Very revealing interconnect

too revealing for non-audiophile level gear...

Associated equipment for PBJ review: Acurus DIA-100 direct input amplifier, NAD 502, Rotel 855, and Sony CDP-XA20-ES CD players, Vandersteen 2ce Speakers biwired with Kimber 4TC and 8TC cabling. Power conditioning by Adcom.

First let me say I agree with Peter's review where he states "I think there is often a direct relationship between negative reviews of a somewhat revealing cable like PBJ and those just getting into higher end audio." I have been using PBJ for the past five years in my midfi, home theater, and my high end systems. After such an extended and varied experience with the PBJ, I decided to put in my two cents worth. My first experience with PBJ in my midfi system suggested the PBJ to be what I thought was a big disappointment. Highs became "brittle" and aggressive, the upper midrange became far too exaggerated, and the whole balance of vocals sounded "spitty" and over defined within the soundstage. This system consisted of a Sony receiver, Sony CD player (mass market model, not the wonderful "ES" series), and NAD 502 player driving the Vandersteens through Kimber 4TC and 8TC speaker cables. I was confused how a "high end" cable could make my system sound worse, actually much worse. I blamed the PBJ for being substandard. Having spent what to me was a lot of money on the 3 sets of PBJ, I decided to stay with them for the short run. During this time, several dealers and audiophile associates of mine broke the bad news to me that PBJ was actually a pretty revealing cable and the problem was more likely to be my equipment rather than the PBJ. I heard the PBJ sound wonderful in dealer's high end systems, so I realized this must be the case.

I then upgraded to the Acurus direct input amplifier (DIA-100). The difference was like night and day. Suddenly the soundstage had real depth, bass was much better extended and a big percentage of the harshness disappeared ON GOOD RECORDINGS ONLY! Badly recorded CD's were if anything even worse sounding through the Acurus/NAD 502 or Acurus/Rotel 855 combos. The same PBJ's that could sound so improved on one recording could sound much worse on the next. They were doing their job exactly correctly, that is clearly demonstrating the actual sound of the recording. My system still had a bit too much midrange harshness for my tastes and image blurring in congested symphonic passages. I wrongly attributed this to the Acurus and PBJ's. I still had not completely broken the "CD player is a CD player" mindset yet. Recently after the failure of my NAD 502, and much against my better judgement I auditioned the Sony CDP-XA20-ES player along with the Rotel 971 (HDCD equipped) and Rega Planet players. (See my full reviews under any of these 3 players for under $1,000). I knew Stereophile rated the Sony's big brother the XA7-ES as "class A and without equal among CD players", and the 20 is basically a XA7ES minus the balanced outs and some of the shielding. I chose it over the Rotel and Rega after a 3 day audition with very well broken-in examples of each in my system. This forever changed how I viewed Kimber PBJ, the Acurus DIA-100, my Vandersteen 2ce's and Corey Greenburg.

Now that I have a vastly improved digital front end, (my father who has all Theta gear was blown away by the Sony XDP XA20-ES for only $700), all hint of image blurring, midrange "spittiness", or "harsh" presentation on WELL RECORDED MATERIAL is gone! Soundstaging is truly scary in my system now. But guess what folks, poor recordings still sound like poor recordings, though much of the "digital haze" on even these is greatly reduced. I finally feel I have a synergistic system I can live with for a long time to come.

My point being that PBJ does what it should. it faithfully and revealingly reproduces what it is fed. It is in no way euphonic. If your system requires a cable to serve as a "filter" to compensate for overall balance problems, this is not the best choice. But before you blame the PBJ as I did for a long time, stop to think about what you are feeding it. I couldn't agree more with reviewers who insist a "well balanced system" is the ultimate goal. PBJ does lean toward the lean sounding/very revealing side of the equation, so I would never use it in a bright sounding system for example. But fed the right source material, it is an outstanding value. I think on eof the biggest problems it has is it's price. PBJ is affordable enough that many people with midfi gear use it to get into a "highend" cable without understanding the consequences of such a decision. they then blame the cable for accurately revealing the source components "sonic signatures". Have I heard much better cables? Yes of course, but in the price/performance equation, it can't be beat...

