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DH LABS SILVER SONIC / Q10 / POWER PLUS



THEY have been touted as high-end cables at budget prices, and after testing them, I can assure you reviewers are not wrong in their observations of DH Labs’ Silver Sonic wires. I tried three products – interconnects, internally bi-wired speaker cable and power cord – and all featured “family” traits of big soundstage, great detail and punchy sound, while leaning towards a neutral balance and a mild touch of brightness.

The Matrix


The Silver Sonic Air Matrix interconnect is unique in that it uses DH Labs’ proprietary Air Matrix dielectric – a mixture of PTFE Teflon and 60% air. The dielectric constant is 1.4 and its propagation velocity is 84%. Going by the charts, Air Matrix outperforms Teflon.

It appears it is this dielectric that gives these interconnects their speed and zap. The sound created is truly big, bold and powerful.

Using a Rega Apollo CD player, Audiolab 8000S and Epos 15.2 speakers, I compared this with a pair of home-made silver interconnects.

The Air Matrix, which uses silver-plated copper, sounded as detailed as silver and surprisingly more upfront and “faster”. It also had a much better and “rounded” bottom end. The bass notes sounded richer with more solidity.

Another reviewer tested these and they held their own against interconnects that cost three grand.

Q’s the word


Considering that the Q10 are internally bi-wire speaker cables, they are rather thin (about 8mm diameter) and quite flexible. This is most welcome, as many speaker cables can be as thick as snakes and stiff.

Unlike other bi-wired cables, these have wires of different gauges – they feature 14 AWG wires for the treble and 12 AWG wires for the bass/mid.

I compared them with AudioQuest GBC single bi-wire cables. This may not be a fair comparison because the GBCs are not exactly the best that AudioQuest can offer, but the GBC is a 12AWG aggregate size cable featuring six conductors using pretty good copper – AudioQuest’s Long Grain Copper.

Again, the DH Labs cables created a large soundstage with a good bass rendition. Details were aplenty and the images were stable. One comment must be made – the soundstage created by the Q10 and also the Air Matrix seems to be spherical whereas other cables such as the AudioQuest GBC tend to place the musicians in a row between or slightly behind the speakers with one more row at the back.

In terms of tonal balance, the Q10 was pretty neutral whilst the GBC displayed some upper-mid hardness.

Power factor


The thick (15mm diameter) Power Plus power cable uses three 12 AWG high-purity copper conductors to achieve very low series resistance and inductance, and features noise-cancelling geometries to cut RFI noise. It comes with a good quality US plug and IEC connector. Though it is quite thick, it is very flexible.

I compared this with a Kimber Power Kord and a Supra LoRad. The Kimber was bass heavy while the Supra and Silver Sonic Power Plus were close sonically, with the latter being a tad richer sounding.

The Power Plus was tonally on the neutral side and created a big soundstage, but it had the tendency to push the midrange and, especially, the vocalist forward while there was a slight hint of brightness on the high notes.

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