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Originally Posted by Ricjor1
I have Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 7 XLR interconnect cable. A couple of days ago my friend let me borrow the discontinued Audioquest Niagara XLR cables. In my system I just can't believe how much more my wife and I prefer the Niagara cables, The Niagara is more detailed, better separation, and just has better tonality. I don't have the ability to audition Fire or Wild and I'm not going to buy Audioquest Wel signatures. Can anyone with Audioquest experience tell me the sweet spot in Audioquest's current interconnect line-up?
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I've had pretty extensive experience with Audioquest ICs over the past couple years. Colorado, Niagara, Sky, Wind, Fire, Wild, Leopard LP, Wild LP, and a couple of WEL LPs. It's pretty complicated because of the revisions and constant improvements within even the same model over time, but from what I've heard so far, Fire is definitely the sweet spot from a sound/cost perspective if you're willing to shell out to that level.
Fire/Sky is where the AQ silver starts to feel completely "full" on the bottom end to balance out the top end. Compared to AQ Wind, the Fire isn't tilted towards the top end, sounds harmonically richer throughout the audible spectrum, and has better depth of staging. The Wild Blue Yonders I have are an older version, and they're a little smoother up top, a little warmer overall, and render slightly better staging/imaging vs the newer Fire -- but that comes at a large price bump. And sonically it's close enough that in some systems the Fire can sound more neutral and be preferred over the Wild -- I find this to be the case in my electrostatic headphone system, where soundstage isn't as big a deal as with speakers. However in both of my systems I prefer the Fire over the Wind -- the Wind might only stand a chance against Fire in systems that are particularly dark sounding.
The Fire fixes issues with the older Sky (I've only had the Sky v1), which to my ears added a bit of warmth and bloom down low with a bit of harshness (relatively) in treble. Fire also gives more detail than Sky, and is just more accurate and extended from top to bottom, without sacrificing musicality or sounding too "hifi".
That said, I'm in the process of upgrading both of my 2ch ICs from Fire to Wild, because the Wild's signature works better there. But I'll be keeping the Fires, at least for the Stax rig, and potentially for a change-of-pace swap down the road. There are good deals to be had on the used market for both Fire and Wild. You must be cautious of counterfeits, especially with Wild (which has been out long enough to collect quite a number of counterfeits). But once you know what a real one looks and feels like, it will be hard to fool you with a counterfeit. The air tubes in the Wild are VERY large and give off a very distinctive rattling sound.
I wish I had more experience with the Niagara to give you, but I've only used it as a SUT cable to phono stage. It did a LOT better than the Colorado there, a very good cable (especially for the money) but then the WEL LP was much better still.