VL FARADAY™ HYDRA XLR studio cable raisers

Paramagnetic FARADAY™ HYDRA XLR studio cable raisers, set of 6 (six) pieces

- Faraday patented by the German Patentamt in 2021

Our celebrated CARBON AGE interconnectors love love love FARADAYS. This is especially true for the studio length Master versions (internally known as ANACONDAs).

To really really make the most of those, which you should, considering the price) we strongly suggest you order a set of HYDRAs with any CA balanced longer than, say, 2m. HYDRA was developed as a one-off for a much beloved American client and we thought if one discerning individual is enthused about the amazing sound quality now oozing out of his Studer machine, there might be more serious aficionados wanting this. So here it is. As usual, if it doesn‘t work for you, send it right back and get your investment back no question asked.

“Finally a useful accessory that will blow your mind when you refine your hi-fi chain with it.” wrote the chief editor of German HIFI SOUND+MUSIC and dedicated 8 pages to our paramagnetic invention. VERDICT: “Tip of the Year. No other accessory I know of improves your sound on this level – without any letdown.”

In fact our patented invention of the year 2021 improves the sound of any good system by a lot:
“The effect is immediately audible, provided your chain is capable of displaying such nuances. Bye bye blurriness, hello true reality. We were blown away by the auditory effect…It became much easier to place instruments. These, in turn, sounded in their timbres all at once so plastic, rich in overtones and colorful…A new balance that makes us doubt whether we have ever been able to hear real High End in the past. In any case, one thing is certain: never again without it.” (AUDIO TEST, Germany)

Voodoo Labs FARADAY HYDRA (the VL version of our patented GAUSSes which we have licensed to Audionet, same fab alloy, same cool thinking, slightly altered structural and visual appearance, HYDRA being for our CA XLR only) 3.600.-€

So how do they work and why do they work better than any other cable raiser (say the press, we agree, obviously):

   •Surprise: Never did a single electron “flow” from an amplifier to a speaker to produce a sound. Never. Ever. Guess you and we were taught that wrong at school (the physics teacher didn’t know any better). The sun does not revolve around earth either, although it does look like it. „Current" does not flow! There IS NO “FLOW“. Actually, THERE IS EVEN NO THING LIKE ”CURRENT“, that is a simplificated dim-wit model only. From a scientific point of view electrical force transfer consists of a CHARGE FIELD around a “conductor“ IN THE DIELECTRIC (like, air or insulation) making things happen where they should with light speed (so-called Faraday’s right-hand rule: If the fingers of the right fist point in the direction of the magnetic field, the thumb shows the direction of the energy flux).
   • Since that signal interacts with all substances it touches with the electromagnetic field over the entire length of the journey, a cable lying on the ground is in contact with different materials with very different permeability and permittivity constants (both count, believe us!). So every object within the electromagnetic field influences the musical signal. Sound quality improves immediately if the cable is surrounded by only one material, ideally with the highest possible magnetic permeability (the higher the so-called permeability constant, the lower the magnetic permeability, iron, for example, has very bad 800-8000) plus a permittivity which equals that of air.
   • Air has a permeability number of 1,000,000.37 . Followed by other gases. Followed by aluminum with 1,000.02 and the light metal magnesium, directly above it in the periodic table. So the solution for a sound supreme is: As much air as possible and the feet paramagnetic, i.e. as close to air as possible, numberwise. That’s why we constructed FARADAY and GAUSS from a patented mil-spec. alloy of Al and Mg with minimal contact point in relation to the cable.
   • We report verbatim from our very first own test: Audionet WATT playing on Dynaudio Confidence Platinum C2. “The system was warming up, we were conferencing next door. Eventually we listened. Didn’t that sound better even while cold? More right? More true? Suddenly there was a crowd at the entrance to the listening room. We put Coltrane/Ellington, “My Little Brown Book” on. 1970’s Japanese pressing of a recording produced by Bob Thiele and the legendary Rudy van Gelder in Hackensack, NJ in 1962. Very subtle, great transients, tonally as correct as it gets.
And that vinyl marvel suddenly sounded even more correct. Touchable. Even more “in the room”. Tranes Sax no longer came out of the speaker, but stood diagonally to the left behind it. Jimmy Garrison’s bass was hands-on. And at the end of the track Elvin Jones found some tiny licks that had previously been lost and were now suddenly THERE.
   • Wow. That exceeded our wildest expectations. We removed the raisers and played the same track. It had to be an illusion, our concept COULDN’T work that well. But now the magic from before was gone. Something was missing that we hadn’t previously known was there. Raisers underneath again: Yes, there it was back. Awesome! Now Bill Evans, “How my heart sings”, 45 rpm, Riverside special. More Steinway, nicer Steinway, more luminosity and afterglow. And Paul Motian’s wrists suddenly seemed to become even more flexible.
   • Same effect. Invigorated, refreshed, more tangible. That’s what high end is all about. Magically brought to life through scientific thinking. We were a little surprised that we’d been so right, actually. Our little paramagnetic alien, which we designed to maximize performance and for practical reasons in such a way that it is now reminiscent of the Command Module of the first Apollo moon landing mission (“Endeavour”), is not cheap, it is very complex to manufacture. Compared to what it gives you, though, it is quite a bargain!
   • We would be happy if many really sensitive high-end users would have the same experiences as we had. Get your set of FARADAY. You’re probably going to need 6 pieces, depending on the length and rigidity (or lack of it) of your speaker cables. Usually 3 FARADAY suffice for one speaker cable. FARADAY works with ALL speaker cables between 0.5 and ca. 8cm diameter. If you’re in doubt, try them out. At this point we would like to quote one of the first customers, owner of a €70,000 system: “These things stay here! I don’t know why they work. But they work.”

