Acknowledging that any piece of high-performance audio is a luxury that no human truly needs, Fairaudio's Jörg Dames takes a critical look at one of our latest ZERO-Tech speaker cable, Brave Heart, judging it against his long-time reference and, most importantly, by its ability to meaningfully enhance his relationship with music.
Admiring its overall fit'n'finish, marked by an impressive combination of high-quality materials and design elements, Dames sees Brave Heart as more than a mere accessory — a high-performance component in its own right.
In Dames' system, Brave Heart significantly outperformed our earlier model, Robin Hood, delivering greater resolution, dynamic expression, and image specificity. In these ways, Dames finds Brave Heart matches the best cables he's ever experienced.
Further, whereas other cables in the same price range tend to impart music with a slight haze or grain, Brave Heart remains clean and clearly focused, with a deep, black background and three-dimensional imaging across an expansive soundstage.
Compared to Dames' own long-term reference, Brave Heart offers slightly more bass weight, body, and macrodynamic heft. "There is subtly more warmth and pleasing colour," says. "I’d even go so far as to say that vocal and natural-instrument reproduction is probably the Brave Heart’s greatest highlight: precision and purity meet a nearly cozy — but not coloured — tonal warmth."
Dames concludes: "Even if cable differences are rarely as dramatic as differences in electronics or (especially) loudspeakers, I’m certain many listeners will perceive the Brave Heart’s midrange and vocal performance as a genuine upgrade over their current cables — and likely its standout virtue."
