Detail, coherent, smooth, excellent sound stage, Full body, competitive pricing, and most of all excellent customer service!

Can't think of any now

I first read about the LIVE v4 cable from the AudioReview site. Many users have left excellent comment about it, but I was first hesitated. There are so many cable manufacturers from A to Z, why do I have to trust a company whose products are neither mentioned on Stereophile or TAS? However, I read all 20+ reviews several times, and figured what have I had to lose, so I sent Mark an e-mail and ask him for his recommendation. I was very impressed by Mark's knowledge and prompt response, so after several e-mails, I decided to order v4 and take the 30-day guarantee trail...Mark was kind enough to send me a v3 alone for comparison. On the night I received the package, I was very eager to try them on. Out of the package were 2 nice looking cable with plastic looking interconnect heads and very flexible cable body. I first put on v3 between my dac and my intergrated amp. After trying to fit those "Bullet Plug" into my RCA connectors, I finally got it in. Very surprised on how good these plugs were fitting into the machine. I played a CD, and immediate noticed some improvement: a fuller body, better music detail, and a better image. But the improvement was not that obvious, I think, so I switched to v4, and .....when the sound first came out, I almost felt out my chair. How can this kind of sound come out from my system? They sound so live and 3-D, dynamis, detail, and....(I think I am starting to sound like other guys here.) I can't believe that was the first night. I have tried several brand name cables at about the same price range, but no one had knocked my eardrum like v4 did since that night. It's like the missing link between my hi-fi gears and me. Now I really appreciate the quality sound that comes out from my system, and each night I would sit down in front of the speakers and just listen and enjoy myself.....the sounds just got better and better after the first night. On that first night, I honestly thought that my wife would find out something different in my system if she actually played a CD....... I consider LIVE v4 to be my best upgrade so far! And, everything Mark told me about the sound came true. If anyone is interested in Zcable, please don't take our words for it. Go to the website and get one for your own home trial. Micromega Minimum CD player Point Dac Plus J.C. Verdier 220DE intergrated Amp Sonus Faber Concertino speaker NBS little dragon, dragonfly digital cable RCA ->BNC (Canare) silver cable bi-wire (homemade)

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Ensemble Masterflux Straight Wire Maestro Pro-Co

As higher priced cables go, the ZCable products are actuall a bargain! They cost way less than many of the other foo foo cables on the market. The first High end cable company that has actually made me a believer in cables making a real difference.

From a dealer's view point his cables have traditionally not looked as nice as other high end cables but most of ZCable's products have improved in appearance with the latest versions

I am a custom installer dealer in Wichita (the same town Z Cable hails from). I install primarily high end home screening rooms, paying close attention to room designs that allow for an excellent 2 channel music experience as well (many home theatres don't do well for 2 channel music listening). I've always been cable agnostic and believe so many of the "supposed" high end cable compnies are really selling cable jewelry and they only excel at marketing - not cable design dedicated to audio excellence. Mark Hampton/Z Cable is probably one of the few companies that puts more money and effort into the cable design & very little into marketing. With that in mind, it's easy to see why his cables make such a remarkable difference. It has to be proved to me and the proof is in the sound! I sell Martin Logan electrostatic speakers. These speakers are very revealing of any weakness in a system. All the Z Cables products improve Martin Logan speakers dramatically, especially Z Cable's digital and analog interconnects. Lately I have been experimenting with Z Cables Lightning AC power cables on the Martin Logan speakers. I have used Z Cable's Thunder and Lightning on components to great advantage and the Lightning also helps when replacing the factory Martin Logan AC power cords. Watch for his new Z Sleeves. They are also doing great things to my systems!

Spatially coherent, tonally correct at all frequencies, dynamic, very detailed, deep and wide soundstage. Absolutely the best customer service I have ever encountered. Price to performance ratio is off the scale. I don't know of any better sounding cables at this price range or even 2 to 3 times the price.

Absolutely none!