NOTICE: Attention Nordost owners and other flat earthers, there‘s a FARADAY FLATSKY available especially for you. Find it in the menu!

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Read the raving reviews here (copy and paste the address):

https://review.u-audio.com.tw/reviewdetail.asp?reviewid=2224

https://en.audionet.de/wp-content/uploads/PDF_Flyer_GAUSS_Doppelseiten.pdf

https://www.audionet.de/wp-content/uploads/Test-PDF_AUDIO_TEST_0721_AT202107_Audionet_Gauss.pdf


Full text Joachim Pfeiffer, editor-in-chief of HiFi Sound+Music:

Test verdict: Audionet GAUSS »For me, the recommendation of the year: No other accessory I know of gives such a comprehensible increase in sound without any side effects«

“Finally a useful accessory that will blow your mind when you refine your hi-fi chain with it. There are many answers to the question »why« but in the end only one is convincing.
Each era has its own language. What is generally true is also evident in high fidelity. Decades ago testers primarily took measurings ​​and announced within strict limits what was good and what was bad. At the end of the 1970s, competition came into focus. The corresponding reports read like comments on a sporting event. In the end there was always a winner on the podium, although this test winner did not own the world – but the market. The perceived value of measurings ​​faded and in some print titles they even disappeared completely. Instead, prose found its way into magazines.
The language used in it henceforth hardly ever proclaimed winners, but rather relativized and levelled: one product can do this, another that, in the end you decide, dear reader (or customer). Everything is somehow good. But when everything is just fine, credibility suffers. A very special use (sometimes also: consumption) of language was also established for the diverse realm of accessories.
Clear announcements and confessions became quite rare and more and more stories were found (and still are) that seem to be written according to one and the same knitting pattern. Freely based on the following director’s instructions: Well, I (the tester) am skeptical by nature, but this or that part has an effect on my equipment. And so as not to risk any trouble or provoke contradiction, of course only in “my” system. You, dear reader/customer, can try it out for yourself… Maybe you share my experience (…and you don’t want to hear it anymore without the accessories) or you don’t. Both are correct. Clear statements and announcements, comprehensible purchase recommendations? Not in this life.
GAUSS is a spacer for speaker cables that is both visually and haptically unconventional. I gave a set of 6 to a colleague who spent many long weeks working on it. He probably won’t be able to handle it, I thought. This colleague is an engineer from head to toe and the holder of a great number of patents. Not a dreamer, definitely a pragmatist, but nonetheless pleasantly curious. However, he appeared to be fairly unimpressed by the patent that GAUSS inventor Jan Geschke was given by the German authorities. Weeks passed and we didn’t spoke a word about GAUSS.
Until that memorable day on a long weekend. “You absolutely have to come. Instantly. Stante pede. Subito.” In front of me, correctly distanced, stands the Avantgarde acoustic »Trio«, fed by excellent electronics from various manufacturers, as is usual in this listening room.
The important thing is that my colleague and I know how this constellation sounds like, we have spent countless days listening to it. For example with »The Well« by Jennifer Warnes. Listening to this piece with the Trio is
comparable to a walk in the forest: you know every path, every tree or bush – and yet the listener who walks discovers something new again and again. Yes, that sounded pretty good that afternoon. “Now watch out,” my friend whispered in my ear, pushing a few conventional spacers under Mogami’s speaker cables: the sound changed. Only about nuances, but these were enough to shake your head: „Sounded somehow clearer before!”. Not a spectacular difference, but still.
