often we hear cables being described as ‘warm’, ‘’bright’, ‘dark’ etc. This means that they have a character of their own and this is being imposed on the rest of the system, and therefore the music itself.
While many argue that you can use cable to tone down an overly bright system, or add life to a dull system, this is still not a desirable attribute for any cable manufacturer. I have even heard of cables that ‘improve the image’ if the system – this is rubbish. If one cable has better ‘image’ properties than another it simply means that the second cable is destroying the image presented by the electronics, rather than the first one enhancing it.
Thankfully this neutrality is a characteristic of the complete Inakustik range. We have been singing the praises of this brand for some months now, and a considerable number of our clients also agree with us. The vast majority of Inakustik cables are hand made in Germany – including all speaker cables, even their $4.00/mtr. Star cable. The construction quality is excellent – as you would expect from Germany – and even taking the $10,000 LS-4004’s into consideration, they are surprisingly well priced, in most cases considerably well under prices being asked for much of the opposition.
This is a range of cables, both speaker and interconnect, which does exactly what it should do, and for the most part that is nothing!
