Hi John – I ended up buying your Audience Au24 SX speaker cables through Lavish in Santa Rosa, CA, and they were sent from Audience direct to me. I thought I’d share my impressions with you. I’m glad you had them in stock (2.5 m banana). The cables arrived safe and sound, shipped via Fed Ex. I received them on December 2. I immediately installed them and started the break in process. I used a lot of pipe organ and brass music to break in. Lots of harmonics. I hid in the office with the door closed. When first installed, they lacked top end clarity and seemed bass heavy; there were virtually no ambient hall reflections, and the sound stage had very little depth. At around 10 hours they went shrill. The same thing has happened to me with other cable break-ins at about the same time. This is the point where I think I have made a terrible mistake. And I wondered… However, patience was rewarded and they started settling down, and by 20 hours, the hall ambience was solidly there, and the highs were stronger and cleaning up. The soundstage had real depth. I now have around 60 – 70 hours on them, and they sound terrific! Very neutral tonal balance, detailed yet smooth mids and highs, excellent imaging, and fantastic sound stage depth (when the recording has it). Choral music is deliciously smooth, especially the highs. Wow! Plenty of bass punch and clarity. The cables have a wonderful musicality that makes them a joy to listen to. My previous speaker cables were Morrow Audio Elites, which, at $4k, are more expensive than the Audience cables. At around 60 hours, after the Audience cables were mostly broken in, I did an A/B comparison, and the two cables have a very similar neutral sound. Yet I feel I’m getting slightly better imaging and slightly more sound stage depth with the Audience cables. Based on my longer term experience with the Audience interconnects, it is possible that subtle details will continue to improve as time goes on. An interesting fact is that the Morrows, unlike most cables, have separate cable runs for each polarity, so there are two cables going to each speaker, one positive, one negative. The Audience cables are only about 2/3 the thickness of ONE of the Morrows! So I feared I might lose current handling and bass power. That turned out to not be the case; bass has the same level and is very well (maybe better) defined with the Audience cables. This is probably partly because I have very efficient speakers that run around 93 dB or so. They don’t require a lot of power and current to drive them in my room. Bottom line: I’m very pleased with these cables. It will be fun to see if they keep evolving as I think they will.

Charlie Hatch

Hi Lenny….at first, after replacing the KCAG XLR with the Au24 SX, I definitely noticed a difference. As it settled in and further, more critical listening, I realized that the AU was bringing more to the table as far as focus and resolution. And, after purposefully not turning on the system for a few days and sitting down to listen again, I quickly realized that the Au24 SX XLR has taken the current system to its limits….in other words, I would either have to go into fantasy-land with the gear which I neither have the ears nor the cash to pursue. It is a jewel with the right gear and the Rowlands and Audience are “right” together. So, can I pay for this pair? Brad Jeter