If you remember my August editorial, I made a reference to the book Zapiski na biletach (Warszawa 2010) by Michał Olszewski and to the fact that, like the author, I am at a similar stage of life when moving around is not really exciting. As usually, it turned out that life is unpredictable. Just two days after the publication I found myself on a bus traveling along the railroad from Tarnów to Stróże. I know this line by heart – I have used it often for many years. But this time I saw it from another, completely new perspective, from the inside, so to say. I saw the dismantled rails, railroad crossings seen from below, small viaducts and bridges from 1919, the year this railroad was opened, and the beautiful sights of the Beskid Niski mountains.
I was shocked with my refreshed sensitivity to smells, colors and light. The road itself was very similar. A new point of view – the roads are close together, but the bus road is usually at some distance to the rails – maybe the relaxing weather and the fact, that I was going on vacation, or all of this together, made me recall what that environment had meant to me. And it was my second home.
I am telling you all this on purpose: just after returning from Bobowa, which was the goal of my trip, I received cables from the Audiomica Laboratory company for testing. I expected – subconsciously – a company from a big city, like Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz, or Gdansk. So I looked in disbelief at the airway bill – there it was written, and it could be no mistake, that the company is located in Gorlice. In Gorlice! The same Gorlice where I would go with my friends to let off some steam in the Scouts Repository, where we used to spend hours looking at fish in aquariums; the same Gorlice where I spent a whole week in a hospital with a broken nose (yes, these were interesting times…). From Bobowa, where I spent eight years of my elementary school, a bus takes you to Gorlice within about 40 minutes, and it is one of the main towns – apart from Grybów and slightly further away, but still “mine”, Nowy S±cz – where we went to as teenagers. And it is Gorlice where the cables came from.

Audiomica Laboratory is a completely new company. It offers interconnects, loudspeaker cables and power cords. Taking their catalog in hand, visiting their web page or looking at their products, we do not have the feeling of dealing with inexperienced people. Everything looks very professional and there is no “pressure” on immediate success, as if I finally met a Polish manufacturer who understands that this is an investment that returns in years, that a brand name must be built up for a long time, and that this is a very specific branch of business. We will see how things go in the future, but the start is good.
Beside the marketing part, the company also prepared a solid technological background. In their cables we can find many proprietary solutions, or their own versions of other companies’ solutions, not often found elsewhere. One of them, probably the most important for the company, is a system of filters present in nearly all cables of Audiomica.
The company web page describes four kinds of filters:

• DFSS – Double Filtering Signal System
• TFCT – Two Filters Current Tension
• PFSS – Powder Filtering Signal System
• DSS – Double Screen System

DFSS is a combination of capacitance, ripple and induction filters. The dual filtering system consists of two ferro-magnets with an especially planned distance between them, separated by aluminum and Teflon. This divider is an important element of the system. In this case it is made from Teflon covered aluminum tape and PVC isolation. These filters are used in interconnects.
TFCT is a filter found in Audiomica power cords. Electromagnetic interference is damped in two ways. The capacitors collect the interference from the grounding, while the parallel connected chokes increase the impedance of the lines. This filter is mounted on a PCB.
The loudspeaker cable uses the PFSS filter, which employs toroidal cores made from iron powder, used in the DTP and DTSP chokes. Their asset is the high value of saturation inductance, 1-1.5T, which allows the currents flowing through the windings to have much higher values than in case of ferrite cores. Due to the used materials and proper placement of the cores some cable parameters can be modified, for example its inductance.
As you can see, the chokes are the “clou” of the technology used by this manufacturer. This is not a new idea, the best known cables with filters are made by the American company MIT. And you do not even have to go overseas to find such solutions – a similar kind of filter was used by the company Audionova (please look HERE or HERE).
Using such solutions is not bad – I am not writing about their predecessors because of that. I just want you to know that this is one of many, although surprisingly rarely used, ways to make a cable. And Audiomica Lab created their own version of it, and even more – we can clearly see the direction it follows.

