i am just starting to read this thread. Testing the 2020 Sablon now (my interest in sq and digital ethernet cables, only began recently and no doubt you have found your cable footing by now, so I am just posting for the future visitors searching the Roon community for Sablon. My interest in Sablon began after investing in a music server and wanting to investigate the idea of doing more with streaming services. I applaud your decision to ignore the all the folks who just reject everything out of hand. It’s not even a good use of one’s time to explain why as most aren’t going to willing to listen (figuratively and actually). I think more people and more people are becoming aware of the achievements of Mark Coles and what important contributions Sablon is making to this industry.
Ah, I see you have discovered what I have discovered. Yes, they are very very good. Both the Sablon 2020 USB cable and Sablon 2020 ethernet cable. It’s sold direct and this certainly explains how the end user gets way more bang for the buck (or Euro) than one has come to expect when buying from an audio dealer. Not there aren’t tremendous advantages from buying from a dealer. I am very willing to pay for what a dealer can provide, provided they are honest, helpful, willing to loan out equipment, and give appropriate service. I wouldn’t want great audio stores to disappear. However, in this particular instance, with quality USB cables, and quality ethernet cables, I am beginning to thank my lucky stars that I haven’t simply been limited only to my local dealer. Besides, I do think I spend enough money locally to warrant good support. I would expect they would carry Sablon cables if Sablon didn’t already sell direct. I am sure they would acknowledge the quality and be surprised at the price. There is certainly nothing that my local shop offers, and they have many of the well known brands that competes with Sablon in the Sablon price range. The ethernet cable is such an example. I have recently taken a PhoenixNET home on trial and the Nordost that was on loan with it at twice the price of the Sablon has more grain and is less balanced tone, noticeably from top to bottom than the less expensive Sablon. Sometimes, you just have learn to walk on your own.
Steven44…I am an audiophile with a 3 handicap…have played to a 0 in my 20s.
Mike…I too have a PhoenixNet and a Sablon ethernet cable from the PhoenixNet to my Lumin X1. I have a Nordost 2 ethernet cable coming this week to compare it too.
For X1 just run Fibre from an FMC if your switch or router cant support SFP
David, which 2 are you waiting for? Is it the Valhalla 2 or the Heirmdall 2? I can only compare to the Heimdall 2 but I think the Valhalla wouldn’t be in the running anyway. Price is certainly a factor that rules out the Valhalla 2 for me. The Heimdall is considerably more costly also than the Sablon, but in my system, the Sablon is sounding more balanced and it’s not even fully run-in yet (only had it in the system for two days). Of course, no doubt, our preferences will depend upon so many factors including the entire chain from front to back and the listener experience and expectations. The only thing in common between us is thePhoenixNET.
I play off 7 myself, more importantly where I play a round takes 3 hours. No messing around, worrying about wind speed etc. do my audio equally rapidly.
Richard…I am waiting for the Valhalla 2 ethernet cable.should be here next week as it is on a cable burner currently.I do like the PhoenixNet.The Sablon works great with it too.
Steven…I quit golf about 5 years ago secondary to a very bad 3 level lumbar spinal stenosis…and the fact that I got very tired of taking 4-5 hours to complete a round…Dave
Hi David. Did you receive your high-end cable as yet and get a chance to audition it? I did get an opportunity to listen to a system this week that was remarkable, but I couldn’t see behind the equipment rack to be certain which the Nordost cable it was. I know it was above the Heimdall 2 but I am not certain it was the Valhalla 2 or not. And as it was not my system, I was at total loss to know what amazing qualities could be attributed to the cables (so many high end products in that chain … including Magico m2 with bass unites, D’Agostino Momentum monoblock amps, and Momentum preamp, MSB DAC, and Innuos Statement. I am guessing that Valhalla 2 was the one I heard, because it doesn’t make sense in that over $300k system to use less the top of the line. I expect I will go back and give listen to it more (very addictive), though you would think I would know better than do something like listen to a system that I can’t afford to consider. I can say that the sense of depth and 3 dimensionality was staggering; that I’ve never heard anything like that other than, of course, in real life with real instruments. Also, not a hint of grain anywhere, just natural, warm (not too warm), open and airy. It should probably brush your teeth and drive you to work every day too for that price.