Similar Products Used:

Monster Cable, Audioquest, Tara Labs

very detailed, good soundstage

too bright for most systems

Must revise my recent post and downgrade PBJ to 4 stars after listening to several other cables. PBJ is very detailed and revealing at this price with very good 3D sound
stage but overall it is somewhat thin sounding and is bright
sounding. If you listen to vocals and every word that ends
in "S" sounds like snake hiss, your cable is too bright.

Kimber Hero is fuller sounding with no brightness but has
unacceptable loss of detail compared to PBJ. Silver Streak
is very good cable, much fuller sounding, very dynamic
easily preferable to PBJ or Hero, and for 1/2 meter cable
from CDP to integrated amp a reasonable $150. I could be happy living with Silver Streak......until I heard Silver
Audio Silver Buttet 4. Here is a silver cable that is actually has sweet sounding mid and high range, vocals sound
dead on, my system cable now, $175 for 1/2 meter. To read
reviews look under former name D-Lin Silver Bullet 4.

My system is:
Musical Fidelity E624 CDP
Musical Fidelity A3 integrated amp
Spendor SP1 3 way British monitors (classic from late 1980s)
Silver Audio Silver Bullet 4 connect, 1/2 meter
Kimber 8TC speaker cable, 6ft runs

Similar Products Used:

Kimber Silver Streak, Hero and Silver Audio Silver Bullet 4

Sound, price, flexibility, quality of connectors

Price (see below)

I've been into audio for 25+ years and at one time would have called myself an audiofile. But now my budget, ears, and interest level don't justify that title. Back in the 70's wire was wire. In the 80's I discovered the advantages of better interconnects and speaker cables for even my modest system at the time (NAD 20 wpc receiver, NAD CD player, and $600 large 2-way Fried stand mount speakers).

PBJ's have added detail, especially at the high end, without squeezing out the "juice" of the music. A friend brought over very thin $400 silver interconnects that IMO made very little improvement. Other similarly priced cables that I've heard sound heavy, muddy, and very masked over in comparison. I don't find them brittle, noisy, or bright as others below have mentioned. As an example of what these interconnects can do, I finally replaced generic (read the cheapest possible) interconnects between the pre/power amps and to the subwoofer and it immediately (without break-in) improved the sound almost as much as new speakers!

I agree with many of the reviewers below, especially Scott from Indiana - about 20 reviews down, that these cables will reveal all the warts of lesser components and recordings. Much of the lower ratings given PBJ's has to do with this, IMHO more so than poor matching to components.

I also agree with others here, that cleaner (shorter, less crossing of) cable/power cord configurations would also help (as did a PS Audio power plant that a friend brought over to try out). Having a subwoofer just adds to the problem. (I have pre-amp outs to Monster Cable gold Y adapters with 0.5 m PBJ's to the power-amp and 2.0 m PBJ's to the subwoofer.) My next system will be purist 2 channel audio only (currently considering Paradigm Active 40's, Marantz SA-14 SACD player, and Kimber Kable Hero interconnects to also minimize the cable mess and equipment clutter in the living room).

The PBJ's are in an audio/HT system that has a total system cost of about $3,000. As you can see below the cabling ended up being about 16% of the total, which is somewhat beyond the common wisdom of spending 10% of system cost on cabling. That's my cable cost dilemma: I consider these to be pretty near minimal audiophile cables, but they're still overpriced for these fairly typically priced components.

Keep in mind the cost of cable relative to the cost of the rest of the referenced system as you read the reviews.


Associated equipment: (with retail prices)

Rotel RX-975 100 wpc stereo A/V receiver ($700)
Sony XA20ES CD single disc player ($700)
Toshiba SD 2200 dual DVD player ($300)
Ascend Acoustics CBM 170 2-way stand mount speakers ($360)
HSU VTF-2 subwoofer ($440)
Kimber Kable PBJ interconnects ($356 total)
Kimber Kable 4TC speaker cables ($146)
Omni-mount wall speaker brackets ($56)

See my reviews for each of these components at this site.

BTW - all the internet purchases I've made have worked out very well, including Audio Advisor

Similar Products Used:

somewhat limited experience (don't know brands/models)

Superior performance at low listening levels, nice balance and staging, reveals a lot of detail

Doesn´t match with any system

Maybe not the best cable out there, but surely worth the money. I especially like its performance when listening at low levels. I am using a Cyrus/B&W/Denon system, and the PBJ adds the extra sparkle the music needs. Very recommended, but try before you buy.

