˻ PREMIERE ˼

⌈ WK AUDIO is the company of Witold Kaminski, founded in 2017 in Plichtów, near Lodz. An architect by profession, passionate about music and author of columns in ‘High Fidelity’ on culture in the broadest sense, it offers a record clamp, an anti-vibration platform and several cable series. We are testing an RCA analogue interconnect belonging to TheRed series. It is its premiere. ⌋

THE THING you will notice as soon as you take the new WK Audio cable out of the wooden box it comes in is its beauty. I say this quite seriously, without any subtext. TheRed Signal RCA just looks very nice. The combination of the strong red colour with the black terminations and silver elements of the plugs, and the matte aluminium of the cubes connecting the actual cable and its terminations, has produced an exceptionally attractive effect.

The first cable from this manufacturer's top series, TheRed Power, looked equally good. By the way, at the time we tested it it was called ‘TheRed’ and it was only after the introduction of the loudspeaker cables that it became necessary to differentiate between the different models within the series. And so there are: TheRed Power, TheRed Speakers and TheRed Signal; the latter in two versions - RCA and XLR.

»«

| A few simple words…

WITOLD KAMIŃSKI
Owner, designer

⸜ TheRed Signal is available with RCA and XLR termination

MY LATEST CABLE was developed in response to market demand and requests from customers and distributors to add an interconnect to the range. Work on it continued non-stop from October 2023. It was eight months of painstaking testing, eliminating numerous prototypes and testing new ideas.

In TheRed Signal cable, as in all other WK AUDIO cables, a very strong emphasis is placed on issues of vibration protection of the conductors. Aluminium cubes, as with TheRed Power cable, are essential elements of this system.

TheRed Signal is made from silver-plated copper of very high purity and has a proprietary braiding. The cable comes in two versions, balanced and unbalanced. These versions differ in the way the signal is routed.

Both versions of the cable use the latest top-of-the-range FURUTECH NCF technology terminations. The unbalanced version is fitted with RCA CF-102 NCF R plugs and the balanced version with XLR CF-601M/602F R NCF plugs. The standard cable length is 1.5 metres. Other lengths are available on request. WK

»«

AS WITEK WRITES, THERED INTERCONNECT benefits from a proprietary weave. This means that the conductors in it are hand-braided in an independently developed topology. Their runs can be felt with the fingers under the braid.

Classic interconnects were and are coaxial constructions, in which we have one or more conductors inside an outer shield. This is a proven method of eliminating the effects of high-frequency interference on the signal. However, it has its problems, related to the fact that such a cable behaves like a low-pass filter.

This is why many companies have moved away from designs of this type and eliminate interference by interleaving insulated conductors, signal and ground, which they have developed. One of the first companies I know of that had a ‘patent’ of this type is the American Kimber Kable. This is done differently by Synergistic Research - more → HERE - and still differently by Soyaton - test → HERE. Braiding of this type can be done by hand or by machine - in the case of small companies such as WK Audio it is always the former.

Witek Kamiński also devoted a lot of work to vibration damping. I would like to remind you that the noise generated in a cable, and caused by its vibrations, whether induced by the flow of current or external, is called electrical mode noise. This is currently one of the most important areas of activity for companies, because it is not easy to eliminate. This is why cables are sometimes very thick. It's not about the cross-section of the wires it's made of, but about vibration damping.

However, because the plugs, at least those commonly available, are designed for cables with relatively small diameters, at some point before the end of the cable, the design of the cable has to be altered to accommodate them. The place where pieces of different diameters join can be masked in several different ways. The one chosen by WK Audio is currently the most popular, although also the most expensive - these are aluminium pieces bolted together from two parts.

They offer additional advantages: they become a part of the vibration damping system and information about the cable can be printed on them. And they look much better than shrink sleeves. TheRed Signal RCA cables show the company logo, the name of the series, the manufacturer's website and the fact that the cables are handmade in Poland.

And then there are markings - one of which indicates the direction of connection of the interconnects - due to their construction, the cables are directional - but there are also two others: ‘plus’ and “minus”. They do not make much sense here and would rather refer to the speaker cables of the same series, where we have separate runs for, precisely, the positive and negative branches. Interesting fact - in all materials WK Audio consistently uses the name TheRed, and on the connectors it is written separately: The Red.

And then there are the plugs. This is as important an element of a cable design as the conductors themselves and their topology. In cables from TheRed series, the company uses expensive, but really very good plugs from the Japanese company Furutech, belonging to the NFC series, model RCA CF-102 NCF R. Its central pin is made of OCC copper coated with a layer of silver and rhodium and subjected to the Alpha process, i.e. cryogenisation. The body too, made of copper alloy, is subjected to the same treatment.

