This review is for Audioquest Forest speaker cable. System Kondo CD3 CD player/M7 Preamplifier, AI 200 power amplifier, Yamaha NS1000M speakers, Shishido cable loom. Anyone who ever came across live music will know it has a holistic quality about it. This quality has to be constructed, it does not come by accident. In my experience, Copper brings substance, Silver brings envelope, Speaker cables bring weight, and power cables bring dynamics. In this case, inspite of the cable loom being installed in the system, the Forest cable managed to add a little more weight to the music. The more pronounced weight of the notes, combined with a more sustained decay, made the sound more delicious, bubble gummy type :) Despite the cable's more pronounced weight, the speed of the delivery did not slow down, nor did it become muddy. One caveat: more does not necessarily equal better. Better is always better, but more is not always better, especially in today's mantra, where detail is emphasized at the frequency extremes. Great overall cable!

No obvious weaknesses. This cable will only improve as the system improves. The downside is, of course, it will present your system as it truly is.

Presents the music as it should be. Natural, transparent, superb soundstage. Stopped me spending money on further upgrades!

Very rare to stumble across it.

System: Linn Mimik 2 CD Player Musical Fidelity X-A2 Amplifier Linn Katan Speakers on Linn stands Atlas Voyager Interconnects Picked this cable up from the "bargain bin" through sheer curiosity - it looks like a garden hose! (It's even green!). Then I noticed the price, £200. Well, I was going to pay in excess of this for two lengths of Chord Odyssey so I thought I may as well have a little demo in store. One word: Transparent! That describes both the obviousness (did I just make that word up?) of the Audiotruth Forest's superiority over the Chord and the sonic quality of the cable. I figured that, being a used cable, the Forest was so much better to my ears due to it being far more heavily run in than the Chord - so I asked the question. The Chord was the shops own pair and had had well in excess of the recomended burn in time since the stores system was running virtually 24 - 7. The way that vocals are placed dead centre and instruments (usually guitars of varying distortion for me) are placed within the soundstage is simply stunning in that it is completely natural. Some cables can sound forced or over analytical in there attempts to dig up the details in the music but not this. All the details are present and if you listen to individual instruments they are as easy to follow as with many other cables I have tried, the beauty of this cable is that your attention isn't brought to the various areas of the sound, your attention is focussed purely on the music. Reading soome of the reviews for the Nordost speaker cable one Red Dawn owner says: "...you can't hear the Forest for the trees". Somehow the name of this Audiotruth cable seems befitting of that analogy! I can honestly say that since upgrading from QED Silver Anniversary I have never once suffered from listening fatigue - something that used to happen frequently, probably due to the QED's slightly brash treble and lack of real midrange clarity and seperation. So an absolute steal for me and, since having heard cables such as Nordost's Red Dawn since my purchase, I have absolutely no desire or necessity to upgrade even two years or so down the line. My advice, if you ever happen to stumble across any hose pipe in your hifi dealer and it says Forest down the side do yourself a favour and get it!

Similar Products Used:

Nordost Red Dawn Nordost Blue Heaven Audioquest Midnight Chord Odyssey Van Den Hul Tea track Some garbage Monster cable

Great bass and smooth-liquid treble. Outperform newer Audioquest cables (Granite, Gibraltar) for less.

Expensive new, bargain used if you can find one

After trying to upgrade to more expensive AQ Clear I returned to Audio truth Forest. Sound simply very well balanced and double of price gave me only slight improvement. Moving from Midnight was no brainer and edginess over instrumental music Midnight cables produce disappeared when were replaced with Forest cables. I had a chance to audition original Forest and Forest+ in my system and Forest + was strongly superior. I believe older version was using different conductors and metal quality. In my experience with transparent cables Forest comes very close to Music wave super, but Forest is more neutral and adds nothing to the music. Higly recommended. I tried new AudioQuest line that they refer as perfect surface ( Granite, Gibraltar) and for some reason they sound far brighter than Forest. It is cheaper to make new cables, but their retail price is overpriced. Forest offer excellent biwire capabilities for two way speakers and its neutral character allow to deliver the best neutral sound to your speakers. Very difficult to find used, so if you see one grab it.

Similar Products Used:

AQ Middnight, Granite, Gibraltar, Clear. Transparent Music Wave plus, super.

Neutral high end

Cable thickness and density

Love the Forest+ cable!
Other AudioQuest cable I find unlistenable (the silver hybrids and even low end copper (Indigo) sound way too bright and congested), but this one sounds great! It has a lot of high end detail, some might say too much, but what is there sounds very good. The bass is tremendous and the mid range well 'supported' It is even compatible with the fussy Krell 300i amp (with which I tried MANY combinations of cable.)

Only drawback is the sheer size and mass of the cable, which if not secured well with good connectors, can easily pull itself free from speaker/amp.

rich, full sound, airy transparency, tight bass

incredibly stiff and inflexible cable, expensive (unless you buy it used)

I bought these cables used off of a seller on Audiogon.com for far less than they cost new. I really like Audioquest interconnects so I decided to try their speaker cables. They were full range cables when I bought them, which I used for about a month before sending them back to Audioquest to have them reterminated as a single biwire high pass cable (total cost, $50). What a difference! The bass is powerful and tight (well-controlled), and the soundstage is broad and deep. The highs are very clear and sparkly, transparent, and airy. What a cable! The only problem is that they are so stiff that they'll torque themselves right off their connections if they're not lined up the way they want to lie and then tightened really well. I might need WBT locking bananas on the amp end to keep them plugged in (still thinking about it). Overall, though, an awesome cable that made a huge difference in my system.

Similar Products Used:

nothing even comes close (cheap Monster cables, Radio Shack Megacable)

Neutrality and silence of the cable. Punchy bass.

Not flexible

I have listened to this cable for just two days now so it might be possible that I'm not getting the best sound possible from this cable. Personally I don't believe in burn-in periods with cables, but I like to keep my ears open. :)

I was very impressed when I connected these into my system.
Sony 20ES cd, Musical Fidelity X-24K dac, McCormack TLC-1 Deluxe pre, Classé CA-100 amps and Oracle Helicon speakers. Dunlavy UltraLowCapacitance interconnects.

Background came darker as there would have been some distortions and noise before (I had used 1 meter pair of supra ply 3.4S before, which replaced Cardas Crosslink cables).

Distortionless music flows through these cables and the sound is relaxed.

I am still amazed how these cables performed in my system.

I believe that cables are too expensive anyway so only 3 stars for value rating.

Excellent cable, it just passes the signal and nothing more.

Similar Products Used:

Cardas Crosslink, Supra Ply 3.4S, Goertz MI2

Fuller more natural presentation

Price

I recently hooked up a demo pair of Forest that I purchased for half price, still quite expensive IMO. It basically opened up the sound, fuller/deeper bass, and added dimension to the soundstage. I understand the law of diminishing returns, and the improvement is not day and night, but it is a sonic improvement, and I'm quite happy with the increased natural music presentation.

Similar Products Used:

Tara Labs Space & Time, AQ Midnight

high-end details an clarity, even bass has authority

be carefull with bright systems, part from that, nada!

Exxellent, transparent cable, no distortions and the better your system is, the better they become. Main thing is, they dont add stuff in to the sound.
Ive used it with meridian 557 poweramp & 502 pre, rotel 991*2 (bi-amped), pre 972, concert 8-speakers, rotel 971 hdcd. Interconnects: oelbach-supraflex, ixos studio gamma & 1102, taralabs RSC ref 2. I think these will be in my system for a long, long time.

Similar Products Used:

Taralabs Air speakercables