If you think entry-level Monster Cable budget interconnects are just too expensive for your hi-fi budget, are there any budget analog interconnect wonders around?
By: Ringo Bones
If your hi-fi gear’s budget doesn’t stretch to the Monster
Cable M850i territory, don’t fret there are even “cheaper” budget wonders to be
found that work as good as – even better in some set-up situations – and only
cost one-fifth as much as an equivalent specification Monster cable. Even
though the brands / models that I’m about to mention seems to have vanished /
no longer available after September 11, 2001, they are still widely available
in garage sales of “hardened audiophiles”.
Although their product website now feature exclusively activity
trackers / fitness trackers, Scosche used to manufacture wonderful sounding
analog interconnect cables during the latter half of the 1990s. The best known
of them are the “cryogenically treated” eFx by Scosche series that only costs
one-fifth as much as similar-specification Monster Cables and yet sound just as
good. The Scosche cable’s “tweak” nature comes into its own when used in
between EF86 vacuum tube based preamplifiers / input stages where it exhibits
very open and controlled bass of a very acoustic nature that’s much closer to
what a bass guitar – whether acoustic or electric – sounds like in real life
than the Scosche’s “lowly price” has a right to exhibit. This is a very
addicting low priced analog interconnect cable that has been ignored by most of
the mainstream hi-fi press during the latter half of the 1990s.
Another late 1990s era budget wonder is the Aura Dynamics
AU-311 Super High Resolution Interconnect. Though slightly more grainy and
electronic sounding than the Scosche, the Aura Dynamics has a more dynamic bass
that came make budget integrated amplifiers sound as if they are entry-level
Naim models. But compared to the Scosche, the Aura sometimes can make a live
concert kick drum sound as if it is a late 1980s era electronic keyboard percussion
beat sample. Still, the Aura Dynamics AU-311 is much cheaper than the Scosche.