The NFC letters in the name indicate that the crystalline material used for the plug has two important properties. Firstly, it generates negative ions, which eliminate electrostatic charges. Secondly, it converts heat energy, created by vibrations, into far infrared. Furutech combines this material with a powder made of ceramic and carbon particles, through which it achieves, it says, additional damping properties through a piezoelectric effect. NFC stands for Nano Crystal² Formula.

TheRed Signal RCA cable comes in a simple wooden box lined with foam. Its lid bears the company's logo and the model name on a plate attached to the side.

▌ SOUND

HOW WE LISTENED • The interconnect from WK Audio was tested in the HIGH FIDELITY reference system. It was compared to the reference interconnects, Siltech Triple Crown, and connected the RCA output (WBT Nextgen sockets, gold-plated) of the Ayon Audio CD-35 HF Edition SACD player and the input of the same company's Spheris III line preamplifier (again, WBT Nextgen sockets, gold-plated).

It was a AA/BB/A and BB/AA/B comparison with the familiar A and B. The song excerpts listened to were between one and two minutes long. The comparison was not instantaneous - the pauses were about ten seconds long, needed for switching the cables and the preamplifier input.

» RECORDINGS USED FOR THE TEST ⸜ a selection

⸜ EVA CASSIDY, Songbird, Blix Street Records/JVC VICJ-010-0045, XRCD24 (1998/2010).
⸜ JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise, Columbia/Sony Music Japan SICP-30956, BSCD2 (2016).
⸜ GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA, Missarum Liber Primus, wyk. Coro Polifonico dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, dyr. Roberti Gabbiani, Fonè 033 3SACD, 3 x SACD/CD (2003).
⸜ DONALD FAGEN, The Nightfly, Warner Bros. Records/Warner Records (Japan) WPCR-14170, seria „Warner Premium Sound”, SACD/CD (1982/2011).
⸜ DOMINIC MILLER, Vagabound, ECM Records ECM 2704 458 9048 (2023).

»«

WITEK KAMIŃSKI'S LATEST CABLE presents its own separate world. The basic elements of the sound we are talking about are within the mainstream of what is accepted as proper in audio. And yet, after listening to how the cable modifies the signal, it is impossible not to notice that specific decisions were made in its tuning.

And that, first and foremost, is smoothness. I don't know if that's what it was all about, and if so, if that's all it was about, but when you listen to any of the music, it really could be either an excellent reissue of a Blue Note album or a clunky compilation of the star's greatest hits from three decades ago, you'll hear the same thing I did on the very first track.

The effect I'm talking about manifests itself in driving the midrange as if we were talking about silk. Say the word out loud, and immediately an image ‘jumps out’ at us, a very specific image, associated with smoothness, fluidity and even a slight slip. This was the case, for example, when I listened to EVA CASSIDI singing her version of a Sting song entitled ˻ 1 ˺ Fields of Gold; it originally appeared on the 1993 album Ten Summoner's Tales.

Recordings featuring her tend to have emphasized sibilants and a long reverb, incidentally also quite bright. TheRed showed her voice a little further than the reference cables, more blended into the background and noticeably warmer. It really wasn't warm at all - which is why I spoke earlier of smoothness rather than warming. The sibilants were strong with it, just as they were in the recording, but the midrange was treated with special honors. As if someone had put a mesh of fine, soft material over the microphone.

But also the tested interconnect doesn't put out the top, by any means. And a damped trumpet in the next track on the Songbird ˻ 2 ˺ Wade in the Water, and the Hammond organ, and the guitar in the beautiful ˻ 3 ˺ Autumn Leaves, these were strong, clear instruments. Also, the noise, really strong in these recordings, was rendered in the way I was used to. It's clear, full, but also at the same time placed behind the sounds.

So on the one hand there is a lowering of the sound, mainly by slightly withdrawing the midrange attack and smoothing it out, but on the other we get a resonant, clear treble that opens up what might otherwise seem too dark.

And this is not a dark cable after all. It's smooth, it's dense, but that's thanks to the resolution. Sometimes writing this I feel like I'm boring you, but I feel it's necessary: resolving is not the same as detailed. The detail here is good, but not exceptional, as is the selectivity - also OK, but not great. Resolution, on the other hand, is very good.

That's why the scene in front of me was alive and pulsating. In the sense that it was a presentation in which a lot was happening. And yet, at the same time, you could tell that it was quite a mellow sound. In the sense that, as I said, it was smooth. This perception is helped by the fact that WK Audio's TheRed series cables, the way I see it, are geared towards timbre and consonance. The precision of the bass attack is therefore slightly forgiven in the name of giving the performance the right mass, scale and powerful decay.

It was already perfectly audible with the Cassidy album, but it came out even better with JEAN-MICHEL JARRE's tracks from Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise. R˻ 3 ˺ Brick England, a great track by the way, is heavy on the synths at the bottom end of the range, which is also helped by the low-pitched ‘kick-drum’ of electronic percussion. The recording itself doesn't have a particularly tight bass, being ‘voluminous’ rather than punchy. But the WK Audio cable followed the same direction. That is, it saturated the sound, ‘anointed it’, if I may say so, so that it is fun to listen to in a good system.