Let me begin by stating that I never heard of Z-cable until I visited the EVS web site and had spoken to Ric Schultz. At that time I was in the market for a high end tweaked cd player, not cables.But,his enthusiasm for Z-cable products stayed in the back of my mind. I was tired of trying different brands of expensive cables, only to be disappointed by the results, or have to strain to hear any difference at all. I was convinced that I needed to upgrade my front end. About a month had passed and my curiosity had gotten the better of me.I had visited the Z-cable and audio review web sites numerous times and decided it was time to call and get more information about thes cables, and maybe order a set of interconnects,just to see for myself if these cables are, indeed, as good as everyone states. After a lengthy conversation with Mark Hampton, all my questions were answered. When I told Mark what equipment I owned,and the different cables that I had tried over the years, He described exactly what I had been hearing with each manufacturers cables. He was right on the money, as if he had been in my living room and had heard my system. So,when he described what my system would sound like with his cables,I was convinced that these cables were worth a try. I ended up ordering the whole package,Live interconnects, Passion Bi-wire speaker cables,a Digital Duet digital cable, and Thunder and Lightning power cords. Once everything arrived and was hooked up, I sat back and listened. I expected some kind of improvment, But, I was totally unprepared for the degree of improvement. I was completely blown away! How can cables make an average system sound like a "live" performance? I don't know how, but they do. In fact, my wife came in from the other room asking, "Was that the new cables she was hearing"?When I told her it was, she exclaimed, "It sounds as if the band is in our living room". Descriptions alone cannot do these cables justice.These cables have to be auditioned to realize just how special they are.If possible, I would recommend that the whole package be auditioned together, because, according to Mark, every component is designed to work with the others. From power cords, to inteconnects, to speaker cables, the best results are achieved when used together. This may initially seem like a lot of money, but compared to the prices of many front end components, it's a steal. I probably would not have replaced my cd player if I had listened to these cables first. What I spent on these very special cables is a fraction of what my new cd player cost me,and more importantly, they had a far more dramatic impact on the sound than did the cd player. After living with these cables in my system for almost a year, I still get goose bumps every time I sit down and listen to music. The sound is so dynamic, so natural, so, "LIVE". It's like having a live performance in my living room whenever I desire. One thing is for sure. Components and speakers will come and go, but my Z-cables are here to stay. They are the foundation of any system that I might put together in the future. System: Preamp: Musical Fidelity A3cr Amp: Musical Fidelity A3cr CD: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 3D Speakers: Definitive Technology bp 2000 Interconnects: Z-cable Live v4 Speaker cables: Z-cable Passion v3 Power cords: Thunder on power amp Lightning on cd, Preamp,and the speakers built in amps.

The best sound I ever heard. Makes music sound like music!

no way!

All I can say is that I never had any interest in my husband's stereo system before. I was not into his hobby at all and didn't care about all his new gadgets or gizmos and I thought everything sounded the same. Good but the same. Until he purchased this Zcable from their website. Little by little, I found myself wandering into his listening room and saying to him how remarkably good his stereo was sounded. I kept saying to him "now this sounds like music." He told me he was trying out this new interconnect called Zcable Live v4. I told him "good" because I finally was hearing what all the fuss was about with his hobby. More and more, I found that I was spending more time in the stereo room than he was. I know my husband has owned other cables in the past and the only one I can remember is the recent one - Transparent - which sounded ok, but for the price of those, I could purchase a few major kitchen appliances. At least with Zcable, I don't have to worry about my children's college fund. All I can say is that Zcable changed me from someone who couldn't care less about stereo to a card-carrying audio enthusiast now. As a side benefit, I'm spending much more time with my husband than I thought I would.

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Transparent reference & other absurdly expensive brands

Dynamic,coherent,transparent,effortless, flowing. Excellent price for this level of performance. Outstanding customer service.

Doesn't have the look of a truly great cable, not a well known brand (hopefully it will be soon).

Wow -- I've never had as much fun with my stereo than after installing the ZCable Live v4. These cables are incredible. I've always been fascinated by the influence of cables on system sound, and I've tried quite a few different interconnects, speaker cables and power cables. With some cables I had to struggle to hear a difference in the sound. Not so with the ZCable Live. I started out with the Live v3, which beat my $500 Ensemble Masterflux interconnects by more than a margin. Then, I tried the Live v4. This cable is a class above the Ensemble and any other interconnect I have ever heard. I'm used to listening to subtle differences when tweaking my system, but the changes that the Live v4 brings about are about as subtle as a hammer blow. Details in the music that were masked by distortion and compression are suddenly revealed in full bloom. I can hear the acoustics of the recording room on Paul Simon's "Rythm of the Saints" which I never knew was there. It always sounded like it was recorded in a dead room. Stringed instruments, which have always sounded harsh in my system have become coherent and resolved. CD's which once sounded compressed and harsh, now sound more open and full bodied. It's as if a veil of noise that I never recognized has been lifted. If I had to use one word to describe these cables it would be "coherent." It's as if all of the sounds from low bass to singing highs are all in their proper positions, much like in a live performance. I never thought I would be able to afford cables in this league. System: CD - Arcam Alpha 7SE Preamp - Morrison ELAD Amp - Ayre V-3 Speakers - Thiel CS 2.2 Speaker Cables - ZCable Passion v3 various tweaks, cones, power conditioning.

