It's been awhile since we've heard anything new from Audience Cables. The last new cable series was the frontRow, which was a bit of a departure from their AU24SX line. In comparison, the frontRow was more neutral, dynamic and offered up a more resolving sonic picture. After hearing the frontRow series, one could hear the warm colorations of the AU24SX. Not a bad thing by any means considering the time AU24SX came out was when we were all complaining about the sterility and analytical nature of the DAC's of that time period. They served a purpose then, and still do, offering warmth and an expansive soundstage to a system that leans on the "lean" side...
About frontRow Reserve
The frontRow Reserve is an upward iteration of the frontRow. They have added a few silver conductors to the mostly copper metallurgy, and to quote the description on the Audience website "Reserve cables and powerChords also include an advanced formulation of natural crystals optimized for protection against EMI/RFI as well as the addition of EMI/RFI sleeving."
This may seem like mad science, but we Tweekers have been making use of crystals and their properties for ages. When used judiciously and in the right places, they can produce results like increasing transparency, lowering distortion, and opening up the soundstage. Bybee has been making use of crystals with tremendous results, as have many other tweak manufacturers. I had no problem understanding and believing the claims they made about their effect.
I started with a pair of frontRow Reserve balanced interconnects, and speaker cables. Prior to this, I had been using both the Hapa Audio and Grand Activation cables. Both are definitely below the price point of the Audience, but are excellent value propositions for the money. The Hapa being higher priced than the Grand activation was dead neutral, and highly resolving. If your system is uncolored, the Hapa cables offer extraordinary performance for the money. The Grand activation cables were on a lower price tier yet. They possess a glorious midrange, with an expansive soundstage and addictive musical flow. But they don't quite possess the stratospheric high frequency extension of many top-tier cables. This is a feature however, and not a bug in my opinion. The Grand Activation cables offer the benefit being very sonically pleasing and musically engaging. But for Detail freaks with bat-like hearing they may come up short.
First Listen
When I first installed the frontRow Reserve in my system, I noticed immediately more information within the fringes of the music. I was getting much more information, as images became increasingly dense and holographic, as well as hearing the way, way deeper quiet subtleties. The center image filled in even more, allowing me to reduce the toe-in of my speakers, and get an even wider soundstage.
Burn-In
As a service that all audience cables are treated with, the Reserve cables were burned in for a week at Audience. It is very helpful indeed, but they still needed about another week of burn in on my system. This was a wild ride. They went from initially amazing, to having a bit of an exaggerated upper mid and treble 2 days later, this calmed down after another 4-5 days of continuous play.
Sound
I am happy to report that the reserve speaker and SCLR cables have since settled in wonderfully, surpassing my original impressions by improving upon the utter clarity and lack of distortion in the system. The high frequencies on my Aurai Z165 speakers have never been clearer and more transparent. The speakers were already standouts in this department as Srajan noted in the Sixmoons review he penned, comparing the Aurai tweeter to the Borreson ribbon and saying they were very close in performance. Symbols and strings were so clean, clear and musical.
The Aurai speakers are known for their fast, and very resolving highs.
What really impressed me with the Reserves was the surround-sound like holography. With some recordings, it was as if you had multiple speakers in different locations of the room projecting the sound from above, behind, way to the left and right of you. Cavernous depth was portrayed as well.
The frontRow Reserves retained all of the other positive characteristics of the frontRow, among my favorite were the explosive dynamics. It's hard to find a better cable for reproducing transient attack and dynamics. The other quality is timbre.
Conclusions
Audience has done it again with the frontRow Reserve, and with this, I can say with confidence that the current, state of the art in cables are as powerful and have as much impact on a system as the components you choose. I would consider frontRow Reserve to be amongst the state of the art brands currently available. They have the Audience house sound which it musicality first, but they go beyond anything they've offered before in terms of clarity, holography, and downright explosive dynamics and transient attack. If these sonic characteristics are important to you and you have the budget, I would definitely take advantage of Tweek Geek's in-home demo program and find out if the frontRow Reserve are worthy of a place in your audio system.
- Aurai Z165 loudspeakers
- Innuos Statement NG or Zen NG
- Modwright LS 99 Preamp
- Modwright KWA 99 Mono Amps
- Merason DAC 1 MK2
- Bybee and QSA Power conditioning
- 4x Stillpoints Aperture 2's
- Vicoustic Cinema Round Premium absorbers
- 4x Steinmusic Harmonizers
- 6x Bybee V2+
Music
My Studio Demo Tracks Playlist on Tidal