The Douglas Connection

http://www.douglasconnection.com

Doug Ashworth (helicopterpilotdoug) here on the forum has formed a speaker cable/interconnect company called the Douglas Connection. I'm participating in a roadshow of some of his cables & I'm going to post a running commentary on my findings:

Did my first swap tonight after talking on the phone with Doug for a few minutes to work out a couple of (figurative) kinks~

I tried the Furez 9 AWG speaker cables in place of my current PS Audio anacondas first:

Mine are on the left, the Furez on the right






HOLY SHIT! I have NEVER in my life experienced as clear a difference as I did tonight sitting here. These cables are THE BOMB, DOUG!!!

I'm afraid to ask how much they cost......

....but I've gotta get me a pair of these!!!

These are the three speaker cables I'm trying:

Mine are the upper left, the rest are Dougs.


....more to come....

Got the second set in; the SECRET 02 cables:





Not so appealing as the Furez. Lacked clarity & there was some sibilance, similar to what I had with my PS Audio cables. I'd still choose these over the PS Audio, but prefer the Furez. Same setup as the Furez as far as EXCELLENT banana posts & heavy duty spades on the other end, but in Silver instead of Copper.

The third audition was the SECRET 01 cables. They have heavy spades (thought not as heavy as SECRET 02 & Furez spades) on one end & locking bananas on the other:





The clarity is back! These sound VERY similar to the Furez, but I don't care for the locking bananas. They just aren't as secure as the excellent banana mount system on the SECRET 02 & Furez cables.

That's all for tonight. Just initial impressions as I have a while to audition these. These observations were made using Madeleine Peyroux's "Dreamland" CD as the source material, and the speaker cables were utilized for the RIBBONS ONLY on my AL-IIIs.

Nice review Gary!!! I'll have to get in on the road show if they make that much difference. Since I don't do active, would like to see if there is a difference on my setup.

By the way, I talked to Doug last night about the price on the Furez cables.....VERY reasonable! Well worth the cost IMO.

Ok, finished up all my comparisons this evening. I'm keeping my favorite speaker cables in until I need to pack them up~

As a large part of my system is balance XLR cables & most RCA unbalanced were difficult to swap out, I tried the interconnects between my benchmark DAC & the Sunfire TG-IV. I couldn't discern a lot of difference in these & my CarverAudio interconnects...possibly a tiny bit of expansion in the sound stage, but barely discernible. They are VERY nicely made cables, though. I actually prefer the Furez locking RCA ends on your I/Cs over the CarverAudio ones. One of them had a death grip on my Sunfire even when unlocked, so perhaps a faulty unit or something was stuck. Other than that, a very nice, quality item!



The last speaker cables I tried were the "Economy" which were indeed much cheaper LOOKING than the others, but I have to say they were quite good with only a tiny bit difference between these & the pair I rated tops (sonic holography sound better with the Furez). A very good, quality cable. I'm certain they're a great bargain.





No place to try out the digital cable as the only spot I could try it has a BNC connector on one end~



I didn't try the power cable as it was the exact one I had tried on a roadshow in another forum. I noted then that there was no real discernible difference between the PS Audio PC & my Signal Cable & homebrew cables (which are very good).

Thanks again to Doug for putting for the effort (and cash outlay) to pass these around for the roadshow.

Rabbit.

Thanks for your review, the Furez speaker cables sound very interesting.

Brian

Hmmmm.....