Tellurium Q Black in da house

Traitor! Traitor! How could you betray the cause?!

Interesting HH.  Do let us know how you get on.

Best regards, FT

I've heard Tellurium Q Black and Green sound very nice on the end of Naim amps so I'm not surprised your impressions are favourable, HH. I imagine the Black was rather easier to thread through your under-firepalce trunking, too.

Mike

Talking fireplace trunking,  I was considering it as a possible replacement when I eventually get around to the planned changes that need to replace my Odyssey (bright light & dynamic - but no way DULL HH)  

Problem is I can't get it unterminated,  I want the Naim plugs on the amp end & "F" bananas on the speaker end.!!!  

So looks like its a "no deal" for TQ & me.  I will try to get some to demo before I say "I'm Out",  but it will have to really impress & the speaker end will still get attacked with wire cutters & soldering iron to install F connections.

Has anyone got the physical size of TQ Black - thickness HxW,  TQ don't publish this stuff which I find very peculiar.     

My brother-in-law bought TQ Black after having used a huge and heavy PSAudio Speaker Hose for years.

I must say that everything, including coat hangers and a twisted CocaCola can, would have sounded more agile a coherent than that but I admit that the TQBlack has shown interesting characteristics. It is very detailed but not fatiguing (he's using Harbeths, though) and has great clarity. Deep bass is not absent, too, at all.

My only caveat is it seems to me - and especially so, given the SHL5s' extremely natural voice - that the upper treble is slightly characterized, and imposing a minimal 'timbre' to everything. But I might be wrong, and now I don't hear it anymore, probably because of habit.

Mike,

I'd say that the TQBlack is almost as wide as NAC A4, perhaps 1 mm less, and looks not more than 1.5 mm thick.

HH - if "floppier" how do you get them through the fireplace trunking?  Pull them through with the A5?  Long stick with a piece of string first?  Trained small rodent?  I'm intrigued

HH, very interesting.

The Naim dealer who I bought my 282 from highly recommended Tellurium Black too and tried to persuade me to have a home demo. He advised me that everyone who had tried it had bought some.

Maybe I should revisit this at some point.

Richard

HH - if "floppier" how do you get them through the fireplace trunking?  Pull them through with the A5?  Long stick with a piece of string first?  Trained small rodent?  I'm intrigued

I've done it a few times.  I pull a length of soft'ish but strong nylon cord when removing the old cable & that is the pull thru for the new one.

The only cable that I couldn't get thru was - have you guessed - NACA5  

Its not often that you see 'floppier' used as a positive.  The black looks quite expensive compared to other options, be interested to hear how you are getting on with it once it settles in HH

just a question: what about the length of Tellurium Q Black? I mean, is requested or suggested the minimum lenght of 3.5 meters as for NAC A5?

thanks and regards,

Stefano

Good stuff Nigel - glad you're getting on well with them. Your comments reflect my first thoughts when i originally replaced my A5 with TQ black - it builds on the core strengths of A5.

Most cables do something different to A5 but not necessarily better in the long term. TQ is certainly worthy of strong consideration and a home demo if a cable change is on the cards. 

James

That's good Nigel. 

I think now Naim have brought out the SL cables the myth about using NACA5 over more 'exotic' cables will be ignored, and rightly so. If it sounds good then use it.

Steve

+1, I hope you are all packed and ready to go Steve?

That's  the impossible to answer question Stefano,  Tellurium don't publish any data, instead they say data is irrelevant & we should judge on SQ alone

I find that extremely condescending & it irritates the hell out of me,  but if I do demo or get TQ I will measure & find out very easily.

The 3.5m minimum of NACA5 is to achieve 3.5uH inductance, so its a good idea to know an alternative cable spec & try to achieve this inductance value.    

Looking at the TQ Black cable construction it has parallel pairs with a spacer between & I would guess its not so dissimilar to NACA5 & will have higher L & lower C than a normal twisted pair such as Chord Odyssey or similar.   I personally would be happy with 3.5m but anything greater would probably be better.

Hi Mike. TQ did originally publish the characteristics on their website. Not sure why they disappeared. IIRC when i originally purchased, L&C were not wildly different from A5 to be of concern and only the resistance was higher due to the smaller diameter of the conductor in the TQ cable.

James

What a surprise! I thought responses would vary from 'you are daft' to 'you are deaf'. But no: times must be a'changing. Regarding their relative floppiness, they are not like a piece of string, just not like the rod-like A5. They push through the trunking quite happily, with no rodent assistance. One thing I noticed was that the plugs were a tight fit in the speakers but slightly loose in the amplifier. I remedied this by opening the plugs up a little bit, and now they are a tight fit at both ends. The volume knob also needs to be very slightly higher to get the same sound level.

It's very interesting how the cables allow you to hear the layers of a recording without seeming to pull the music apart, which is something I've heard Chord Signature do on occasion. It will also be interesting to hear the difference the jumpers make once they arrive, although they will be new of course and will need time to run in.

Hi Nigel,

glad you're glad.

I look forward to reading some extensive impressions of the TQ black - if you feel like elaborating a little in comparison to your typical, iPhone conciseness. I'd need 12 mt of it, so it's not an immediate option.

As for your being surprised - the advent of the SL has relegated the NAC A5 to the position of second best, of poor men's option; no surprise, actually, that now that Naim has officially 'allowed' us to use a different cable, people start taking some distance from the NAC A5. In the long run, though, if everyone is smart enough to keep its price 'down', it will stop being the bitter medicine and will become the cheap digestive..

Best

Max

+1!!

I upgraded from Chord Odyssey to Tellurium Q Black, and can only add that it has been one of the few night-and-day upgrades that I've done in hifi terms. I've also heard A5, but Tellurium Q black is just better all round IMHO, adding detail and "wiping away the  layer of mush" as you rightly point out, but without taking away any musicality or emotion. Win Win!

Same results here too.

Thin enough to go under carpet as well which was the reason I went for them!

I was amazed at the improvement in SQ which was a bonus!

No brainer really.

For what it's worth I am using two 3.5m runs of TQ Black without any problems.

About four years ago, I was given some TQ Black speaker cable, and, after trying it in my reasonably modest system, I noticed enough of a positive difference over NACA5 to decide to keep it. It just sounds a bit "tighter", and, as other posters have said, it is easier to handle.

Oh. Just like the SL speaker cable. 

Do you mean that people will start admitting that they wear TelluriumQ under their trousers..?

It always has but before Naim introduced SL anyone who dared to claim a speaker cable was better than A5 was lambasted and almost excommunicated