Soundstage!

June 1996

Audio Magic Sorcerer
You Cast A Spell On Me


Todd Warnke begins...

Preconceptions. We all have 'em. Sometimes they're helpful, but usually they just get in the way. Still, in spite of their harm, they are very hard to shake. Fortunately, every so often something happens to debunk one of them. Having spent time with various silver wires in my system (both speaker and line level) I must admit to having a preconception or two when the all silver Audio Magic Sorcerer line showed up on my door step. Up to that time nearly every piece of silver wire I've had in my system has exhibited a Jekel and Hyde like personality. On their Jekel side they have been fast, detailed and transparent. Their Hyde side however has been shown with glare, hardness and aggressiveness. While I tried to remove my preconceptions before listening to these wires (hey, we all have them, some of us just admit them), I needn't have worries. These wires took care of it themselves. In fact, they did more than just push my preconceptions aside, they thoroughly routed them.

Before diving into this shattering event, let's introduce the players and outline a rather complicated evaluation procedure. Audio Magic's Sorcerer Line lies right below their top of the line Illusion. The digital coax retails for $349 and sports the same WBT 0101 locking connectors as the $649 a pair interconnects. The speaker wire is $1,395 per 8' pair and utilizes George Cardas' top of the line, bulky and extremely cool looking spade lugs. The power cord will take a $249 chunk out of your Visa card and is built from equally impressive parts. Each of these wires is hand built, and made from all silver wire. The interconnects (and digital cable) are covered in gray mesh and are fairly flexible, except for the last 4 inches or so which are very stiff. If you have limited space behind your components this may pose a slight problem. As for the speaker wire, besides sporting the same gray mesh, each run (positive and negative) is enclosed in their own covering. This means two cables per side, each filled with silica sand. As for size, a single cable could just about swallow up 3 runs of my Cardas Hexlink 5-C. These things are big. And, just as with the interconnect, the last 6 inches are very stiff. While it wasn't a big problem, the posts on my Sound-Labs are slightly recessed, which, coupled with the bulky Cardas spades, made it *just* possible to get the speaker wires on without having to check to see if excessive force is covered under the warranty (of both the wires and the Sound-Labs). Overall, these wires are made from very high quality parts, and their construction is equally high.

As for the review process, having an entire set of wire is actually more difficult to review than a single piece of wire. To fully break-in the Audio Magic wire I first replaced all the wire in my system with the Sorcerer wire. Next, after about 200 hours, the system was subjected to a short critical listening period to get a feel for the overall change. Then I replaced all my old wire for about a week and did some listening to fully restore my ear. The hard part followed. A single piece of the Audio Magic was placed in the system, critically examined, removed, and a new piece inserted. After each piece had been given it's moment on center stage, I slowly changed the wiring over to an all Audio Magic setup, starting at the front with the digital coax, then adding the interconnects (one at a time) and finishing up with the speaker wire and a chance to listen to complete Audio Magic setup again. To conclude, I started back at the front and returned my own wire back in the system a piece at a time, ending up with the speaker wire (and you thought this was an easy job!). The end result of all this is a feeling for the Audio Magic wire both as individual pieces and as a system. To help make my views clear I'll talk about the individual pieces and then conclude with my impressions of the whole setup.

When I first placed the Audio Magic wires in the system, Jerry Ramsey, Audio Magic's designer, told me to break them in for at least 50 hours. Straight out if the box the sound was very rolled off at the top, and muddy everywhere else. I guess Jerry knows his stuff, because after 50 hours things began to open up (however, it still took 200 hours for everything to settle down). I explain this so that when you listen a set of this wire and should they not be been broke in, you won't think me crazy - or worse, that my ears are full of mud. I also discovered that disconnecting and then re-connecting them required a several hour settling period as well. Since my Cardas Hexlink 5-C and Cardas Cross also need a settling period, A-B'ing these fine wires was a bit problematical. Preliminaries done, let's get on with the show.

