KUBALA-SOSNA Emotion

MJ08.01.2019

Interconnects

There was a time when components were designed with passion rather than for profit. The Emotion interconnect is such an example. I met one of the authors, Joe Kubala, and he breathes his love for music. On top of that the Emotion is a long-time reference of my Audiodrom colleague so I was curious to audition it, after years, in my own system.

Function and form

90%

Ease of use

86%

Sound

94%

Appearance

Well, what do we know about the Kubala-Sosna’s Emotion interconnect? It is quite a massive bundle of copper wires that is braided and optimized for a minimum ratio of capacitance to inductance. The interconnect is covered in a beautiful deep blue textile mesh and despite its diameter it is quite flexible. The Emotion was developed years ago with a kind of trial & error approach yet it ate competitors alive. Which is a proof that there is nothing wrong with the method if your ears are sharp and you have time to do this – the tandem of Joe Kubala and Howard Sosna have both. Still, for doubters, the geometry of K-S cables has been patented under U.S. patent US7446258.

I spent few weeks with the Emotion in my system and stopped wondering why TR was keeping the Emotion as his reference cable.

Bass management

Weight

Slam

Articulation

The trickiest part of the Emotion is its bass. It is weighty and prominent and represents the only cable’s departure from otherwise well balanced tonality. It will depend on your system and your room how the result will sound in the end. In my system I could hear the bass that was not necessarily deeper but definitely weightier – it gave denser and more bombastic qualities to the excellent recording of Respighi performed by Eiji Oue and Minnesota Orchestra (Reference Recordings). If I wanted I could just shelve the bass down by 0.5dB on my Accuphase DG-58 processor and got similar balance like with my reference, the AudioQuest Wild Blue Yonder interconnects. On many system the extra weight will be a blessing, if not then moving speakers few inches from walls do the same trick. This is where the trickiness of the Kubala-Sosna Emotion ends, the rest is only beautiful.

Clarity & delicacy

Detail

Air

Transparency

If you love detail in music then you will get tons of it with the Emotion. It is a very resolved interconnect and no surprise that Pepe Romero’s acoustic guitar (This is K2HD sound FIM sampler) was elegantly dissected. I could hear every single string resonance on the guitar neck yet the abundance of the detail was never a trade-off for musical coherence. I wished transients might be sharper as they exhibited slight roundness but I appreciated non-fatiguing nature of the Emotion.

Tonal accuracy

Timbre

Dynamics

Temporal resolution

In direct comparison with the aforementioned AudioQuest Wild Blue Yonder the Kubala-Sosna Emotion was the one more voluptuous sounding. It was like a Bentley where the WBY had more sporty nature. The Emotion nicely fills the gap between the quite expensive AudioQuest and the quite affordable Cardas Clear that we reviewed earlier. The Emotion improves on the Clear with dynamics and openness and at the same time it falls behind the WBY’s neutrality with more romantic colours.

Spatial resolution

Holography

Soundstage width

Soundstage depth

What to say about the Emotion’s soundstage – it just is. The images were firmly locked in space and the combination of the imaging and the resolution gave wonderful in-room presence to e.g. marimba. The slightest silky veil on Emotion’s highs suppresses recorded ambience so the interconnect’s canvas is really dark. The benefit is that all the other sounds stand out with bigger contrast and the cable provides a great sense of dynamism.

To wrap up the Kubala-Sosna Emotion acknowledges after years its now legendary status. I advise to test it before buying to make sure it fits in.

Price as reviewed:93 000,- Kč

Recommended resellers

High-End Audio Studio, Praha, tel. +420 224 256 844

Manufacturer's website: http://www.kscables.com/

Associated components

Sources: Accuphase DP-720, Accuphase DG-58
Amplifiers: TAD-M2500 MkII, Mark Levinson No. 326S
Interconnects and speaker cables: Audioquest Vodka, Audioquest Redwood, Audioquest Wild
Loudspeakers: TAD Evolution One E1
Power conditioning: Shunyata Research Denali, Nordost Valhalla, Synergistic Research Atmosphere Level 2

Gallery

89%

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