Similar Products Used:

Silver Audio, Transparent, Ensemble

Soundstage...image..impact...SWEET!

I would like to start by saying how valuable I find this site and the opinions of my fellow audiophiles. I don’t consider myself one, just a regular guy who’s somewhere between audiophile and hobbyist. Although my friends think I’m over the edge, for they get the deer in the headlight look, when I answer how much this or that cost. I simply reply; yes, I know. But I’m in therapy now and it is going well. The real deal. www.zcable.com The more I read, the more intrigued I became. This stuff sounds too good to be true. Who writes this? And what the heck is Optimization. So I came here to AudioReview to find out what consumers had to say about ZCable. Rave reviews. Not one thumb down, what’s up with that? I was beginning to think the same guy wrote all the reviews. There was a common thread, praise. Let’s talk to the man behind the curtain, the Wizard, Mark. Through email, Mark enlightened me as to what would improve my system. He answer all my questions. I even managed to keep up with him on most of the techno lingo. 30-day free trial, yup, that lingo I understood. I ordered the Thunder, Lighting, Jazz 4, Digital Duet and Passion Bi-Wire. When the ZCable arrived, first thing I noticed was how well made they were. Sure they look impressive, but so does a Porsche. It’s being behind the wheel that completes the experience. Let’s take these for a test drive. Buckle up - it’s like burning rubber in all four gears. They say wires sound better after burn in. Hold on, the turbo’s just about to kick in. I believe every component is a link in a chain. Speaker wire, power cords and interconnects are no exceptions. They are components. Good ones make an improvement. To hear is to believe. So my quest lead me to A/B enough brands (Kimber, Monster, Synergistic, Straightwire just to name a few) that I too thought I should get a life. But when you find that magic, that makes you smile, and say OH YHA, then it’s all worth sound. It’s as if the speakers just disappeared… about the same time my smile appeared.it. Zcable’s Optimization seems to work. For it’s got OH YHA down. If I were to say what the biggest improvement that ZCable did for my system, it would be the soundstage. HUGE! Finally, no more wish-full thinking. No more, let’s A/B again. Folks, all the things others have written about ZCable are spot-on. Huge soundstage, deeper bass, increased imaging,

Affordable. Totally changed the sound of my music system in a way I never thought possible.

Nothing at all. Just wish I had known about these cables earlier

I had just purchased a moderate home theater system consisting of an Onkyo receiver, Paradigm speakers, Denon DVD player and Monster speaker cables and interconnects. I thought the the sound was pretty good considering the price that I paid for the items. I was pretty impressed with the home theater and the music. About a week later a friend of mine brought over a pair of cables for me to try out in my system to show me how changing cables could make a big difference in the sound. I didn't believe him and thought that wire and cables were just wire and cables and couldn't possibly make a difference. After my friend exhanged my Monster cables for Zcables, I thought that my sound system was somebody elses. It simply wasn't the same music that I thought I had been happy with before. It went from being a very pleasing sound to a sound that made me just stare in amazement at the speakers... not believing the sound that was coming out of them. My entire system cost $2000 now sounded better than sound systems that I had heard a month ago for over $10,000. I never thought that one simple substitution would make such a gigantic change in the way my components sounded. I encourage anyone who doesn't feel that cables make a difference to try Zcables and hear the major changes that it will make. I now have ordered Zcable interconnects and speaker cables. And, I'm going to try the digital cable and power cords after that.

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Monster

Always musical, tonally correct & accurate from the lowest bass to the highest treble; amazing detail, transparency & realism; precise soundstage; true and honest dynamics, etc. I could go on and on. Do yourself a favor & discover what you're missing.

NONE. Let me repeat that - NONE.

