Super Lumina vs Chord Sarum Super Aray Interconnect. Which is Best? Only One Way to Find Out - Fight!

Actually this was a three-way fight because these two were up against my trusty Chord Sarum Tuned Aray interconnect but that would make the title too long. To make life easy (and because I can't type) my Chord Sarum Tuned Aray interconnect I will refer to as TA, the Chord Sarum Super Aray we'll call SA and the Super Lumina will be known as SL. My dealer assured me the SL and SA were both run in, important as I know the TA and SA take hundreds of hours to sound their best.

I replaced my Hiline with the TA some time before the SL range of cables were released and I have been using the SL speaker cables with the TA for about a year now and have meaning to demo the SL interconnect at home. As I have enjoyed the TA, I was also keen to hear the more recent upgrade to the Chord Sarum cables - the Super Aray. Luckily my wonderful dealer has both the SL and SA cables available for home demo so I took my chance. 

I used my trusty 21-track playlist of music I know well as my demo material, although I am getting a bit tired of it, but my familiarity of this material I feel is important when conducting a bake-off like this as subtle difference will be more apparent. The rest of my system is detailed in my profile.

I properly warmed my system up and and a lengthy listen to my TA to get a baseline clear in my head. Next up was the SL which I warmed up with a few tracks. I always like to be out of the room during a warm up as I don't want my initial impressions affected by a cable which might not be at its best - (more of this later with the SA that needed a long, long warm up). As it happens the SL didn't appear to need much of a warm up and it's character didn't change much as I listened. I have this afternoon listened the the SL for the second extended demo so my comments are from both listening sessions.

The SL is quite simply a revelation. Where the Chords are possibly (and I emphasis the word possibly) a little more accurate/neutral/natural, they (the Chords) have a slight 'bloom' which can affect transients, particularly softening the leading edges of notes. This is a very subtle phenomenon that I only noticed when listening to the slightly 'faster' SL which really attacks leading edges. Actually I am not entirely sure which is the more 'accurate' but I preferred the SL on this particular aspect as it added some excitement to music. The SL's speed and 'attack' definitely help in the timing department too, which in turn adds to the traditional PRaT, such a cornerstone of the Naim signature. I hesitate to use PRaT as a descriptor because I have never been sure that my understanding of PRaT aligns with others'. But IMO the SL has PRaT in spades. The SL has a 'purity' to the sound of instruments and voices (which occasionally is warts 'n' all) that the SA can't quite match. There is absolutely no gloss or smoothing with the SL, you are hearing it as it is. Compared to the SL, the TA and the SA sound a little more 'beautiful' but this beauty is at the expense of the added excitement offered by the SL. Right, I will let you into a bit of a secret. I have one track that I love and gets me going every time. Not really a secret as I spilled the beans on this in the Music Room on the thread about What Music Makes You Cry. I thought I ought to try the SL out on this track to see if it was the 'beauty' of the TA and SA that got to me. Well the SL indeed got me going on this track as usual. What an old fool I am. But I had to check because the emotional connection with music is to me the most important aspect of replay in the home. No problem in this department with the SL.

After a good listen to the SL, next up SA. Due to its stiffness the SA was trickier to install and I was being very carful - didn't want to damage any pins on this expensive bit of wire. Once installed, the usual warm up with me out of the room. When I sat down to listen, I realised I was very impressed by the SL and heard me thinking that the SA would need to be very special to compete. This is not an entirely neutral frame of mind and I reminded myself that the SA was likely to sound different which could either be a positive or a negative. But the first listen to the SA was a real disappointment. It was thin, compressed and splashy in comparison to the SL. I thought this will be an easy contest and maybe the SA didn't suit my system. But then I thought, hang on the SA sounds worse than my TA, the SAs predecessor. I then though something is clearly wrong here so I let the system play for a couple of hours or, and I came back to it. I detected some improvement, but still no comparison to the SL. This at least told me that there was more to come from the SA and it really needed some more time. I left the system playing overnight with the SA and had another listen the next day. Much, much better than the previous day's experience. A far better tonal balance with a little more deep bass than the SL in fact. But although this bottom octave was more apparent, it was not particularly well controlled. It is possible of course that the rest of my system, particularly my speakers, may not be capable of handling the extra very deep stuff the SA was apparently letting through. The SA never got stressed and tracks that used to be hard/edgy in places were now much easier on the ear.

In conclusion, The SA was a more exciting listen than my trusty TA but not as exciting and enthralling to listen to as the SL. Very occasionally the SL's excitement would tip over into edginess but never to the point where I had to reach for the volume control. At times you really need that rawness and edginess to appreciate the full expression of instruments, musicians and vocalists, as long as that doesn't tip over into hardness, which it never does with the SL. So I am left with the beauty of the SA and the excitement of the SL. That of course is too simplistic a comparison and I suspect there might be a bit more to come from the SA. I am currently leaning towards the SL but want to hear more from both and see if the SA has any more to offer. Watch this space.

I would be interested to hear others' experiences of comparing the SL to the SA.