Van den Hul The Cloud loudspeaker cable

 This is an expensive speaker cable.

To be sure and considering the cost of other high end cables I cannot say it is really expensive but for the ones, the most of us, that are used to buy normal cables this kind of price is serious.

The one I have tried belongs to a friend of mine. I was lucky to have it for about a month because it is really a very difficult cable to test and to come up to its qualities and limits. I was lucky to have it for a month but my friend was lucky to to have in this period exchange my MIT Oracle. And this last is really an expensive cable.

This cable is a Limited Edition version that is     different from the ordinary version just for the outer jacket cover that can be made by VDH of the colour of your choice. Plus you have a certidfication with your name of as proof of authenticity. This was chosen by the friend of mine in a green colour. The pictures unfortunately don't show its true colour but it doesn't matter.

In the past when I was for many years in the Hifi  business as a vendor and as a distributor I have worked also many times with VDH cables and I cannot really say that was a maker I could suggest or that was easy to sell. Other makers where easier seller like Cardas for example. This because when you were a Cardas owner you could predictibly upgrade in the house range keeping the same approach of sound. With VDH this is something impossible to do. It is like a restaurat with a menu that cover every taste.

How can decide from an Integration or an Orchid? they sound absolutely different. And what about the First or the Second? They sound extremely good or poor? It is true that for example in all hifi world in my experience doesn't exist a cable more umpredictable then the First. You have two completely different sistems you try it and after you can assurely say it is bland, slow, or muted, then you put in a third one and you cannot believe it is the same cable such open and fast it is and the exceptional timbric beauty is almost impossible to reach for any cable of any price. So the First is not a good cable is an exceptional cable of difficult application.

Globally for the loudpseaker cables thing is easier since I have never been a global fan of VDH speakers cable since I couldn't end up with no position on VDH proposition. The Clearwater is a great entry level cable, but up in the same disign range I would go for a Linn LK20 or a Naim NAC A5 (being sure to give this last cable about 300hours of use before getting to any conclusion) they both sounded to me more organic and globally satisfying then any of the VDH similar proposition like the Magnum. The LK20 warm (pleasents colorations) and well organised, the NAC A5 urgent, exposing the deep meaning of the music more then its beauty.  Exeption for the CS122 that in combination with the Rock of the 3T serie work a marvel. Not so well with other cables. The Inspiration is an extremely good cable, that works well with almost anything, The Air (3T)  is very special cable and has a magic female vocals reproduction, slightly light on the bass to be absolute reference but for the price extremely good but could be a little bright in the wrong combination,  The Wind is nice and rocks well but too tick sound on the bass, the Revolution I don't understand it and the Revelation is a very nice cable, it has a kind of dynamic freedom that is a reference even today after all these years, but I have never liked the way it portraits the timbre of an instrument. Or better it doesn't portrait it. At the end it sound like a cheap cable on steroids. But I have to say most loudspeaker cables sound like that. But not the Cloud! So after this long prelude we get to this last one.

This is what happens whith the Cloud between your ampli and speakers: nothing really special.

You have spent not an indiffeerent ammount of money and you end up with something not so special. Everything is right there but it doesn't seams it is faster, more dynamic, more timbrically correct, more beautiful, more spacially organized and so on. This is on a first listen. Then few hours later things get better then after few hours things get worse, then terribly worse then start getting better again. When the cable get stable then you start hearing that everything is really OK and not special. You don't miss almost anything. The best thing you have from this cable is its lack of letting you wish something was there or was not there.

This special quality is clear if I write about its smaller brother or sister: the Air.

When you use the Air you have the feeling it is a good cable. It is fast, it is fresh, it has relief, it has very good image focus, females voices becomes so much more delicate, more young. Then after a while you wish the bass could go down more, that what makes the females voices so nice makes them also a little too similar, that there is also a certain silence between the notes that could be more dense.

OK so let's take the Cloud out of the system and lets put on a VDH Revelation and then a Cardas Golden Reference and Kimber 8TC and Naim NAC A5. (No MIT Oracle since way too expensive)

Now it seams the dynamic is freer, the highs go higher. And what happens after few days? You start wishing,you start being inconfortable with small things. It should be better with this and without that and with more of this and so on.

You put the Cloud on and... everything is there again except your whishes on something else..

My coclusion is: the Cloud is for sure a very difficult cable to sell.

For this reason I can state this cable is an act of courage of its maker. It is the courage of assuming its maturity and vision of things given by a long experience.

