Avanti Audio Vivace Series Cables

In 2013, I was introduced to a new cable company out of Avon, Colorado, called Avanti Audio. The company’s owner, Mike Chadwell, was kind enough to send me an entire suite of what then was his top-of-the-line (but very affordable) “Allegro” line of cables. The Allegro speaker cables were surprisingly refined in their construction and pleasant in their sound for a new company. They did nothing to add to or take away from the music, making them ideal for people who prefer a reliable and neutral-sounding cable. Earlier this year, I heard from Chadwell again, but this time it was to tell me about his new top cable line, the “Vivace.” Remembering how much I enjoyed my time with the Allegro, I was intrigued to hear how much his cable design had evolved. A few weeks later, a full suite (and then some) was on its way to me.

While the Allegros were a wonderful “everyman” product, the Vivace cables are designed for the “audiophile” who wants a little more of, well… everything. The Vivace cables are designed to be more open, airy, detailed, and lifelike. You know, all those lovely clichés that we audiophiles love so much. But guess what? Chadwell and company are attempting to do it at a price that, while not inexpensive, is still very much a product within reach of just about anybody. But that’s not all; in addition to the speaker and interconnect cables he sent, Chadwell also sent me a new product: a CAT-7 Ethernet cable designed for hi-rez computer audio-based systems. This Ethernet cable could be a gamechanger. I’ve looked for an excellent cable to connect my PC’s router to an ethernet connection on my Classe’ Delta PRE. Until now, I’ve only been able to use standard CAT-5 cables from my local Home Depot. Hopefully, this should be a definite upgrade. Another new design that Chadwell offered was an interconnect that he terminated with RCAs at the tonearm end and XLRs at the phonostage input of the Delta PRE. (This is not a standard product. He made it especially for me to deal with a grounding issue that I could not solve).

About the Vivace

The Allegro cables were clad in an attractive charcoal grey polyethylene sheathe and good-quality terminations. They also had attractive walnut blocks on them to help keep the cable runs separated to minimize distortion. The Vivace cables are very similar, except the walnut blocks have been replaced with Alder hardwood blocks. Like with the Allegros, the woodblocks are mainly for cosmetic appeal, though theoretically, this design creates space between the positive and negative cable runs of each channel and helps to make the overall capacitance of the cable pairs sonically negligible. Internally, the Vivace cables have an 8-gauge aggregate of ultra-fine stranded 99.999% OFC copper that runs to each speaker and amplifier terminal. Another improvement from the Allegros is the use of German-made WBT-0681Cu (5/16″ / 8mm) Spades. These are WBT’s highest-end gold-plated copper loudspeaker cable connectors. The WBT spades are attractive and make connection and disconnection of cables a breeze. They use a sandwiched elastomeric design on the spade fork, allowing for confidence-inducing tightness on your speaker terminals. The result is less risk of over-tightening or even breaking a terminal (done that). Avanti also offers the excellent WBT-0610Cu Nextgen 45° Locking Banana Plugs as well. My cables came with spades on both ends. According to their website, the Vivace Speaker Cables are not designed to be directional. Instead, the “arrow” on the heat-shrink logo is, however, the direction with which they have preconditioned the cables for use. In other words, the Amplifier (output) —> Speaker (input). I should also mention that while I said that I was sent a full suite of cables, I forgot that there currently is not a Vivace power cord. Should one become available in the future, I’ll be sure to give my thoughts on it.

Just Add Music

I began my evaluation by adding the Vivace speaker cables to my system, replacing my Soundstring GEN II Platinum cables. The sonic character of both cables I would categorize as “neutral.” In my case, this is a good thing for me as I prefer speaker cables that do not cover up any elements of my recordings, especially vinyl. I love a well-recorded album and came across a true gem at a garage sale on the Southside of Chicago. Hustle With Speed [Polydor] is the urban classic by the venerable horn section of the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. They’re called the JB’s, and they’re largely responsible for an entire generation of the early years of funk. This band featured such legends as Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, and William “Bootsy” Collins. Easily the best known of the JBs’ hits was the roller-rink epic, “(It’s Not The Express) It’s The JBs Monorail.” I was thrilled to find this recoding in good condition and couldn’t wait to set the needle into the groove. When I did, I was rewarded with one of the coolest horn grooves ever. Fred Wesley and his “Horny Horns” were rendered in a way that was respectful of this early ’70s vinyl classic. The Vivace speaker cables did not add unnecessary bass emphasis or splash to Clyde “the Funk Drummer” Stubblefield’s hi-hat cymbals.

Next, I added the XLR interconnects between the Classe’ Delta Mono Amps and the Delta PRE and the RCA-to-XLR cable from my Small Audio Manufacture Calista II tonearm to the XLR phono input of the PRE. This is where the deepening of the bass and increase in detail happened. This changed my mind a bit about what your cables can do for your music. Installing the Vivace interconnect cables took my system from having a perfectly neutral sound to suddenly having just a bit more air and sparkle in the upper frequencies. This was particularly noticeable with live music. The first (of many) live jazz recordings I listened to was drummer Lenny White’s, Lenny White Live [BFM Jazz]. My favorite track is “Pic Pocket.” The song starts with bassist Victor Bailey and Lenny White himself laying down a classic jazz riff that is the foundation for the music. This kind of song shows off the best attributes of the Vivace cables by giving life to the bass and kick drum without allowing them to dominate the soundstage. My Soundstring cables on this track would probably cause me to fear stressing out the drivers of my Tekton DIs. The musicality of the rest of the performers is handled well also by Vivace cables, particularly Mark Ledford’s trumpet and Donald Blackman and the legendary Patrice Rushen’s keyboards. You hear deep into their performances for maximum enjoyment.