For testing we received three cables from the Gray series, the middle of their catalog, located between the more expensive Black and the cheaper Red series. While writing this review, a new white sleeve series was presented on the company web page (the sleeve color is the name of each series), so there may be another line – White, a reference line. The cables come in a double packaging – an outside white cardboard box with a seal carrying the serial number, and an inside signed wooden box. Each box has, except the cable of course, a certificate of authenticity and a nameplate with the cable’s name, series, length, name of the person who made it (the cables are handmade) and the name of the quality control person. All this looks incredibly professional and I assume that this is not just PR but the standard policy of the company.

SOUND

A selection of recordings used in the test:

• Clan of Xymox, Darkest Hour, Trisol, TRI 419 CD, CD;
• Depeche Mode, Personal Jesus, Mute/Reprise, 921328-2, MP CD.
• Eva Cassidy, Imagine, Hot Records, G2-10075, CD.
• Frank Sinatra, Nice’N’Easy, Capitol/Mobile Fidelity, UDCD 790, gold-CD;
• Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Pacific Jazz/EMI Music Japan, TOCJ-90035, HQCD.
• Madeleine Peyroux, Standing On The Rooftop, EmArcy/Pennywell Productions [Japan], UCCU-1335, CD;
• Mel Tormé, Mel Tormé Sings Fred Astaire, Bethlehem/JVC, VICJ-61457, K2HD CD.
• Porcupine Tree, Deadwing, Lava Records, 6793437, CD.
• The Modern Jazz Quartet, Pyramid, Atlantic/Warner Music Japan, WPCR-25125, CD.

Japanese versions of the discs are available on CD Japan.

The Gray Mica Transparent GLD interconnect sounds in a very clean way. This is the best description I can come up with. It modifies timbre in a very limited way, and high speed of the sound is also its asset. I started listening with the comparison to the reference, the Acrolink Mexcel 7N-AD6300, to know where I stand. And even in this extreme comparison you could hear what I just said. The cable from Gorlice was of course different, but in general it had a similar timbre to the reference and did not change dynamics by much.

As I say, the AL cable is tonally balanced. But not completely. Its upper and medium bass is stronger, more edgy. This gives some more weight to music and adds some “density” to vocals. Although it does not add anything from itself, it does not warm anything, or obliterate anything, yet this small modification shapes the sound of the contrabass and vocals – both male and female. The contrabass is stronger, more contoured, and not as pleasantly soft as with the reference. On the other hand, the voices are more nasal.
The picture changes when we compare the Polish cable with competition from a similar price level, for example the Chord Chorus 2. These are splendid cables. The Audiomica has a very similar timbre, rather quick and transparent than romantic. The treble of the Polish cable drew my special attention, it was very clear, resolved and quite substantial. The last characteristic may be not their best asset, but this is quite normal (except for the most expensive and best cables) –we get things either more precise or fuller. The Gray Mica Transparent GLD seems to be a well done, good cable. The interconnect is resolved enough and has its timbre balanced enough to fit into good systems well. I would only be careful with bright electronics, because this is not a cable that would mask or warm anything. On itself it is not cold or harsh, but it will easily show such errors in the system.

The loudspeaker cable has a sound signature almost identical to the interconnect. Not exactly the same, but similar enough to validate using them together in a complete system.
The sound is clean and precise. Attention is drawn by the splendid dynamics of the bass and midrange, higher than with the Chord Epic Twin used as my reference in this price range. So I got a substantial, dynamic and full sound with the disc Pyramid by Modern Jazz Quartet, and with the maxi-single acoustic version of Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. These two CDs are extremely different in timbre and the way of recording, and it was shown by the Audiomica cable. In both cases you could hear clearly what each song was about and what was the main point of interest for the sound engineers.
Bass is a bit different than in the Gray Mica Transparent GLD interconnect. It is not underlined and more coherent. The interconnect tried to “tweak” the sound a little, while with the loudspeaker cable everything was more even. There is the back side of the medal to it – the AL interconnect seems more resolving, there is more air between the instruments. This is not a big difference, but in longer listening sessions, with differentiated material, it can be heard. Both cables have – in absolute categories – quite high resolution, they do not lose much. In relative categories, compared to their price, both are in the top range in this aspect, however the interconnect is closer to the top.