Let me start out by saying that I've owned & auditioned dozens of interconnects of various brands & prices for the past 15 years - always feeling that the newest & most expensive cable brought me closer to the "perfect" sound that I had been on an endless search for. When I discovered Zcable, the search was over. Plain and simple. Since owning Zcable LIVE interconnects, I now realize that all of those cables I've owned & auditioned over the years were simply rocks compared to the diamonds I had now found. My entire music & home theater system is now wired with Zcable interconnects, speaker cables, digital cables & power cords. In my opinion, Zcable "LIVE v4" has with ease and without much fanfare, distanced itself from the pack of so-called "premiere" (and vastly more expensive) cables that I've owned and listed below. At the time I owned those cables, they appeared to be good in their own way, but in retrospect, those cables were nothing more than expensive tone controls. Zcable "LIVE v4" is what an interconnect should be - a true, honest path to the source of the music. Zcable is THE most important component of my system. I've heard more of a difference by putting Zcable in a system, than by putting in a multi-thousand dollar preamp, amp or speaker. With Zcable I felt for the first time I was hearing what my "other" components were truly capable of. Zcable has that rare synergy to bring that elusive harmony with everything else in my setup. (components used include Aerial, Revel, Bryston, Theta, B&W, Krell, Dunlavy, Martin Logan, Alon and Integra Research.) All I can say about these interconnects is they are always, always truly musical. Vocals and instruments are as tonally natural, honest and real as I know they sound live. When I listen to music, I'm always aware of the depth of soundstage, and to me the sense of depth is one of the major accomplishments of true music reproduction and adds tremendously to the musicality of what I'm hearing. Other cables have made attempts to create this - Zcable allows it to happen naturally. I can hear deeper into recordings than I ever thought possible which makes the soundstage take on a a true level of realism. If this review sounds overly glorious, then you have no reason not to attempt to prove me wrong since Zcable offers a 30-day money back guarantee. You won't be sorry.

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Purist Audio, JPS Labs, AudioQuest, Pure Silver, Silver Audio, Synergistic Research, Cardas, Discovery, Kimber, Siltech, Transparent, Harmonic Tech & many more.

Do they turn pig's ears into silk purses? No, but they will give you the most from the rest of your system. And they do sound live.

Too inexpensive to be taken seriously? Really, no weaknesses.

I first considered the Zcables at the urging of Ric Schultz (EVS). At the time, I had a pioneer dvd player, monarchy dip and a chroma dac. A pretty low-end system. The idea of using an interconnect that would be worth as much or more than I could get for my front-end (even new) was a foriegn concept to me, but with a free trial, I was game. I obtained an earlier version of the LiveV4. I was replacing monster cable interconnects from the dac to my integrated amp. The LiveV4 did exactly what Mark Hampton said it would. More detail, more space between instruments, more open soundstage, more, more, more. And on top of it all, it sounded Live. A tremendous sense of ease. I later obtained a Marantz 8260 player, along with Zcable power cords for player and amp and the Passion speaker cables. And the newest version of the LiveV4. It sounds wonderful, (more) detailed, no sense of fatigue. These cables have put the fun back into audio for me. I can't put a value on that, but I know that the cost of these cables was a bargain. I had $2500 worth of Zcables in a $6000 system and I probably could have spent less on electronics. The cables are that good. I compared the LiveV4 to $1600 cables and they won out. I can't recommend these strongly enough.

Similar Products Used:

Monster cables.

Extraordinary clarity, body, and depth of sound.

None that I can discern.

This review is for the LIVE v4. I've had the pleasure of reviewing prototypes for ZCable over the last 6 months and have witnessed first hand the development of the new version 4 cables. I was impressed with the very first prototype which rendered as much detail as any of the silver interconnects I've tried. Each iteration became even more revealing of the inner details. The final version offers tremendous depth of resolution; so much so that you can clearly hear details within echoes. Spatial cues are extremely accurate, and voices sound real and natural. There is no smearing of any frequency which can cause fatigue when it occurs in the upper ranges. I've listened to quite a few interconnects and these are the most natural sounding of any I've heard. A well deserved 5 stars! Associated equipment: Mark Levinson 390S CD processor Antique Sound Lab KMP60-FOX DT amps Aerial Acoustic 7B speakers ZCable PASSION v3 speaker cables (see my review) BMI Whale Elite MKII PC

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