Similar Products Used:

Various

Price,HF clarity and detail

None in my system.

The thing that I like the most about the PBJ,is the value. Nothing I have heard in this price range is as cost effective. I paid $59.00 far 0.5 meter,not bad! I have read that some people find the PBJ to be too bright. I figure it depends on the system. My system,mostly the speakers, are a bit soft. They lack high end resolution and clarity. This is the exact reason I bought the PBJ. I thought its strenghts were what my system lacked,needed. I am a person who can not see paying a lot for a piece of copper. That is why I really like the PBJ. I do belive interconnects and speaker cables are important, but at what price. There has to be a point of diminishing return. My motto is,spend the money if you have it on the components. Cables are the icing on the cake.
My system:
McCrmack DNA 0.5 Amp.
McCormack Micro line drive Pre Amp
Rega planet CD player
Snell E III Speakers
Nordost Super flatline speaker cables
Audio Quest Ruby interconnect (CD to Pre)
Kimber PBJ interconnect (Amp to Pre)

Similar Products Used:

Vampire wire, Audio Quest, Monster cable, Nordost.

Good concept for the right system.

Bad concept for the wrong system.

These cables may equal the very,very best available level of cable performance in a system. And,then again,they may not. It is not necessarily the cable's fault. The reason that evaluating cables is so hard is that system-specificity is the main thing to decipher when choosing a cable. That cable you choose may tweak the sound you hear differently in a different locale if you should ever change residences,or even in different rooms in your present dwelling,it may accentuate either highs,lows,midranges,it may or may not produce noise. You might change the routing of the cable and affect the performance slightly. You may purchase a new peice of equipment and the previously great cable has now become crap. Cable reviews and consumer's reccomendations,like so much in audio,are almost all useless fun. The only thing to do is what I am posting as a reccomendation in my other cable reviews. TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!!! There is not one intrinsically superior cable! And,before you begin your experimenting with power-cords,cables,etc..,try first this: Seperate and prevent the overlapping or criss-crossing of your systems power-cords,interconnects,and speaker-cables as much as possible to prevent various types of electrical interactions - this alone can improve your sound more than a careless but expensive cable change. After you have done this,then experiment with cables,etc..,for "fine-tuning". And,find a dealer who is set up to assist you on a demo-first basis. Outside of your own personal research,take all reccomendations on wires with a grain of salt...

Similar Products Used:

Standards,Bettercables,Rockford-Fosgate.

Details, tighten up bass.

Sounds hard/in your face on most low-mid fi solid state electronics.

PBJ sounds hard on my Acurus pre/amp. It might be good value if interconnect with tube gear and or smooth electronics. Preferred dhlab bl2.

Similar Products Used:

DHLab, IMT2

Detailed, open sound

Equipment:
Cambridge A3i amplifier
Yamaha CDX 591 cd-player
Chario Syntar 100 speakers

PBJ adds life, detail and openness to the above system, which previously had an warm, but not too detailed sound.
I can recommend this cable!!

Similar Products Used:

20$ no-name cable

Improved bass, smooth midrange.

Horrible noise and a/c hum.

I was using the pbjs on my cd player and thought that I would give them a try on the turntable. I was using standard RCA's but was getting some noise through them, well people kept telling me about the Kimbers and how they absolutely reduced all noise and were free from interference. So I tried them out. They put out more noise than the standard cables! So I thought that I would try the Monsters And I was surprised top find out that the Monsters eliminated all noise completely. I will never use Kimbers again, in one word, OVERRATED.

Similar Products Used:

Monster reference interconnects.

This cable was too bright for my system (CJ amp, preamp and 2.3 Thiels). I was looking for a cable to run from my Marantz CD6300 CD player to the preamp. The KKpbj and both of the StraightWires didn't do the trick. The bass was weak in all three and the KK was too bright (e.eg., piano pieces sounded very unnatural). I found that the StraightWire Musicable II worked great: Better bass, good treble and very good midrange with a realistic soundstage. I am going to try a Masetro II (which I am already using between the preamp and the amp) too see if I can top the Musicable II.

Similar Products Used:

StraightWire Sonata and StraightWire Encore II