As I said earlier, my experience with silver cables in the past led me to expect tons of detail, good speed and resolution, but with a price. I also expected a bright, etched, whitish sound, and perhaps even a bit of harmonic leanness. Well, my first impression, after about the 50 hour mark Jerry had indicated, was exactly the opposite. The highs there, but were very soft. Detail, which I expected to overwhelmed by, was just plain old MIA. And as for harmonics, liquid doesn't begin to describe it, is was more like a torrential downpour. Still, they did image superbly, and the bass was deep. Real deep. So I decided to give them more time. At about the 200 hour point a remarkable transformation occurred. They opened up, and they did so quickly. The best way to describe it is to compare it to fast action photography of a flower blooming. With the flower you see a closed bud, full of promise but no outward sign of it's mature beauty, only potential - and then 10 seconds later it's a full flower, vibrant, rich and fully-developed. The Audio Magic seemed to open up just the same way. One day I was listening to the system as background music and the next I couldn't read in the same room, the sound was so involving that anything other full attention to whatever was on was impossible. Finally, we were getting somewhere. After listening for awhile longer (it really was hard to pull them and start the individual auditioning) it was time to work.

Since I placed the digital cable in first, let's start there (it's also easy to describe). Simply stated, it's the most revealing coax I've ever heard. And I mean that as a compliment. It achieves it's transparency naturally. It doesn't lighten or brighten (or darken either). Harmonically lean out (or enrich). Tonally accurate, it also images like the devil himself. The only thing it seems to do is to just pass what ever is in the bits on to the DAC (jitter box in chez Warnke). By way of comparison, the only coax I've heard that's in it's league is the Illuminati/Kimber. And I think the Audio Magic edges it.

As for the interconnects, if you've read my Cardas Cross review you know I've had these through here before. In that review I commented on the deep bass and excellent resolution these cables provide. I also pointed out that the bass, while deep was less defined than it was by the Cardas Cross. Since that review I have added an Audio Alchemy DTI-Pro, replaced the DDE v.1.1 with a DDE v.3.0, removed the Tara Labs Passage pre-amp with an Audible Illusions L-1, and replaced the ProAc's with Sound-Lab Dynastats. The added resolution, clarity and richness these changes have brought to the system helped to further refine my impressions of the Sorcerer interconnects.

First, they do indeed go deep. The deepest I've heard here. And, as for that slight smearing of pace I had noticed earlier, it was greatly ameliorated although still slightly behind the Cardas in it's ability to convey rhythm. -- The mids are marvelous. Warm, and yet full of detail. Compared to the Cardas, I'd give the Sorcerer the edge, it having a slightly fuller (but not fat) sound. -- The highs were quick, detailed, accurate, but on the down side, a little polite. This never bothered me, as my Parasound amp benefits from polite company. I'd guess that most solid-state/dynamic speaker systems won't even notice this ever so gentle shaving of the very top. And if they do, they'll count it as a positive (as I did). Best of all, all three areas, bass, mids and highs were integrated into an absolutely seamless whole. Harmonics stacked naturally, giving each instrument it's own unique voicing, with no one area claimed undue significance. The bass, while very deep, was never assertive (unless musically planned to be so), and the highs, lacking the edge I associated with silver, were just right in my system. Wonderful stuff.

The staging was also impeccable. All three dimensions were revealed, and each in a completely relaxed manner. If a recording was spot lit, the interconnects gave it to you that way. And in a purest recording (the Cooder/Bhatt "A Meeting by the River" for example) the musicians and recording venue were delivered to my room, intact, alive and properly spaced. Once again, as compared to the Cardas, the Audio Magic had a slight lead in this area. Resolution was also excellent. As you would expect in a wire that stages as well as this one did, it also pulled all manner of detail out of the pits on my CD's. Transparent, effortless and grainless. The best I've had in my room.

