hen in April 2013 Hendri Ramli asked me if I would be willing to test his cables in "High Fidelity", I knew nothing about his company - this was the first time that I heard its name, VERMÖUTH AUDIO. This should have really been surprising considering the fact that this is a one-man micro-company with all its products hand-made from components purchased from sub-contractors. That’s what this company was back then and that’s what it is still today. When some time later his cables arrived for the test - these were interconnects from the Black Pearl series and Red Velvet loudspeaker cables - everything that he wrote me about checked out (HF | No. 119).

And he wrote about the fact that he was a small company based in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, where "his heart" was, and where he moved to from Sumatra. Also, that he founded it two years earlier, in 2010, and that Vermöuth Audio was founded at the instigation of his clients, for whom he had made cables, electronics and loudspeakers before. He invested all his savings in the company then and worked really hard in order to provide customers with inexpensive but great-sounding cables. He also wrote: "I founded Vermöuth out of sheer passion for high-end audio and my goal is to share this passion with others."

His top products were the Red Velvet loudspeaker cables and the Black Pearl MkII interconnect. The word 'top' should be properly enclosed in quotes, because all it took was a peek into his price list to find out something wasn’t quite right - as I wrote in the introduction to that test one experienced a cognitive dissonance. And that's because these cable looked great, sounded amazing and were surprisingly inexpensive. Let's add that "High Fidelity" was the first audio magazine from outside Indonesia that tested Vermöuth Audio cables.

HENDRI RAMLI
HENDRI RAMLI Owner, designer

Hendri Ramli himself

WOJCIECH PACUŁA: Tell me about your approach to designing cables – after all only the biggest manufacturers actually design and make cables…
HENDRI RAMLI: Yes, it’s true, most cable manufacturers purchase components form a few biggest companies, me included. I order cable using my own design (I attached the drawing of the design). It is a half finished cable in spool from Wanlung Taiwan.All the material used are the high quality from the OCC copper conductor even for the shield., Teflon insulation, several Teflon tape layer.

A cross-section of the cable ordered by Hendri

Only a few manufacturers know how to make OCC conductor, right?
Yes, Wanlung is one of the total of 4 manufactures who hold OCC patent. From what I know, almost half of the high end cable in the world come from Wanlung.

Weren’t you tempted to make your cables from the scratch?
No, I don't want to make fully handmade cable because it's really hard to keep the product consistency and also since I work alone so I have to work very efficiently. So the half finished cable also include the cable sleeving, firstly because to make it more time efficient and also the finish result is smooth without any edge/line from the two side of the cable.

Bali by Hendri Ramli

The RCA version of the Reference interconnect that we’ve received for a review includes additional name, the RCA-FT01-Rho-Ho – what does it mean?
The RCA-FT01-Rho-Ho is a type of a connector that is used on this cable. The RCA plug is also specially made using full tellurium copper rhodium plated contact areas. It also comes from Taiwan manufacturer. For all the connectors I use, I prefer to order the special version from the manufacturer because if you want to get the best quality from the branded product, it is impossible to cost down the retail and also it will create different image because I develop and special made my own connectors."

| REFERENCE

Five years have passed since the first test and a lot has changed in the company - as it seems today it is also well-known outside Indonesia, which - I would like to believe - "High Fidelity" is in some small part also responsible for. The lineup has also increased significantly. The Red Velvet and Black Pearl series are still there, but there are also two even cheaper series, Rhapsody and Serenade. Equally important seems to be the fact that there is now also the most expensive, so far, series with an adequate name REFERENCE.

The series currently includes a power cable and an analog interconnect in two versions - RCA and XLR; we're testing the former. Its design and appearance are fantastic, which comes as no surprise considering the brand. These are quite flexible cables with a white braid with a black thread and great-looking connectors. The dielectrics are PTFE tapes, in other words Teflon, combined with Mylar tape covered with copper. There are hollow tubes between the conductor wires. They are part of the vibration damping system.

The plugs are made of tellurium copper coated directly, without intermediary elements, with rhodium. These are screwed-on connectors - the clamp is really strong and in order to plug them into the socket or remove them, the body should be unscrewed almost to the end. The company logo is placed on the caps, followed by information about left or right channel. The cables come in nice, simple boxes made of thick cardboard, in cotton pouches - left and right channel packed separately.

Hendri emphasizes that their most important feature is the conductor material - it is OCC copper wire, with wires of various diameters and shapes - round and rectangular - and a braided screen made of the same copper.

The Vermöuth Audio Reference was tested in the „High Fidelity’s” reference system and it connected the Ayon Audio CD-35 HF Edition SACD Player with Ayon Audio Spheris III preamplifier. As reference I used three extremely expensive interconnects, which allowed me to asses the performance of the reviewed cable without any „maybes”. These were: Acoustic Revive RCA-1.0 Absolute-FM, (copper with silver layer), mono-crystal Crystal Cable Absolute Dream (silver-gold) and silver mono-crystal Siltech Triple Crown.

