Cable Asylum: REVIEW: Homegrown Audio Custom 26g 16wire braid SG Cable by MVA

Model:	Custom 26g 16wire braid SG
Category:	Cable
Suggested Retail Price:	$20@line foot
Description:	26 g 16 wire braid solid core silver in teflon shotgun pair``
Manufacturer URL:	Homegrown Audio
Manufacturer URL:	Homegrown Audio

Review by MVA ( M ) on July 14, 2002 at 19:06:19
IP Address: 68.41.202.141

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for the Custom 26g 16wire braid SG

I have been searching for a high quality speaker cable for many months and have followed numerous threads for consideration. I considered Pure Note, HMS and a smattering of others. While there is much that is offered none said buy me. I was looking for a solid core silver that used 25,26 guage with a braid to get it down to a minimum of 14 guage. SInce I couldn't find what I was looking for premade, I investigated various sources to have it custom made. Homegrown Audio to the rescue. I contacted Kevin Walsh at Homegrown and contracted him to build the cable. The design is a 16 wire braid made up with 26guage silver in teflon. I had to purchase a 100' minimum, but this is still be less expensive than the cables I was considering and would give me what I wanted. Kevin was a pleasure to deal with and very helpfull. It took about a month to get, but Homegrown had just switched to another vendor offering a superior wire to what he had been using, better silver and annealing process.
I made up a 6' pair in shotgun configuration. I ran the wire in opposite direction to ensure the same grain direction going to and from the speaker. Due to the wire being solid core I didn't need to terminate it with spades, no additional connections are the best connections. I treated the ends with Pro Gold and hooked them up.
I took a brief initial listen and they sounded pretty decent. I then diconnected the speaker end and hooked up power resistors and pounded it for a day. The second listen revealed a midrange with a rich bloom and detail but was a bit dull and out of focus on the high end. I reconnected the resistors for another day of break-in and was rewarded with a top end that was getting to where I need it to be.
I now have over 200 hours on them and couldn't be more pleased. The soundstage is endless and always in focus. The micro and macro dynamics are the best I have heard. The midrange flows like a great wine with blooom ,detail and transparency. Vocals are pure and give you a sense of the physical size of the singer. Strings can have a silkiness to them or the aggressiveness required determined by the material played. The high performance is more of the same. Cymbals float in the air, you can almost see them. Harmonic overtones are all there that gets you totally involved in the music. Music I'd listened to more times than I know would bring out goose bumps and leave me wanting more. Listening to Gladiator from cut 13 till the end was in a word spectacular, Gladiator in my opinion can be a system killer as it can sound confused and hard with bass that is unintelligable, when right it is a fantastic musical thrill ride.
Is this a giant killer? I can't answer that, but I would put it up against anything out there and feel confident that its' performance would bear the most indepth scrutiny. This cable can be very economical as you are esentially looking at $80 a stereo foot or $160 for biwire. In my case,the pair I built would be about $500, $1000 biwire.
My system can be seen under MVA.
Mark

Product Weakness: 100' minimum you must terminate
Product Strengths: Dynamic, transparent with midrange and top end to die for.

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	see systems
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	na
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	na
Speakers:	na
Cables/Interconnects:	na
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Jazz, Pop/Rock,Classical
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

Product Weakness:	100' minimum you must terminate
Product Strengths:	Dynamic, transparent with midrange and top end to die for.