By now you're wondering if I'm on Audio Magic's payroll. Well, before deciding I am, let's talk about dynamics. If we first limit the discussion to micro-dynamics, you'd probably still believe Audio Magic owns me. Subtle volume shifts, such as in Keith Jarrett's piano on I Fall in Love to Easily/The Fire Within from disk 4 of his "At the Blue Note" set are rendered as if a living thing. These little details that give a recording life and emotion are reproduced so realistically that I found myself playing this 26 minute track over and over again, enthralled each time. In this area the Audio Magic bested the Cross again, but just barely. On the other hand (here's the downside), macro-dynamics were a little polite for my tastes, and fell short of the Cardas by a noticeable amount. -- Don't take this too harshly, but do take it seriously. While listening to the Audio Magic Cables I seldom felt a serious lack in this department. It's just that putting the Cardas pack in showed me, in no uncertain terms, what I was missing. That said, this coupled with the rolled top end combined to give these interconnects their only discernible character.

As for the speaker wire, I have 3 ways to talk about them. First, I could ramble on for another 4 paragraphs and hope you are still with me at the end of them. Second, I could copy and paste my comments about the interconnects and then search for the word interconnect and replace it with speaker wire. Or (and this I'll do), I could just ask you to re-read the section about the interconnects, searching for the word "interconnect" and replacing it with "speaker wire" and then meet me at the next paragraph. After you do so I'll fill you in on the slight differences between the interconnects and the speaker wire.

Done? Good. The speaker wire differs in only two significant ways. First, the mids are slightly fuller, and second, the top end is just ever so slightly softer. That's it.

After I listened to each of the components separately, I re-installed all the Audio Magic wire and listened to the system again. This is where the dual politeness, dynamics and treble, in both the interconnects and speaker wire came to the fore. In my system, and with my listening habits, the result was just a little to refined. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't cloudy dimmed or dull. The emotion was still there, tangible, rich, full, and very detailed. The bass was still from The Gods. And the were mids so rich and full that I felt as if I had died and was already sitting on my cloud. - But the soft top and polite macro-dynamics combined to take some of the vibrancy and immediacy away. What I heard I could live with, happily, but it lacked that last little bit I knew the system was capable of.

Concluding the review, and still searching to extract all I could from these cables I swapped only speaker wire to see what would transpire. I found that the virtues of the Cardas Hexlink 5-C perfectly offset the Audio Magic interconnect, the result of which was the finest set up I've ever had. Well, that is until I did an about face swapped the Cardas speaker wire for the Sorcerer, and returned my Cardas/Magnan interconnects to the system. This combination had a balance I didn't know my system had in it. In short, in my system all Audio Magic was just a bit too much, but either half of the system Audio Magic'ed, was, well, magical. In the wrong system (one I would consider too warm to begin with) these wires might not be the right choice, but in the correct system, look out!

Lastly, as for the power cords, I liked them a lot. They were a significant improvement over my stock cords, but did not quite match the performance of the MIT Z-cords I usually use. As for that, I'm not surprised. I live about a mile from a major military base (the Patriot missiles fired in the Gulf War were controlled by Pentagon "Black Budget" operations about 1.5 miles from here) and have horribly bad RFI and EMI interference. The ferrites on the MIT's are mandatory. In an electrically kinder environment I think the Audio Magic's would sound even better than they did here.

I don't give unqualified raves, primarily because nothing's perfect. Springsteen's "Born to Run" is a monumental album, but face it, Jungleland is a little overwrought. Even Mile's "Kind of Blue" has a flaw (it's too short). So don't let my quips and cautions put you off. In the final analysis, if I did give raves this Sorcerer stuff would be on my short list. What Audio Magic has done with their all silver, all hand-crafted Sorcerer line truly confounded my expectations. Turned them on their ear in fact. Detailed, fast, transparent yet harmonically rich, full bodied and timbrally accurate. Good-bye preconceptions, hello beauty. Audio Magic has something here that I feel is simply outstanding, world-class in fact. Are they worth the entry price? Only you can answer that. In a revealing, neutral system, I'd say yes. If you are looking for wire that combines the absolute best qualities of silver, without any of the drawbacks, do yourself a big favor and find a way to try these. You can thank me later.

