XINDAK SC-01
Speaker cables
The gold-plated banana connectors are a quite interesting feature of the SC-01: expandable springs of this hollow bananas tightly expands in speakers' terminals so that it is very difficult to get them out again. This is a good thing as you can be sure that the contact is perfect and lossless.
Function and form
The Xindak SC-01 uses four solid core OFC copper wires that are surrounded by strand of 60 fine wires encapsulated in a Teflon dielectric. The total cross section area of the SC-01 is 2x3,5mm2.
The Xindak SC-01 is an industrially looking wire and its stiffness with bend radius over 70mm prevents it from being really user friendly. Not only is the SC-01 stiff, it is heavy too. The weight of 1.3kg easily knocks over your minimonitors from their stands so if you need a lightweight cable look elsewhere (Nordost has some nice performers with the same length of White Lightning weighing just 200g).
There are few features that make the Xindak SC-01 interesting. It is a directional cable and you should respect the arrows that can be found all over the body of the cable and its connectors – the signal should flow in the direction of arrows. If you take the risk of Chinese prosecution and reverse the SC-01 the sound does not show any noticeable detoriation – subjectively it may be a bit less relaxed and a bit more bleached but I would not swear on it. However, both the observations seems to be logic as the directionality of a cable has something to do with shielding of the cable and both artifacts – noise and restlessness – are usually accompanying the EMI.
Bass management
This review is a part of The Low and Mid-tier Speaker Cables Megatest that includes 18 different speaker cables. The pilot article is available at SPECIAL EDITION REVIEWS section of Audiodrom.
Clarity & delicacy
The SC-01 is an airy and open cable and it has a very good bass too, considering its price level. Though it does not have the fullness of the Vincent Premium I liked the way it presented the bass line in In The Wee Small Hours of The Morning including the hint of the instrument’s body.
The Xindak SC-01 builts its strengths on higher mids which inevitably results into highlighting the upper registries of human voices and vocals, acoustic and electric guitars or brushed cymbals, and causes the SC-01 not to be neutral. On the other hand, this deviation is also the reason of the cable’s sonic attractivity as a listener has better insight into what happens in the music, including nuances like breathing of an interpret or resonances of a drum’s rim. Simply you hear more and this itself will appeal to many.
Tonal accuracy
The other departure of the SC-01 from real high-end stuff can be defined as lack of colors and textures. The Xindak, unlike our reference Krautwire Fractal, cannot retrieve the harmonic information of a sound and you will be missing the timbral accuracy of acoustic instruments in jazz or classical music. Therefore it ends up to be flat and uninvolving on certain genres. Should you want to enjoy a more mature cable skip the Xindak and move to Rapport YPB621B instead.
Spatial resolution
The lateral soundstaging of the SC-01 is very good and extends well outside the speakers, the depth is somewhat compressed (compared to the best cables in the test) but excellent (compared to the SC-01’s price level). The Xindak is a leap forward from the stock cables from supermarkets and could be heartily recommended as an excellent entry-level solution.
Recommended resellers
HTP Studio, Praha, tel. +420 606 346 822
Manufacturer's website: http://www.xindak.com
Associated components
- Sources: Primare CD32, Luxman D-05 and Accuphase DP-510
- Amplifiers: Primare I32, Luxman L-590AX a Accuphase E-560
- Interconnects and speaker cables: Krautwire Fractal, Cardas Clear, Homegrown Audio DNA
- Loudspeakers: Audio Physic Virgo V, Dynaudio Confidence C1 and Xavian Giulia, Chario Constellation, Xavian Preludio, Revel Ultima Studio2, B&W 805 Diamond and Atohm G 1.0
- Power conditioning: Nordost Thor (modified), Snakeblock, Nordost Valhalla
Gallery
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