Recordings used for the test (a selec- tion)

• Deep Purple, Now What?!, Edel Germany/Victor Entertainment VIZP-116, 2 x SHM-CD (2013)
• Gary Burton & Chick Corea, Crystal Silence, ECM Records/ Tower Records - Universal Music LLC PROZ-1091, „ECM SA-CD Hybrid Selection”, SACD/CD (1973/2017)
• Matt Dusk, JetSetJazz, Magic Records 771 961 3, CD (2018);
• Mike Oldfield, Man On The Rocks, Virgin/Universal Music LCC UICY-15274, SHM-CD (2014)
• Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come, Atlantic Records/ORG Music ORGM-1081, SACD/CD (1959/2013)
• Pantera, The Great Southern Trendkill, East West Records/Rhino/Warner Music Japan WPCR-17551/2, „20th Anniversary Edition | 2016 Remasters”, 2 x CD (1996/2016)
• Jan Garbarek, The Hilliard Ensemble, Officium, ECM Records ECM 1525, „ECM New Series”, CD (1994)

We have never met with Hendri personally, so despite almost nine years of correspondence, we are somewhat strangers to each other. So I do not know how it really is. However, if it is true that audio products, good audio products, are a reflection of the personality of their creator, I would describe him as a warm, good person, slightly withdrawn, who never exerts his opinion, and instead, he is trying to find a compromise. Hendri could be a person who likes to eat well and who enjoys life :)

I have no idea how accurate is the above description. This kind of image, however, emerges after listening to the tested cable and comparing it to my reference cables. Because the Vermöuth Audio Reference Interconnect sounds like it is on vacation - sunny, cheerful and carefree. It offers a warm, sweet sound, with the emphasized part of the bass, which gives the presentation some volume and "power".

The warm side shows up on any album. To a certain extent it is a characteristic feature of the conductor the interconnect was made of - the Ohno Continuous Casting - but it does not come only from this material. This is obviously a result of a combination of specific conductors, their topology, selection of dielectrics and connectors. As usual, it the combination of all elements that is responsible for sonic performance, not of any individual component. And in this case the performance it delivered allowed me to enjoy any and every CD that came to my mind.

Jan Garbarek with Hilliard Ensemble and Officium on the ECM release? - no problem. Gary Burton and Chick Corea’s SACD from the same label? - yup, I loved it too. Not so well-recorded album Man On the Rocks by Mike Oldfield (but this is still Oldfield!), which obviously couldn’t be saved even by the Japanese edition on SHM-CD? - It still sounded pretty good. The Indonesian cable seems unmoved even when force to play The Great Southern Trendkill by Panther. No wonder that Deep Purple from Now What?! performed with the grace and fluency of professionals.

It is so, that when testing audio products I reach for more and more discs from my shelves - and I have them scattered all over the house - but only to the point when I start to feel uncomfortable with the sound. Most often this happens somewhere around Maroon V, hard rock and - in general - highly compressed pop recordings. The Reference cables do not create such a "glass ceiling" for a listener, one can listen to any music with them without fearing that something "will be unlistenable" or sound unpleasantly.

The first element is the already mentioned warmth. It is commonly associated with a sweetened, slightly withdrawn treble. Even the ultra-fast Crystal Cable Absolute Dream is not as warm. Yet, the Vermöuth Audio did not sound muddy, did not put me to sleep. It's interesting, because the warmth at some point makes you drowsy, and in this case it did not. On the contrary - these are cables that perfectly keep the rhythm and reflect the pulse of recordings. It was not a coincidence that Pantera sounded powerful and was pushing forward, but even more importantly, Matt Dusk from his JetSetJazzalbum was swinging freely, without creating a feeling like it was already five in the morning and all guests of the casino have already fell asleep.

It so happens, as it seems to me, because the bass with the Reference is very active. It's not a simple case of emphasizing bass range to make an impression on listener, but to deepen its energy. This was perfectly demonstrated on the Panther disc, recorded in a quite light and flat manner which with the Reference sounded quite nice, with fire. But it was even more obvious with Deep Purple. The album opens with A Simple Song with a calmly developed, great riff. And this guitar riff has a beautiful depth, with the tested cable conveyed without any problem.

The warmth in question is not a simple effect of warming the sound up, based on tone manipulation, because it always leads to bringing the foreground closer to the listener. The Reference does the opposite -it slightly distances it. This is a nice, slightly distanced sound with smooth edges, great dynamics and strong bass

The depth of the soundstage is very good, you can also talk about good differentiation of layers and nice three-dimensionality. But, let me repeat, important things are happening in front of us. Which was pretty obvious with Coleman's album The Shape of Jazz to Come, which opens with an unison of a saxophone of the leader and Donald Cherry’s cornet. The instruments are placed extremely far apart in both channels and enter very strongly, much stronger than the rhythmic section that we "see" on the axis. Hendri's cables showed this attack very well, but also gently enlarged the drums and double bass. It was not a problem in any way, but this is how these cables sounded like.

Summary

A beautiful, „polished” sound, density, powerful bass and sweet top – these are main sonic features of this cable. Despite a relatively low price – show me another, true reference line that costs only that much! – it surely can be used even in quite pricey systems. It will dot the „is” and cross the „ts” for it, it won’t be a the weakest link.

And only if you’re looking for highly detailed sound, if you need even better resolution or wider soundstage you need to look for some other cables. But it will also mean spending much, much more money for it and it might mean that you will have to give up some of Reference’s qualities. Way to go Hendri! ■