Black Cat Cables – Grace Line Wagner reference series by Terry London

About two months ago, I spoke with my dear friend Mike Kay, owner of the highly respected Audio Archon salon in Libertyville, IL, who shared that Black Cat Cables had just released a new Grace Line cable called the Wagner. He was excited about the Wagner cables because he was hearing superlative performance across his different systems. Since Mike and I have very similar tastes in what systems or components produce the most alluring music, I was motivated to talk to Mayu Sommovigo, Owner/designer of Black Cat Cables, to set up this review. On a personal level, I find Mayu one of the most charming and delightful people in high-end audio. She designed the new Wagner cables, which, because of their outstanding musical characteristics, I would now place her in the highest echelon of cable designers on the market today.

I have had a long history with Black Cat Cables going back ten years as both a reviewer and owner of their cables. I have written reviews on full looms of Coppertone, 3200 series, and Grace Line level 1 “Kibon” cables. The new Grace Line Wagner cables, a pair of interconnects (1.0m XLR) cost $3,995 and a pair of (2.0m) speaker wires cost $6,295. Regardless of the price point, Black Cat Cables are hand-assembled and use some of the finest wire, insulators/jackets, and connectors on the market. Another virtue is that all their cables are extremely flexible and easy to install, even in tight spaces and at extreme angles that some systems have to deal with based on how they are configured. For more details about how they are woven and what type of geometry the Wagner cables use, I refer you to the Black Cat website. You will soon see the details in my review of why I believe the Grace Line Wagners are the best cables to come out of the Black Cat stable. I asked Mayu what she did differently in the Wagner cables compared to other models in the Grace Line series that produced these significant improvements. She shared that the other Grace Line cables use a mixture of silver and copper wires. The Wagner is a completely copper wire cable.

Overall, both the Wagner interconnects and speaker cables offer an ease and liquidity that lets the music float effortlessly into your acoustic space. Don’t get me wrong, the Wagners don’t lack transient speed or macro dynamics, but they still deliver the kick/pop of live music without strain, even on the loudest crescendos, if your upstream components can produce those swings in the music’s dynamic range.

The Wagner cables are reference-level in transparency/clarity, which lets you hear the smallest micro-details in the music easily, but not in a hyper-analytical, artificial way. They also produce an open (front-to-back/side-to-side/realistic height) soundstage. The layering of the instruments on this soundstage is very precise, with a sense of space/air around each player. The Wagner also gives you not only this soundstage magic, but what I call the “soundspace” of where the music was recorded.

The high frequencies through the Wagner loom were clean and pure, with airy decays that lingered until they disappeared into the air. Unless the recording had harshness or brightness, the treble remained silky smooth. At the opposite end of the frequency spectrum, the Wagner loom delivered taut bass with grip, definition, and impact. When listening to acoustic bass fiddle, the wires conveyed not only the sound of the strings, but the harmonics of the wood bass enclosure.

All of the above details of the Grace Line Wagner cables’ performance show how outstanding they are across the most important sonic parameters for creating the illusion of live music in your system. However, I saved what made the Wagner cables captivating for last. As my readers know, the most important characteristic for me to be truly engaged in the music I listen to, which is predominantly acoustic jazz, is timbres/tonality/color of the individual instruments. Good cables can metaphorically “paint” the tonality/colors of different instruments with the beauty of a world-class watercolor painting. However, the Wagner loom illuminated the timbres/tonality/colors with the intensity, purity, and richness of a world-class oil painting. When listeners describe the “inner glow” or tonal richness that the best SET amplifiers create, that was my experience of what the Wagner loom was producing. Bravo! The second enchanting characteristic was the palpability, meat on the bones, image density of instruments that created a sonic hologram of these instruments in real space in my listening room.

As we know, sometimes a loom of cables can produce great results in one system but not deliver the same level of excellence in another. So I used the Wagner loom in both systems and got the same superlative results in both rigs, despite vastly different gear. Then I brought the Wagner loom over to my dear friend Scott, who has great-sounding systems and excellent ears for hearing differences between components. Yes, the Wagners delivered the same outstanding performance across his different gear configurations.

The Black Cat Grace Line Wagner cables are not inexpensive. However, when you figure in the quality of materials, they are handmade, have excellent build quality, and the enchanting performance they bring to a system, as described in the review, they compete with much more expensive cables. In instrument timbre/color and image density/palpability, the Wagners surpass the vast majority of them.

Specifications:
Black Cat Grace Land Wagner IC’s and speaker cable
Price: A pair of 1.0m XLR interconnects $3,995; a pair of 2.0m speaker cables $6,295
All copper wires in a flexible, well-insulated cover jacket.

Website: https://blackcatcable.com/

TJ’s Associated Equipment
Source: Reimyo DAP-999EX Toku DAC
Pro-Ject reference CD transport & LTA power supply
Audio Note (UK) DAC 4.1 balanced signature
Amplification:
Coda 5.5 amplifier
Plinius SA-50 amplifier
Naiu Labs Ella MKII amplifier
AricAudio Custom balanced 5751 tube-based preamplifier
Trillium Q SOCA SET amplifier
Loudspeakers:
Rosso Fiorentino Arno 40
NSMT System two
Tekton Design Ulfberth
Sonus Faber Auditor Ellipsa
Accessories:
Jena Labs reference AES/EBU digital cable
Vermouth Audio Black Pearl MKIII XLR’s
Vermouth reference speaker cables
Audio Archon power cords
Krolo Design reference rack & footers
Puritan Labs grounding system & power conditioner