And this is I think the reason why we don't see many professional review on this cable. How many reviewers have a mature experience? Maybe long but I don't know about mature. If we mix the two things up it is like saying that whoever is old and experienced is as consequence wise. But in my personal experience I have to say that I have seen many old men but wise...no one. Surely wiser then an adolescent but not wise in the big term.

To be wise is to reach a point where you understand the limit of your expectations, desires and what reality is. Not to be willing to change the perception of reality with the projections of your fears or ghosts or beautiness. But to be there and live the reality not being in contratidcion or jugment with this last but feeling that this is the reality and at the end it is not this bad as we thought it was even when it is hard.

Saying this is not talking about me but about this cable: this cable is not only an act of courage but the output of a certain wisdom of its maker.

When we have to buy things we compare to something else and most often our comparison bring us to apreciate something that stands out. The problem is that what stands out often wears you or just masks limitations. Or in fewer words: you end up detesting what you have loved in first place.

The Cloud has another strange attitude. It makes you appreciate the music in a differnet way you are used to, and this for me is a very difficult point to explain.

Let's say you are used to like your music with good drive, even if it is baroque you know what I mean; you feel  the mouvement of the rithmic flow. The Cloud doesn't present anything, any particular part of which the music is made of to a leading point. No one is a leader with this cable. For this reason it is an extremely difficult cable to appreciate and to test. Not haveng any leader you will find yourself listening to the music as a whole not apreciating how good is the pich, the rithm or the dynamic or whatever. To be clear the Cloud is very capable in each classic parameter of the music reproduction just no one is its main characteristic.

My conclusion after all this words is:

VDH The Cloud is a masterwork of balance. 

It has everything at the right quantity to suit the reproduction of the musical performance in a way that most of other cables don't have. In a way its qualities don't shine  but you almost can take them for granted. They are so integrated within its musicality that you don't appreciate them as single elements but as a whole.

Togheter with the Silver MKIII is a product for who has already the experience to appreciate the beauty of truth and not the truth of beauty. Since the beauty of truth doesn't wear you out, it changes maintaining a changing connection to your feeling, the truth of beauty is beguilling, it seduces you then you get used to it and then generally you need another fresher beauty to propose you another truth. If you have spent in your hifi journey the money of a nice house with a garden and even more you surely know whant I am talking about. If you are still in the position of wanting to be seduced, I would say you are still in the adolescence of the path of the audiophile, I strongly doubt you are in the position to love these two cables. It is like playing a Stradivari. If you are not at a stratosperic level you would prefer a modern violin. And this experience has been done. But if you are a master you find in a Stradivari more colours to paint the expression of the music you are playing.

On the negative side: it really seams to absorb some more power from your amplifier then another cable. So if you have very small tube amps or very low watt in general or very ineficient loudspeaker you should be careful. (Even though I liked it with my LS3/5a at low volume). Another minus side is its rithmic expression. It is more a contemplative cable then an involving one. Or better it involves you with its composure, with mesure rather then with enthusiasm. The rithmical event of a music doesn't show up and the rest of the music builts around it (like with a Naim NACA5 or in a less proportion with a Straightwire Virtuoso H ), it is not a structural column but a co-partecipant as a derivation of the musical event.

This is a cable for very mature listener. It doesn't mean that being a mature listener is better then not being a mature one, at the end the only goal in all this is to have pleasure with music reproduction. But I strongly feel that all the very high qualities of this cable can be appreciated only from the ones that knows about artificial intrusions in music reproduction and that have come to accept that this intrusions that at the begining are seducting and somehow beautiful are the causes that has made him whishing for change or upgrading.

Naim Aro rewiring

Ikeda wiring

I have been an Aro lover for many years. It was not a love at first sight or better at first listen but the kind of feeling you don't have with somebody when you are with him but only when you are not with him. What the Aro does well it does better then any other tonearm I have listen too, included Triplanar, SMEV, Roksan Artemiz, Alphason, Rega RB1000 and others.

But it can be improved? One of the easiest way to improve a tonearm is rewiring it.
Even expensive ones like the SMEV sounds vastly better when rewired with a Kondo. In the Aro there is no litterature about rewiring since it belongs to a brand which owners don't like to experiment  with or they have the feeling that is a sacrilege to touch its originality. I don't have that kind of feelings  with hifi material of any kind and of any brands and I like experimenting with hifi and it has been my businness for many years so I have tried to play with the Aro.