...Todd Warnke

Mike Adds His Comments

Isn't this interesting? Todd and I want to write a column for Soundstage! where we point out how components act differently in different systems, and these Audio Magic cables end up sounding the same in both systems. I not sure the significance of this, but I'm certain it's an exception to what we will find in future reviews. Should components that sound the same in different systems be chastised for the same reason many of us do for Japanese mid-fi electronics? I can't say that in this case, because the Sorcerers are the best sounding speaker cables I've heard in my system to date. Lucky me -- the second best cables I've found are one forth the cost of the Sorcerers. So are the Sorcerers four times better? Well, comparable worth in the high-end world is all relative, so I'll leave that question to those bored folks on the newsgroups to argue over. During my recently completed Cable Fest (Stu McCreary, don't sue me for that), I did have a chance to evaluate several cables approaching the $1000/10' level, but none were able to beat out the $340/10' Music Metre Signatures in my system. The Sorcerers beat the Music Metre pretty handily, however, and so I'm confronted with a situation I have not experienced until now.

By the way, the Sorcerer speaker cable was the second big change I've introduced to my system recently. The other is a Reference Line Reference Preeminence One passive linestage, which is in the middle of a 30-day trial period that Reference Line offers through their dealers. The Preeminence is a lot better than my Golden Tube SEP-1. Actually, it's probably better than most $3000 and under active linestages out there, but it's going back after the trial period is over. Yes, I've found something that will beat it completely and unequivocally to death. Todd and I will have something to say about it later on this summer.

Back to the Audio Magic stuff. The Sorcerer interconnects didn't seem to work out for me as well as the speaker cable did. With my Proacs and all those tubes connected to it, I need cables that manage the mid bass-heavy tonal balance inherent in my system. During my evaluations, the cables that seemed to balance my system the best were the Sorcerers, Kimber KCAG, and Music Metre Signatures. The KCAG and Sorcerers, both silver conductor-based designs, sounded almost exactly the same to me! Both were very transparent and articulate in the midrange. Both had deep, powerful, and detailed bass. However, both also had smeared highs and blurred images. Every image in the soundstage has a spot-lit quality about them. In comparison, the Music Metre presented the images in a more natural soundscape. The highs were smooth and articulate, with a more natural shimmer to cymbals and bells. Bass didn't go as deep, but it did have more of a solid feel and more texture than the others offered. The only really negative of the Music Metre in comparison was a smearing in the upper midrange causing problems with piano. All three cables were very fast and smooth. I wish the folks at Cable Company were a little more knowledgeable of cable and component characteristics to have steered me towards this type of cable sooner. Oh well.....

As for the speaker wire, it's hard to describe the Sorcerer speaker cable, because it's so much better than the Music Metre Signatures and, taken together with its price, it seems unfair to compare the two. For example, there was a great refinement to the sound after inserting the Sorcerer that I thought was beyond the capability of my system. There was also this presence of power throughout the frequency range that shocked me. I'm not talking about dynamics here, but rather the sense of firm control and authority one gets when moving from a weak 100 watt amp like a Parasound, to a 100 watt powerhouse amp like a Krell or a Levinson, and without losing the delicacy and subtleties inherent in the music. It was really amazing when I first heard it, and I still haven't gotten used to it yet. Another strength of the Sorcerer was its ability to uncover low level details from poor recordings. On one of my wife's Garth Brooks CD's, the soundbooth dimensions were being outlined by artificial reverb using the Sorcerer, while the reverb was hardly noticeable at all when using my other cable.

I have a single-unit CD player so I couldn't evaluate the Sorcerer digital coax cable. As well, I haven't received the Sorcerer power cords from Todd yet. Although I've yet to try specialty cords in my system, I should have several in by the time the Sorcerer evaluation concludes. To sum up, I was disappointed that the Sorcerer interconnects couldn't surpass my Music Metre cables. Perhaps what I heard using the Sorcerer and the KCAG was typical of what silver-based wire sounds like in my system. The Sorcerer speaker cable, though, was really something to behold. It exposed the life my system is capable of, if I'm willing to pay for it. If I ever upgrade to mono amps in the future and can place them close to the speakers, I will seriously consider the Sorcerer again.

....Mike Fenech