Shunyata Orion Speaker Cables

FAIR WARNING

                      The new Orion Speaker cables from Shunyata have made my life difficult from the day they arrived. I've expended a tremendous amount of time, energy and resources because of the them. Here’s the sordid tail.

                I’m sure you’ll agree, cable prices these days are nutty. Even though I appreciate what goes into an exotic cable, and why they must command the prices they do, it’s hard not to choke when the heavy hitters announce their latest creation. And so it was with great reservation that I agreed to bring in the latest speaker cables from Shunyata for a listen.

              The Orion cables are not cheap; $4900 for an 8’ pair. That puts them out of reach for many,  strictly from a monetary perspective, and scratches them from consideration for others based on principle. It did for me.

                Like everyone else, I have a limit; a limit to how much I’ll spend for a given product. I’m not sure where that innate sense of constraint comes from, but we all have it. Whether it be a car, a new shirt or a night on the town, each of us have a ceiling we’ve set, a mental boundary that suits our comfort level. My threshold for pain on speaker cables is $2500, more than that and I’m outta here. So, when Shunyata introduced the Orion, I balked, BIG time. $5k for speaker cables? C’mon! Frankly, if it had been any other company, that would have been the end of it. But Shunyata recalibrated my sense of value for AC cables, so I brought in a pair. No way were they staying though, this was a simple audition to educate myself on the company's' products.

They arrived and were unpacked. Very nice construction, par for the course with anything from Shunyata - so what! Large diameter, but lightweight and flexible making them quite practical - big deal! Lovely Rhodium/Silver bananas - well duh,  you’d better get some damn fine connectors for Five G’s! I dropped them on floor and took a seat to reacquaint myself with the system before connecting them.

Nothing wrong here, the system sounded great and in no real need of change or upgrade. Yet another good reason to remain status quo. I felt even more comfortable about sending them back. A brief audition was in order first though. So in they went.
BIG MISTAKE!

All I could say was… nothing. The area of my brain that controls speech was utterly overwhelmed by the pleasure center. The Orion’s were amazing - flat out amazing!

Hey, Guys, I could go on for pages and pages about why I am so enamored with these cables, but the fact remains, they are expensive. I doubt any amount of creative rhetoric on my part will convince you to spend Five Grand on a pair of speaker cables. So let me approach this from a different perspective; value. Value, hah! How could ridiculously priced cables be considered a good value? Continue, please.

We’ve all read them; reviews proclaiming that such and such a product (often a cable or accessory) made as much difference as changing a component. I believe it to be so, because it's happened here, and I’ll bet many of you have experienced it too. Even so, unless you can put some numbers to it, it’s hard to convey the experience in writing. And so I endeavor to do so by making some very specific comparisons.

As you’ve read, I was mesmerized by the Orion. Here was a situation where I felt the cable did indeed make a “components-worth” of difference. But could they justify their asking price? I was eager to find out.

The evaluation system included a very well regarded $9k CD player, an outstanding $7500 integrated amp and a good set of speaker cables retailing at $1300. Not chopped liver. Considering the price of the Orion cables ($4900), I looked for equipment options that would reduce the cost of the system by at least that amount. I first swapped the integrated. The unit I chose is priced at $2300, for a difference of $5300.

It was obvious from the first note that performance was lost. I really did miss the qualities of the better amp… until I swapped cables. The Orion’s had a huge impact on performance and in my opinion, made the trade-off clearly worthwhile. Score one point for the Orion.

Next up was the CD player. Here I substituted a $4000 player for the more expensive machine (a cost differential of almost $5500). To be honest, I really didn’t think this was fair, as the pricier model has quite a stellar reputation and is a superb player. Even though performance was indeed sacrificed, choosing between the CD player and Orion, I’ll have the Orion.

Here’s the kicker. This time I replaced both the integrated and CD player with lesser counterparts. I was not prepared for what I heard, but the cables really did make up the difference. And then some!

So look at the numbers; we’re exchanging $17,000 worth of CD and amp for a $6300 combination and upgrading from a $1300 pair of speaker cables to the Orion at $4900. The cost savings is a staggering $7100 and the system sounded better! Now I’m not suggesting you go dump your gear, but I am suggesting that before you pop for that new amp, preamp or CD player, try the Orion. I think you’ll be amazed at how good the gear you already own can be!

What makes the Orion so special? I’d say they subtract less from the signal than other cables.

Interconnect and speaker cables can’t improve anything. Regardless of how good a cable may be, it still robs the signal of detail. A better cable simply inflicts less “damage” than a lesser cable. The Orion allows the signal to pass with less degradation than any cable I know, which means you simply hear more information.

There are some very specific things I found when listening to music through the Orion, one of the most impressive is its ability to stop. Perceiving the leading edge of a transient (beginning of the note) is important, hearing the trailing edge (end of the note) is just as significant. To hear an unambiguous beginning followed by a distinct end, with no overhang or carryover, we are better able to understand what each note is about. That information tells us how each note relates to the next and reveals important cues about phraseology and intonation.

The ability to accurately resolve the leading and trailing edge of each note brings with it a wealth of other exciting revelations. Rhythm and timing, the flow of the music, quieter backgrounds and inter-transient silence, all exceptionally important to faithful recreation, are brilliantly conveyed by the Orions.

Honestly, I never thought I’d see the day when a $4900 speaker cable could be considered a good value, but I have. Bottom line, the Orion is the most remarkable speaker cable I’ve ever heard. You’d have to threaten to remove my eardrums to get them away from me. I’ll end with a note of caution: an audition ensures you’ll be ensnared as well. Fair warning.

                 The patented Helix braid used in the Orion and other Shunyata products is remarkably complex, as shown in Fig.1, a drawing from the Patent application. Close inspection reveals the sophistication of the design and it quickly becomes apparent how much effort and patience must be required to make these special cables. There are no machines capable of producing the intricate weave, the work is completed entirely by hand. It is not strictly a linear process, as each strand must be pulled back through the completed work to realize the correct geometry. You can imagine what this is like when working with 13 strands as found in the Anaconda! The difficulty of the braiding process limits the maximum length 30’. Get this, it takes eight hours to braid one pair of 8’ Orion speaker cables!

                For those Do It Yourself fans, just gather up the materials and follow the diagram above to roll your own. I’ll expect a call in about a month, and after you’ve lost half your sight and most of your mind, with an order for a completed cable!

P.S. You’ll be heartened to know Shunyata offers the Andromeda speaker cables at half the price of the Orion.

Review on Soundstage!

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