Cable used for rewiring: Cardas, VDH, Ikeda, Audio Note, Kondo, and latest a cannibalized Hovland groove. Yes I have tried rewiring it with all these cables.
I always had an Aro arm top with original Naim wiring used as reference.

First and major thing: The character of the Aro is very greatly influenced by its original wiring. Or more: the character of the Aro is given by its internal wiring.

I am not going to describe all the differences between the wirings I will only highlight interest findings.
With all the silver cables, like Kondo, VDH,  Audio Note, immediate was the impression of the timbrical improvement and freedom in higher frequencies and at the bottom. So the original wiring was obviously blocking both frequencies extremes. The sound always stayed fast and details also improved. So it was better...no. It was not better. It was better hifi but not better music. Going back to the reference (Aro with original internal wiring) there was something terribly seducing. A kind of solidity and temporal coherence that with the other cables, better in all other aspect of the music reproduction didn't have. The Aro with the original wiring has a magical midrange that is even more magical since it calls for attention dimming out other components of the music reproduction. It is like it attracts you toward its medium range. Its medium range becomes like a pivot for everything else. It is uni pivot also in its reproduction! With the original wiring you really loose informations but not essential ones. The essential informations are highlighted.
The Aro with its original internal wiring highlights essential musical informations dimming out not essential ones. 

It does the same way Linn LP12 did and does and like LS3/5a.

Now cabling with the Hovland Groove.

It was hard for me to sacrify the Hovland Music Grove phono cable. It used to sell in the range of $1000... but I had a coupple ot these (I used to distribute this maker in the past when I was in the hifi bussiness) and I was terribly curious what could came out of it. 

I opened the cables jackets to get the cables out. And since the Hovland uses to separate small cables for each contact I used the same configuration for rewiring the Aro. Except at the end, the last few cm that go to the arm plug, so not to get in the way of the freedom of the movemen. So the very end the double cables become single. Also the Aro original wiring does it to get thinner cables at the end . So nota interrupted chain in the original not an interrupted chain with the Hovland.

Why I decided to use the Hovland phono cable? This cable has a very fluid and expressive midrange and is unmechanical sounding the way the Aro is, but is well extended at the top and slightly shy at the bottom.

So how did it sounded?

From the start, and like the other cables tried befor it, its frequencies extremes are freerer then the original Aro internal wiring. Image is wider but not taller. It is more transparent then the Aro wiring not in the middle range but everyway else. Its anylitic capacity are spread all over the frequencies. in the Aro with the original wiring are concentrated in the medium high medium frequencies. The higher you go or the lower you go the less details you have, like you have a stepted down volume in the frequencies extremes. They are there but less present.

In the Hovland there is a very slight veil in comparison to the all siver cables, but is more fluid, not the same timbric distinction but close. Globally the Hovland really sound like a bridge between the Kondo, Ikeda, VDH and the Naim original wiring. The only very important to me thing it misses is that kind of special urgency in the attack of the notes the original naim cables has.

So what is my conclusion: don't spend a lot of time and money on rewiring the Aro. 

The only cable that I could prefer and only sometimes to the original one is the Hovland. But the Hovland is not in production any more, was expensive and you have to destroy it to use as internal tonearm wiring cable.

So at the end it seemed that I could not really find a better cable then the original one for the internal Aro wiring. 

I gave my very last try. I didn't want to, I was feeling in the position that I could forcast more or less the cables behaviour with the Aro. But one day I was too damn curious and I had to try. And then after all this rewiring, rewiring the Aro for me it takes about one hour, of course when everything around is ready for it.

The last cable is another Van den Hul. I had wired before the Aro with a VDH but was the single strand version, now I had the multi stranded version that looks like a thiker version of the Audio Note.

 I put a record on and...this is was really interesting.

I had the power and urgence of the Naim original cabling without the inconsistencies, (Aro owner they know what I am talking about. Sometimes is sound like a spell, magic, other times you don't understand what happened).
I had the beautiful timbres of the silver cables, but the sounds was more solid then the Ikeda, the Ikeda was more delicate, and expecially the silence between the notes is much improved iin comparison to all the other cables I have tried.

And best of all it is the most neutral of all. You don't hear it in every recording. It was very clear for me. For example when you have experienced all the internal wiring the Aro is very recognaizable when it has its original wiring, when it is cabled with the Ikeda or the Cardas or the VDH single stranded.

