February 12, 2012

  • Shunyata Lyra, Part 1

    From my perspective, Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" has always been around.  Ever since I can remember, that song has been played.  As it turns out, it was actually the #1 R&B single, exactly 40 years ago.  And that was just a couple months before I was born.

    My house was renovated in 2004.  When we moved in, I actually had two cable looms with which to work.  One was the XLO LE-1 and 2 interconnects, with UE-5 speaker cable.  The other was Shunyata Antares interconnects with Orion speaker cable.  By not being as warm and rolled-off, the Antares was better than the XLO LE interconnects.  By being quieter and less weighty than the UE-5, the Orion was sometimes sonically superior.

    Anyway, when we moved in, we played a lot of music from the 60s and 70s, including Al Green.  I no longer have those XLO and Shunyata cables.  But Al Green's stickin' around.

    Whereas the Orion was clad in a black-colored outer jacket, the Lyra is an interesting design.  The conductors are woven around two parallel Teflon cores.  And then a clear/white woven outer jacket holds the product together.  Overall, the Lyra looks like one of those scientific human body displays.  As a hand-made product, the Lyra will have a tendency to twist and kink. 

    If your amps or speakers have hard-to-access binding posts, the Lyra's long leads come in handy.  20 years ago, I remember auditioning the Thiel CS1.2.  I may or may not have played Al Green, but I discovered that the CS1.2's binding posts were actually located underneath the speaker!  Thus, the Lyra's long leads would be perfect for reaching the CS1.2's binding posts.