TRON AES/EBU DIGITAL - REVIEW
tron aes/ebu digital
There are reviews, for all intents and purposes, that write themselves. This is to say that their impact is immediate, truly surprising, and outstanding. Three such products come immediately to mind—The Grimm Audio MU2 (pre, streamer, DAC), the STAX SR-X9000 (electrostatic headphones), and the Atma-Sphere MP-3 and S30 (preamplifier and amplifier). Each of these components broke through the existing high-fidelity ceiling soaring past like components with ease. And in the case of the Grimm Audio MU2 and the Atma-Sphere MP-3 and S30 combo doing so at a fraction of the cost of Top-of-the-Line (TOTL) components not their equal.
From ‘Jump Street’ as we used to say or Zero+ or ‘instantaneously’ the Grimm Audio put on quite the show. As I had said in its review:
“Straight out of the box, just off a FedEx “freezer truck,” and still bearing the chill of a Minnesota winter, the Grimm Audio MU2 unfolded or stretched its digital/streaming muscles and put on a performance that to date has no peer.”
And that is still true. In like manner the Atma-Sphere MP-3 and S30 transcended stereo playback and brought to fore “performances” time and again. It was breathtaking to sit and listen to what had been truly exceptional stereo playback, to then see it transformed to a performance by the Atma-Sphere combo. The STAX SR-X9000 did the selfsame thing and, in my opinion, rose to become, well, the king-of-the-hill with regard to headphones, all headphones, regardless of technology. Nothing I’ve heard, to date, comes close.
Well, there’s a new component in house, a wire/cable—the BlackCat TRON AES/EBU—that has blazed the same trail in every respect and finds itself certainly head and shoulders above cables in its category—digital—at Casa Heartsong, no small trick given the lineup. But how good is the TRON AES/EBU?
REFRAIN: Unlike most reviews, this review will be non-sequential, as it will start with how the equipment actually sounds and not the process of physically “undressing” it and/or laying out its various accoutrement, specifications, etc. Think of this review then, as a non-linear movie—Memento, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, etc—that, likewise, starts at the end and winds its way to the beginning.
The System - Headphone Reference
Grimm Audio MU1 Streamer
Baetis Audio Revolution X5 Streamer
Silent Angel Bonn NX Network Switch
Silent Angel Genesis GX Master Clock
Bricasti Design M1SE DAC
Aurorasound HEADA Headphone Amplifier
Atma-Sphere GEM Headphone Amplifier
Pass Labs HPA-1 Headphone Amplifier
HIFIMAN SUSVARA Headphone
MEZE Empyrean Headphone
Audience Front Row Cables/Wires
Black Cat TRØN Signature Digital Cable
Kubala Sosna Emotion/Sensation—Cabling and Wires/Power Cords
RSX Beyond Power Cables
AntiCables Power Cables
Audience Hidden Treasure CAT7 Ethernet cables
TORUS RM20—Power Generation
The Sound & such
Like the Grimm Audio MU2 I placed the Black CAT TRON AES/EBU in the system straight off the FedEx truck, cold, and with zero burn-in, between the Baetis Audio Revolution X5 and the Bricasti M1SE. I then sat for a curious listen.
Move over! This is what I thought, well within 2 minutes of listening to understand that the TRON AES/EBU was an incredible digital cable. The previous quite expensive and well-known digital cable, which the TRON AES/EBU had replaced, appeared to not to have been passing along the same digital bits and bytes. The distinction was stark, immediate, and profound. This was music and it was technically superb, engaging and musical to no end. It was resolving, open, and was incorporating the ambiance and the air, the weight and the extension, that somehow the previous cable had entirely overlooked. I know children who would have been able to gauge the difference from a single listen. They would have asked, no doubt, with squenched and frowning faces, “Why does that other cable sound like that?” It sounds like that because it’s trying desperately to do what the TRON AES/EBU cable does with effortless ease—bring the music, entirely.
Again, it was cold, with zero burn-in, fresh out of the FedEx cardboard box when I placed the TRON AES/EBU in system. That it could embarrass another well thought of cable so easily and quickly was shocking.
However, once fully burned-in it was as if the the TRON AES/EBU sat a couple of quantum shelves higher, which is to say, not even in the same league despite cost equivalence or even those cables much more expensive. None of those other cables had left this impact. Everything improved as a sublime naturalness unfolded, while nuance and subtlety were captured and weaved together in a whole-cloth display of coherency, and ambiance like that of the Grimm Audio MU2 and the STAXX SR-X9000. And the TRON AES/EBU's ability to move past stereo reproduction and on to a performance was in league with the Atma-Sphere combo and this alone sets it apart not only from digital cables but from digital itself. Superb!
The BlackCat TRON AES/EBU breathed life and vitality, naturalness and musicality, while crossing and doting all the technical ‘t’s’ and ‘i’s’—soundstage, detail, transparency, resolution, etc.—like a highly skilled and deft writer. What more can one say?
Conclusion
As mentioned above, there are reviews that write themselves. This review of the BlackCat TRON AES/EBU digital cable is one of those reviews. So profound are its abilities and talents that the review simply flowed and I simply wrote that which the TRON AES/EBU was telling me to write via its voice. And a truly superb voice it is. Suffice to say, that the brevity of this review, I don’t generally write short reviews, speaks to the profound and immediate ability of the BlackCat TRON AES/EBU digital cable.
Your music will be freed to be music. You will hear your music as thought it was the synthesis of all that is good in both vinyl and digital formats. How then does a digital cable do this?! I do not know. What I do know is that I purchased it immediately after I heard its burned-in voice and I’ve not looked back since.
The BlackCat TRON AES/EBU digital cable is an endgame cable, at least, for me. As I have not met its rival regardless of cost. And that finds it easily meeting the criteria of our highest award—the DIAMOND AWARD—for excellence. I do not know if you will be as shocked as I was, though I think the probability quite high. Bravo!
Note: Perhaps next as pictured above the Black Cat SPDIF Digital Cable.
The Company
BLACK CAT
TRON AES/EBU DIGITAL CABLE (1.5m): $2,300/meter
P.O. Box 2653
Cumming, GA 30028
mayu@blackcatcable.com
sales@blackcatcable.com