So this one is worthed and can be bought! But only for your spare Aro arm top since the Aro in its original version has something special that it is nice to go back to.
If you have an all Naim system then you shoudn't even try another wiring. The original one in an all Naim system is like a tailor made suit.
I said this is just if you have a spare arm top since: everytime you put the Aro with its original internal wiring on, you will loose some extension, some timbre purity, some other thing, but you inexplicably have also someway a deeper connection to the music! Music is less beautiful and complete in its single constituents but has more meaning. A Naim magic wonder!

VDH The Silver MKIII

I think I am going to write about this first: Van den Hul the Silver MKIII.
So forget about what I have written in the first page.

OK, this cable is very expensive. This is for sure. It comes in a nice wood box. But is it worthed its price? The answer is very simple and double: absolutely yes and absolutely not.
How can be this way? It is very easy.

Let's say you have a medium range hifi system with nice cable like for example the VDH The Integration. You change for the VDH the Silver and... you are not sure which is better. Yes the cheaper cables has some mutism on the higher frequency (not frequency wise but as far as timbric content) , or  part of the medium high frequency but it is very musical and spatially well organized. The space between instruments is dense in its silence and this is something I appreciate. The Silver silence and space between the instruments cannot be more different...  the notes decays are longer, the high and very high frequencies have a richness and density of tinbre that is extremely rare. This richness of timbre makes the cable going in the high frequencies without any trace of harshness. I say any trace. Of course if the other component connected are of the same level. So if it sound harsh it is not its fault for sure. It is a cable that is able of being of a gentle clearness and expecially of a enourmous dynamic capability.

Comparison with other top VDH: The Mountain shows a dynamic constipation and not the same timbric quality. The Cliff is dynamically similar but loses in the timbric department. The Integration has a kind of veil in the medium frequencies in comparison, and this is revelatory since the Integration in comparison to other cables reveals the same shortcomings and in the same frequency range. The First when it mates to perfection, since it can gives some strange results and hum in some combination: the timbre are on the same level and dynamically are very close. A little muted on the high frequency but it has its beauty.

It must be clear that these are foundings on an absolute personal scale. What does it means. For me it means that with a certain component, if correctly matched, you can reach an higher quality musical reproduction. So if a cable like the VDH Integration is used in a lesser system and with for example the Inspiration loudpeaker cable you would end up having a better result then if you use the better VDH Silver. For example the louspeaker VDH cable the Cloud works better with the Cliff interconnect then the Mountain, but with the more expensive Cumulus I guess, since I have never heard the combination,the Mountain could be a better match.

Comparing it to the Cardas Clear. The Clear has the same dynamically freedom if not a little more and it is dynamically more linear. It means that the different parts of the music maintain the same proportion even in the most complex passages. The VDH Silver in this aspect is not on the same level. When things get too complex the proportions and dimension of the instruments change slightly.

Timbrically the Cardas Clear is on very high level, but the VDH has something magic on its side  that the Cardas miss. For example the nylon strings on a guitar with the VDH are real nylon and you can ear the strings tension. In the Cardas you ear it is nylon, but with more help of your brain. It is like the Cardas make you see 80% of the nylon while the VDH makes you ear 90% of the nylon.

This happens also with other instruments. With the piano the note attack is slightly better with the Cardas but the decay and the piano encloser resonance is more evidend with the VDH.

So at the end between the two it is a question of taste. I would suggest that with small ensemble the VDH is better but with big mass is the Clear is better.

Do't expect to ear this from a very good medium range equipment. You need high end material. You would end up haveing a wrong experience and start saying stupidity like the Cardas is flat and soulless and  the VDH strange on the mid bass or something like that.

Two special things of the greatest interest at least for me:  this cable  shows the slightest changes in the set up. This allowed me to set up a cartridge in much less time I am used to need. This cable shows all the coloration of other cables when compared with. This could be incredible. One cable we always liked after hearing the Silver sounds grossly coloured! It is like listening to Pavarotti. Try if you have never heard him singing and try even if you don't like the kind and compare the same aria with another tenor. His singing shows what the other one is missing: if he is too forced when goes up in the highest notes, or not too clear in diction, or not so agile, or if there is a kind of veil in his voice or that he doesn't have  the same natural flow.

This cable needs a certain time of burn in. I would say at least about 40 hours to loose some mechanical feeling.

After that for me it is a winner. This cable is a masterwork.

One of the most neutral cable around with one of the best timbric reproduction too.

I have bought the pair.

I would like to buy another pair but...it is so expensive... if Mr VDH will ever read this maybe could sell me one at factory price...