Finally, I added the Vivace CAT-7 Ethernet cable and did some listening via my iTunes library through the JRiver Media Center. For all the improvements that the Vivace cables made in my system, this was probably the biggest. Until now, most of my listening to computer downloads were with cheap CAT-5 cables or even via WiFi, which is not optimal. But inserting these cables was a game-changer. I’ve spent a lot of the earlier part of this year listening to many musicians under the ACT label. ACT is a progressive European jazz label that features fantastic artists such as pianist Leszek Mozdzer, trombonist Nils Landgren and bassist Lars Danielsson. A recording by Danielsson allowed me to appreciate what this Ethernet cable did for my system. Liberetto is a recording that features pianist Tigran (yes, a one-name performer), percussionist Magnus Ostrom, guitarist John Parricelli, trumpeter Arve Henriksen, and of course Danielsson. That’s a lot of musicians and a lot of music. They’ve always sounded glorious together, but through the Vivace cables and the Ethernet cable, in particular, the sound was more of an experience. The soundstage blossomed, and the musicians were rendered so finely that it sounded as though the listener occupied the same space. And oh, the way the low-end detail took the sound from being boomy and annoying to rhythmic and natural was something that must be heard to be enjoyed. This cable will not be leaving my system.

Conclusion

Overall, the Avanti Audio Vivace cables reminded me of all the nice things I enjoyed about the Allegros, except there was just more of it. Neutral is nice, but what’s nicer is when your cables can also give you just a bit more life and emotion. When that happens, they become “Most Wanted.” Highly recommended.

Specifications:

Vivace Speaker Cables – from $800/set

Aggregate 8Ga 99.999% OFC cable runs

Highly flexible cable design

Solid Alder hardwood separator blocks

PET Braided Sleeving

Genuine German made WBT connectors: WBT-0610Cu Nextgen 45° Locking Banana Plugs -or- WBT-0681Cu Nextgen 5/16″ Copper Spades

72-hour cable conditioning service included

Vivace Balanced Interconnect – from $400/pair

 24AWG (6N) 99.9999% OFC ultra-fine stranded copper conductors

Low capacitance cable design @ 45pf/0.5M

Genuine Furutech FP-701G/702G, FP-601R/602R or CF-601R/602R XLR connector sets (G=Gold / R=Rhodium)

Fully balanced, fully shielded cable design

48-hour cable conditioning service included

Email to inquire about custom lengths

 Vivace Unbalanced RCA Interconnect – from $500/pair

 24AWG, (6N) 99.9999% OFC ultra-fine stranded copper conductors

Low capacitance cable @ 45pf/0.5M

Low mass WBT-0110Cu gold plated copper Locking RCA connectors

Directional & shielded cable design

48-hour cable conditioning service included

 Email to inquire about custom lengths

Vivace CAT7 Ethernet Interconnect – from $185/each

Highly flexible Category 7 (CAT7) S/FTP (Screen Shielded/Foil Twisted Pair) cable design

8x26AWG, High Purity Oxygen-Free Copper (OFC) fine stranded conductors

Five total shields – One foil shield wrap for each twisted pair of conductors (x4) -plus- One overall full coverage silver-plated copper braided shield that surrounds the four twisted pairs

 Fully shielded Telegartner RJ-45 Connectors w/integral strain relief & protective caps

10/100/1000base-T compatible

Directional shielding cable design

Email to inquire about custom lengths

Address:

Avanti Audio

 PO Box 9569

 Avon, Colorado 81620

USA

 Phone: 970-748-0311

 Email: info@avantiaudio.com

Website: www.avantiaudio.com

Dave’s Associated Equipment

Analog Front End

Small Audio Manufacture Aldebaran Turntable

Small Audio Manufacture Calista II Tonearm

Abis SA-1.2 tonearm

Air Tight PC-7 phono cartridge

Digital Front End 

Classe’ CDT-300 Transport

Vitus Audio RD-100 DAC/Linestage

Bricasti M5 Network Player

Amplification 

Classe’ Audio Delta PRE preamplifier

Classe’ Audio Delta MONO monoblock amplifiers

Loudspeakers 

Tekton Design Double Impact SE Loudspeakers

Bowers & Wilkins PX Headphones

Audeze LCD-X Headphones

Cabling

Soundstring GEN II Platinum cables

AudioQuest OptiLink optical cable

AudioQuest Forest coaxial digital cable

Entreq Apollo RCA cable (phono)

Software

JRiver Media Center

Tidal

Apple Music

Accessories 

Salamander Designs Synergy Model 345 AV Cabinet

Acoustic Revive RTP-2 Ultimate Power Supply Box

Isoclean 60A3 II Power Conditioner

Entreq Vibbeaters

Entreq AC Wraps