Okay, then again without. That’s right, now the world is back in the stereophonic triangle again. My counterpart smiles and then throws a special punch.
“Now I’m going to place these Audionet spacers called “Gauss” under the Mogami, assess whether and if so: how the sound changes!” What HAPPENED here?!? Far more than expected. The guitar, with the GAUSS now in/below the signal path, sounded more three-dimensional, Madame Warnes’ voice suddenly was more natural – and as clear as day the entire bass range up to the fundamental tone spectrum was clearly better reproduced. The increase in resolution in the spheres from the so-called “lower mids” was astonishing, but the unusual transparency in the frequency ranges below gave this typical test track a kind of “new life“.
A more complex, more moving sound is also a guarantee for more emotions. A change like this, of this quality usually comes only from the exchange of entire components. With “mere” accessories I have heard a difference like this very, very rarely (exceptions can be counted on less than one hand: The first encounter with a Copulare rack with a DC player from Wadia for example in the 1990s).
My colleague had noticed the tonally much superior and completely surprising effect the first time he listened to the GAUSS-powered system. In order to rule out the usual suspicious causes for positive misjudgments, he repeated the tests at different times of the day. »What can I say, always the same, completely amazing result«. Now, cable spacers are nothing new. At trade fairs in the USA in particular, they can be found in almost every halfway decent demonstration. For optical reasons, possibly as a kind of appreciation for the often super-expensive connectors, less for – or not at all – tonal considerations.
What is the secret of the GAUSS towers? Or in other words: What can they do that others just can’t? In order to find out, »HiFi Sound & Music« decided on a very complex experiment. We made an impressive number of spacers of the same height made entirely of plastic and another armada made entirely of metal. And one more, which we assumed in theory could possibly even top the results of the GAUSS: with them the cable rested on an elastic surface. We didn’t achieve a comprehensible improvement with any of the alternatives, on the contrary: sometimes the performance suffered when the “homemade” blocks started to work. As the saying goes, he who heals is right. And that’s why I won’t quote a sentence from the technical explanations with which Audionet describes the function of the GAUSSES and the underlying mechanisms of action. From my point of view, these derivations, which like all physically complex facts offer some potential for malevolent attack, are not necessary at all.
The enemy of many accessories is known to be the »blind test«. Unaffected by price and brand, not knowing what is being heard, the tester makes a judgement. In an emergency, this causes nasty stressful situations, especially in front of an audience. In the past I have had to experience again and again that experienced developers in the high-end area simply refused a joint blind test with doubting editors. In the case of the GAUSS, I can only advise you to do so. Whether with the avant-garde Acoustic Trio, the sound giant Strauss MF-4, a Canton Vento Reference1, the legendary sound gem Intonation Terzian or just a Dynaudio Evoke 20: The more resolution-friendly a speaker system played, the clearer the tonal gain. A performance boost that absolutely and without a doubt justifies the high purchase price. In order to achieve something comparable, high-end aficionados usually dig much, much deeper into their wallets.”