Nevertheless, at home, even with my humbler audio system (I’d rather not publicly quote what I have at home) that I would almost killed for when younger, I am still very impressed with the Sablon Cables. I have not made extensive comparisons with the Heimdall 2 (as it’s not fully broken in as yet … but neither is out just out of the box), but a brief comparison between it and the Sablon USB yields some interesting observations when comparing both tonal representing together with the ability to resolve the sound surrounding notes, not simply the sense of air but the reverb of the instrument within the space in which it is played. That the Sablon USB does exceptionally well with this will probably come as no suprise to those who own a Sablon USB cable. As some albums are better than others for such comparisons, I used two ECM recordings (sense of space and dimension are ECM speciality) and in particular I can think of two artists who are well suited to listen to: Tomasz Stanko (especially “Soul of Things” -16bit, 41khz) and Marcin Wasilewski (try “En attendant” - 88Khz 24bit) Many cables do well with the tonal character but few seem to have the same ability to resolve the finest detail of the full natural reverb and long lasting decay of that reverb. Whether that’s a quality of lower noise or not, I do not know. Certainly low noise would a long way in explaining the ability to hear such detail. Most likely it’s a combination of lower noise and other factors. Mark Coles experiments seem to have paid huge dividends, and I think he isn’t getting enough credit. In the cable world, he should be more of household name than he is. But I think that will happen because the performance is certainly there.
I expect the Valhalla 2 will sound great. And it should for three times the price! It’s like what my very talented and astute audio sales rep said about the Dan D’Agostino amps: “It’s a good thing that they sound as good as they do. They have to! Let’s face it, at the price these amplifiers and preamplifiers cost.if they didn’t, nobody would buy them!” Quite right.
Richard…I put the V2 in the system this AM and really liked what I heard. The tone of the music has a much more ‘pure’ sound.Unfortunately I am having to send my new 300B tubes back as. one of them is malfunctioning.i reinstalled the old pair and the V2 still sounded great but not quite as great as with the new tubes.Hopefully, I will get a new pair before the week is up.I will be auditioning the V2 for 2 weeks.
EDIT: Sorry guys, stupidly responded to a post from two years ago without realizing it. 
Enjoy.
Welp. I would generally agree – and boy oh boy for the life of me I don’t know why I am contributing to a conversation like this one, it can only end in tears – BUT, there is the potential in a data network for poor connectors, conductors and EMF noise (AC, EMI) to contribute to dropped packets and error-correction overload in a system. While this doesn’t ‘affect’ the sound, it affects the performance of the system. Similarly, the same noise and grounding errors could travel along these data cables and make their way into chassis where analog audio signals reside and can be affected sonically by these noise issues. Not to mention timing issues (jitter) potentially created by bad cables and switches.
So, I can see a couple ways that ethernet (improperly implemented ethernet we should clearly say) can affect sound in a system. But, generally, yes, I would totally agree that if the bits make it safe and sound… they are fine – whether they’ve traveled over unshielded twisted-pair of AWG26, or shielded OCC, silver-plated, AWG20, will NOT make a difference to what those bits sound like after conversion to analogue audio waveforms. That is science.
ALL that said… I know this, and STILL I buy expensive (not stupid expensive) cabling because I want good materials assembled fastidiously, especially regarding connectors. I believe in good ingredients and fine craftsmanship (personship) across the board in life. So with regard to data cables, I buy good ones, that are more expensive than cheapo ones, but I do not buy ‘audiophile’ level prices of stuff, generally. It’s stupid. It’s a shame there’s such a scam on, because good cables do cost more and are worth it; but add all the snake oil and ersatz science and quadruple the price, and people still fall for it. It’s a matter of degree, as in so many things in life.