Because it is all about emotion. In this case, emotion built on a dense midrange sound with a slightly weighted texture. Another track on the ˻ 4 ˺ These Creatures album, recorded with Julia Holter, is a quiet, iridescent piece in stereoscopic space with a strong bottom end. But the most important thing about it is the scale - it's big playing. TheRed captures this brilliantly, not exposing the vocals, giving the whole thing gravitas, scale.

That's why it's such fun to play, such interesting listening. After all, if something is midrange-oriented, it usually boosts it, drawing out vocals and withdrawing the extremes of the band. Often - to the point of boredom. There is none of that here. I would even say that, at first glance, the midrange is withdrawn because it has a smoother attack, not as pronounced as the treble. So when playing this kind of heavy, synth-heavy music or strong rock with TheRed RCA, I would have it in the back of my mind that it would have to be a fast system with short bass. And that's because the Polish cable tweaks it a bit. In such a system it would be a sort of ‘colour palette’ added to the rhythm.

WITH CLASSICAL MUSIC, the shifts I spoke of above, before the disc description table, will produce an exceptional effect, no matter what system we listen to it on. And that's because the WK Audio will bring out beautiful timbres, do justice to vocals and instruments, and emphasize the intimacy of the presentation. Unless it's a large orchestra, in which case it will be even different: it will add power and force. But with smaller ensembles, it is the intimacy and closeness that will be the qualities that will shape the whole performance.

Such was the case with the Coro Polifonico dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia choir from the GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA CD, Missarum Liber Primus. This is a recording by the Italian label Fonè, which has very distinctive features. One is the lack of additional reverberations, making recordings have a close perspective. The other is the lack of production, in the sense of - editing. And this means that we are talking about ‘raw’ material rather than recordings of the likes of AliaVox or - even more so - Decca.

The Polish cable showed these qualities very nicely, adding to what I mentioned at the beginning: smoothness and intimacy. The stronger lower midrange made the sound big, despite the lack of reverb, which in other recordings scales the music, adding depth. The sound with this cable was intimate and ‘here and now’. Therefore, male vocals, usually slightly withdrawn by the properties of microphones, which lose bass with distance, exposing the higher notes, and female vocals, sounded very nice. With the album in question, TheRed showed a warm lower midrange and strong tonal saturation.

It offers a unique opportunity to play pleasantly albums that usually sound quite emotionally flat and bright. A good example is DONALD FAGEN's The Nightfly. Recorded on a 3M digital tape recorder (16/44.1), when sound engineers still did not understand what this new tool was, it has too light, too flat a sound. It lacks the dynamics that digital tape recorders can render in an incredible way - see Dire Straits and Brothers in Arms - as long as the sound engineers knew how to do it. Yes, often recordings from the early days of ‘digital’ sound light and flat. But not so with TheRed.

Although this is not a cable that would warm up anything on its own. It was the combination of qualities mentioned above that made even Fagen's vocals, usually far out in the mix, light and high, sound really cool here. In truth, a cable like this will give many systems the ability to perform in the way their owners have dreamed of. It does this without exaggerating and without overtly modifying the sound. Shifts of emphasis are sufficient.

▌ Podsumowanie

ECM SOUND lovers, those who like to listen to classical music in an intimate way, and those for whom many of their favourite records sound in a way that is not ‘audiophile’ enough, it is to you that I turn: TheRed from WK Audio will change your perception of these recordings. It is a resolving cable with a tight midrange but at the same time with strong range extremes. On the one hand smooth, as if our attention is focused on the midrange, and on the other open.

DOMINIC MILLER's guitar from the beautiful Vagabound album was thus large in scale, thick and warm. Although this is not a cable that would warm the sound. Rather, it tightens it up, smoothing out the attack of the midrange rather than exposing it. After all, both vocals and guitar were presented deep in the stage, they did not jump out in front of it, the performers did not ‘sit’ on our laps.

It is a cable that is supposed to saturate the timbres and enrich them. A cable that gives us freedom in the choice of repertoire, as there are no ‘unlistenable’ discs for it. It slightly masks their flaws, but above all it brings out the timbres. A system with TheRed should have a fast, short bass, because the cable will not give full control over its bottom end, it will saturate this timbral range, but it will not be super punctual. It is a refining cable, not a ‘revealing’ one. And this, believe me, is what the vast majority of audio systems need. That is - it needs a WK Audio interconnect. ●

»«

THIS TEST HAS BEEN DESIGNED ACCORDING TO THE GUIDELINES adopted by the Association of International Audiophile Publications, an international audio press association concerned with ethical and professional standards in our industry, of which HIGH FIDELITY is a founding member. More about the association and its constituent titles → HERE.

→ www.AIAP-online.org