The power cord listened to separately seems less refined than the interconnect and loudspeaker cable, and its assets we can see best in context of a complete system of Audiomica cables. I said before that except for the reference cables it is all about the right compromise between the resolution and fullness (saturation, substantiation). Each manufacturer tends to set it differently, choosing the materials, their geometry, dielectrics and other elements, to achieve their goal.
In the AC Volcan Transparent power cable warmth and saturation dominates resolution and precision. Yes, its sound can be described as “warm”. We have here everything associated with such sound: nice timbre, the point of gravity on the turn of midrange and upper bass and tempered treble.
Switching from the reference power cable, the Acrolink Mexcel 7N-PC9300, to the Audiomica cable changed the sound of my reference system much more than the exchange of the loudspeaker cable or the interconnect. On one hand this is the characteristic of my system – the change of the power cable is always audible better. But with the Volcano Transparent it goes a step further. The reference from this price level, Gigawatt LC-2 mkII is more resolving and subjectively quicker. The thing is that the Volcano is more internally coherent. There is no clear bass control, but at the same time nothing is booming or howling. Bass is just a function of the strong midrange. This was a very nice sound – something that most systems are missing, regardless their price.

The Audiomica Lab cables are best used in a system. I think that they were listened to that way, and each further element was chosen in such a way that it would correct the sound of what was before it. This could be heard best when we put the typical hierarchy of cables upside down and assume that the power cable is most important, then the interconnect, and finally the loudspeaker cable. Here their quality is placed differently, but we can hear that everything is connected and that they were listened to together.
The sound of the cables with filters (the Volcano Transparent power cable was in a version without a filter box) is quite characteristic and – if my memory serves me well, because I could not make a direct comparison – reminded me the set of characteristics of the Audionova cables. This is not the same sound, the cables from Gorlice have a more balanced timbre, but the way the treble and the turn of the treble and midrange are presented seem very similar. Is this the effect of the used filters or the conductors – I do not know. They are very well made, very nicely packaged cables coming from a company that pays attention to each and every detail. The cables are flexible, which will be appreciated by the people who need to place them in a system or on the floor. I think they are worth their price. As in each case, their sound must be associated with a given audio system. The cables have a very good resolution, and even the power cable used in a complete Gray system does not change that. Gorlice being the source of cables? Just a moment ago I would not believe that – but here we have it “in statu nascendi”, in a way of speaking.

DESCRIPTION

Cables from the Gray series have their external sleeves in a grey color. They are supplied in wooden boxes, and those are hidden inside sealed carton boxes.
Grey Mica Transparent GLD is a flexible cable, with a can housing the DFSS filter. The cables are terminated with gold plated RCA plugs and available in various lengths. The cables have a semi-balanced construction, with identical positive and negative runs, surrounded with a shield connected on the source side. Each run is made from 20 thin wires of silver plated copper. The shield is also made from copper and also silver plated. There is a metalized foil beneath it – as a whole, it provides 96% shielding. The FEP dielectric is applied mechanically. The filling, which stabilizes mechanically the conductor runs, is made from cotton fiber. The cables have no channel markings, which may make connecting more difficult.

The Diamond Gold loudspeaker cable is very flexible and has cans housing the PFSS filters. It is terminated with brilliant BFA plugs. Each cable consists of four runs of OFC copper, 80 wires each. The manufacturer quotes very high purity of the copper, 8N (99,999999%) – I do not think they are not telling the truth, but that they measure purity in a different way than for example companies like Acrolink, Oyaide or Furutech. Especially Acrolink people are dismissing this. The FEP dielectric is applied mechanically.

The Volcano Transparent power cable, here tested in the version without the filter bin. It is made from three runs of 50 wires of OFC copper, each in a double shield – made from aluminum foil and metalized foil. It is very flexible and terminated with solid plugs.