All the foregoing refers to digital cables and not analog (the difference can be debated! but I mean what signal is traveling over said cables)… analog cable materials and construction and geometry, etc, will have much more of an effect on sound. Not wading into that quagmire atm.
Hi, David. I don’t really like to publicly critique equipment in a forum, because it’s best if people listen for themselves. So many people just take their cues from reading comments in forums (sadly). While this can be great for manufacturers, it might not be best for buyers who should buy only after evaluating for themselves at home. I have indulged, perhaps a little too much in both and criticizing audio cables online. I do regret doing that, except perhaps in the instances such as my experience with Sablon Cables, where I feel Sablon has previously been overlooked and now after listening to the USB and the Sablon e thernet cable, undervalued. Of course, Sablon is becoming better known now, and I guess forums are responsible for that happy turnaround. When it comes to the V2, it’s clear Nordost doesn’t need the extra publicity. They are sold through a wide and prosperous dealer network, and dealer reviews populate the Internet at every turn.
Cable evaluation is such an interesting exercise. There are so many ways that cables alter the sound. That’s why I find it strange that online descriptions are so vague. But I have begun to appreciate how it’s likely to happen, because there is simply no singular result, but many changes in many areas (not tone … warm … bright … neutral) but clarity of fundamentals and harmonics and ambience, note decay and qualities how detailed the long sustained reverberation of the fundamentals are in the room (that aren’t artificially created by reverb and echo electronics), and the all the various qualities people call soundstage (separate from imaging) what with the possible depth and height of an image. I’ve commented on noise being one of the elements that frequently masks those elements. I almost get dizzy thinking of all various areas and work that it is to assess it all. It’s a lot of work, really. I think it’s too much work for most people to engage in any sustained research. Talking about it is difficult to be sure.
And aside from people not really all listening in the same way to the same things (let alone the same source material) the playback equipment is all so different. We don’t listen in the same rooms, and even when we listen through the same headphones, we still often have different amplifers or different DACs (and of course, different cables and cable lengths. It’s a jungle.
I asked my wife, to listen to a Nordost cable versus a Sablon USB cable. I played a piece with just bass and acoustic guitar (Ray Brown & Laurindo Almida playing Monk’s 'Round Midnight just to simply the focus. But even there, I think what and how we listen was different enough to cloud the impressions we both had. As a person who used to do a lot of recording, I am usually listening to each individual instrument and how they sound apart and together. It’s interesting to note that isn’t isn’t necessarily how my wife draws her impressions of the sounds. i don’t think she might notice whether or not she can hear aspects of the bow on the striings, or the quality of the cut strings on the acoustic guitar, and whether there is sound of nail or pick on the strings (or whether she is listening to discern that). She is in fact not doing any of that. Her impressions are much more general, driving home that we do listen in different ways to different things, and thus our impressions of the cables are bound to be different. That you can hear differences in those areas with different cables shouldn’t surprise anyone whose ear can be focussed on those things. She might be enjoying the music more than I am, but she is definitely not listening to how the cables are chaging the sound in the same sense that i am hearing it. There is no doubt in my mind about that. So right off the bad, there are enough differences in how and what we listen for to change our impressions of the same two cables on the same system. Imagine all that magnified by using different equipment to say nothing of different listening rooms. It’s crazy that anyone makes any kind of criticism pro or con about audio cables.
Your comments about needing tube replacements (I have both tube and solid state amps myself) made me wonder about your equipment. But I didn’t want to ask you about it here because if you are anything like me, you wouldn’t be wanting to advertise what you own. So I won’t do that. But, in any evaluation, it might be useful to know something more about your gear and your music preferences (what you use as source material and what you play it on). Even then, I feel, these are only guideposts and don’t really tell much about the evaluations. That’s why people need to listen for themselves, as I am sure you know.
I would happily love to explore some details about your listening experience, and share mine, but only in email correspondence. If you have any interest in doing so, please email me at richard.now@gmail.com
Best regards, r.
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