All Supra cables are wrapped in a pale blue PE (polyethylene) covering. The PE coating minimizes dielectric absorption and is very flexible. It is also environmentally friendly and halogen free.

Supra cables are all directional. The labeling on the cabling "reads" from the source end to the receiving end. This makes it easy to properly orient any Supra cable.

The Jenving web site provides a great deal of technical information about their cables. It is well worth a look.

The Supra cables that I auditioned were each 1.5 meters long (5 feet) and pre-assembled for me. The LoRad cables are actually sold as separate lengths of wire and terminal ends. The LoRad 2.5 cable retails for $15 per meter, the 1.5 cable for $11 per meter. The hospital grade ends are $20 each. This results in the 1.5 meter LoRad 2.5 cable costing a mere $62.50, the 1.5, $56.50.

My job is to discuss how components sound, as best I can. Readers are more than capable of deciding for themselves if something is a good value. Still, the question is almost unavoidable: are these cables too inexpensive to be truly audiophile quality? Read on.

Noting Some Prejudices

I have gone from something of a power cord atheist to outright evangelist over the past decade. I still have no idea why different power cords make the differences that they do, but adding them to my systems has been an unequivocally positive experience for me. I am sufficiently prejudiced in favor of after-market power cords that I don't even bother to listen with the power cord supplied with most pieces of equipment. The free cords are just not good enough to ascertain how the equipment actually sounds.

The cords that I own are not particularly expensive ones. I have found that most $100-350 dollar after-market cords will open the door to a component's performance to a considerable extent. More expensive cords may open that door further, true, but, in some respects their addition becomes more of a tuning process than an upgrade.

Listening

I began listening with a system comprised of my Sony 5400 SACD player, Sony SCD-333 player as transport for a Wyred 4 Sound DAC-1, Dodd preamp, and Rogue 90 amp. I used Supra Sword speaker cables with Fritz Speakers Carbon 7 Monitors. I began by replacing the PS Audio Prelude power cable on the Rogue amp with the Supra LoRad 2.5.

The very first impression I got of the Supra came from plugging the IEC end into the Rogue. It had a precision to its fit that really impressed me. A lot of IEC ends never really feel secure. These do.

The differences that I heard with the Supra in the system were not enormous but readily apparent. The Supra cable provided both additional detail and a better developed front to back dimension within the soundstage. This was evident on Marilyn Mazur's "Metal Dew" from her Elixir CD (ECM 1962 1737320). Here the xylophone notes were better developed and subtle chime sounds were easier to hear. I found myself visualizing the xylophone notes as bubbles within the soundstage. With the Supra cord, each bubble was more 3D, floated clear of the other bubbles, was fully spherical in shape, and when popped left a hugely resonant decay that spread out to the boundaries of the soundstage. By comparison, the same notes through the PS Audio cord frequently sounded as if they shared some small part of their surface with another bubble. There was less space between them rendering the xylophone reproduction via the PS Audio cord slightly less resonant by comparison. The sound of the chime, which under lays the xylophone, was easier to follow with the Supra cord in the system. In truth, I hadn't really been conscious of the chime in my previous playing of this track. Once identified, its contribution to the overall presentation of the music seemed indispensable.

My next step was to replace the PS Audio SuperPunch cord on the power supply of my Dodd preamp with the Supra LoRad 1.5 cable.

The results were interesting. I listened to Melody Gardot's My One and Only Thrill CD (Verve B0012563-02). The LoRad 1.5 cable offered a somewhat smaller soundstage than I had been hearing with the PS Audio cord but with better focus and more solid placement of the instruments within it. By comparison the PS Audio cable offered a more open soundstage that was, perhaps, a little untidy by comparison but more dynamic. Both cables offered equally beautiful rendering of her voice. Personally, I preferred the larger soundstage that I heard with the PS Audio cable.

Since I only had one LoRad 2.5 cable, my next step was the put the PS Audio Prelude back on the Rogue and try the 2.5 with the Dodd.

This proved to be a very good move. The 2.5 brought a new level of clarity to Melody's vocals revealing subtle uses of vibrato that I had not heard before. There was more air surrounding her voice, brushes on drum skins were more realistic, and the soundstage seemed more unified and less an assemblage of individual musical instruments. There was an additional richness to the sound that had not been evident before.

These changes went beyond simple comparisons to the SuperPunch I had replaced. The Supra provided an upgraded level of performance for the Dodd and correspondingly for the system overall.

I then used the LoRad 1.5 to power the Wyred 4 Sound DAC-1 that I am in the process of reviewing. It proved impossible to clearly sort out the contribution of the LoRad 1.5 to what I heard but the overall sound quality was very, very good. The W4S DAC and my own modified PS Audio DAC III are the only components that I have with both IEC input jacks and low current draw levels. It certainly seemed to me that, with these components, the LoRad 1.5 was superior to the power cables I had been using. I felt that I was also hearing a slightly quieter soundstage. I will be doing additional listening to the LoRad 1.5 as I finish that review.

My final comparison was made in my living room system. I substituted the LoRad 2.5 for one of the Shunyata Diamondback Platinum cords that power that system. I have a Diamondback on both my PS Audio A-100 amplifier and Xindak XA3200 MK II preamplifier.

The LoRad 2.5 effected the same sorts of improvements that I had heard in my main system. There was better detail in the form of air around voices and instruments and a more 3D character to the soundstage.

The first track on the Tierney Sutton Band's CD, On the Other Side (Telarc CD-83650) is "Get Happy." This is played as a dirge. The speed is slow, the individual drum hits sound absolutely real, and the lower registers of the piano could be readily felt through my Quad 21L2 speakers. This has to be the darkest version of this song ever recorded and possibly the most interesting as well.

Tierney's voice is beautiful and extraordinarily well controlled. It is a terrific performance that ends with the words "chase all your cares away." She extends the "away" out allowing it to fall in level until it becomes literally a hissing sound that sustains itself just above the level of audibility. With the Supra cable I could still hear a very faint vibrato in the air stream; I was unable to hear this with the Shunyata cable. Clearly the differences weren't huge but the Supra cable offered information down to the lowest threshold of my ability to follow it. I then added the LoRad 1.5 to the system, placing it on the Xindak preamp. To my ears, it offered no real advantage to the Shunyata Diamondback Platinum that it replaced. I want to emphasize that the sound quality of the system was extremely good, but I was unable to hear any describable differences such as I had heard when I introduced the LoRad 2.5 into the system.

Conclusion