The Lavricables Grand was kindly provided free of charge in exchange for an honest review. I didn’t receive monetary or any other kind of compensation and I don’t use affiliate links. For pricing and customization options you can visit the Lavricables website.
Introduction
After reviewing and extensively using the Lavricables Ultimate and Master as my main headphones cables, nothing seemed more natural than becoming curious about their opus magnum, the Grand, the best cable the company has to offer as for now. And what is better for testing such a cable than the Meze Audio Elite? So a Grand cable with a 4.4mm rhodium plated plug was kindly made for the Meze Elite and sent to me for testing after it was fully burned in. If you are familiar with the Lavricables company then feel free to skip directly to the listening impressions.
About Lavricables
Lavricables is a Latvia based company that was created back in 2012 as a hobby. To ensure the highest quality of their products they use pure silver which is the best conductor available nowadays. Silver is also known for its neutrality, resolution and soundstage openness. Moreover, braided solid core cable geometry allows to eliminate radio frequencies and electromagnetic interferences and with increased number of cores skin effect is also minimized on high frequencies. Currently they make cables for most of the headphones and IEMs available on the market and also interconnects, speaker and power cables plus a unique USB cable. Most of their products are available in four lines: Reference, Ultimate, Master and Grand.
Entry point is the Reference line for anyone who looks to upgrade from the usually low quality stock cables. More advanced in sonic characteristics and cable geometry is the Ultimate line. Then the Master line was introduced, offering more premium products and the best possible products are represented by the Grand line.
Lavricables Grand line
These are premium awg-20 multi-strand litz (for headphones) and 20-30 core solid silver braided cables (power, speaker, interconnects) with some of the best components available on the market nowadays. The goal here is to keep the maximum purity of cable by eliminating brass from the chain and by using 6n purity silver and Mundorf 10% silver solder. All Grand line products are carefully designed, built and tested with different headphones and setups. The Grand line theoretically gives a deeper low-end register, more resolution, better layering and it sounds more natural.
Silver cables need burn in time
You have probably been reading that pure silver cables may add harshness and brightness to the sound so they are better suited for dark sounding headphones where copper is warmer and smoother, more appropriate for general use. This is far from the truth though and it is always important to remember that silver reveals its potential only after 100-150 hours of burn in time. There are lots of different opinions related to this topic as well as a great amount of technical articles proving that. From Lavricables point of view, this is a MUST for every cable hence they offer burning services. Sound characters that might seem in the beginning a bit harsh or even unpleasant on some revealing systems will noticeably change with time and become more relaxed and neutral. Regarding my own experience, I never found pure silver cables to sound bright, edgy or harsh unless someone confuses their highly revealing and transparent nature with those attributes.
My general thoughts about cables
Before reading the review you should probably know that I am not a cable zealot nor a cable denier. I have a diploma in physics and I certainly trust in measurements and science but don’t think that everything can be measured, especially when it comes to sound. There are a lot of parameters involved, including psychoacoustics, and in the end I prefer to trust my ears, after all the hobby is more about what we actually hear, or think we hear, and certainly not about scientific measurements.
When it comes to various cables I can easily blind pick differences between speaker cables and I do think that they greatly affect the audio performance of a sound system. Interconnects are more related to electrical component matching and their effect can vary from minimal to more substantial depending on the output/input impedance ratio, while I am mostly skeptical when it comes to power cords.
Thus said this is a purely subjective and not scientifically based review, something that I am asking to be respected. I am not going to engage into a “do cables make a difference” discussion and such comments will be totally ignored. If you are a believer then keep reading but if you are a denier you better skip and spend your precious time elsewhere.
Build quality
The materials and the construction of the cable is of the highest quality, the sheathing is beautiful looking and seems to be ultra durable. The cable is soft and not stiff, lightweight, easy to handle without getting tangled and has absolutely zero microphonic noise. The plugs are also of high quality and they come well assembled and soldered. This is a well made cable with great ergonomics that is going to last forever.
What should someone expect from an aftermarket cable?
Some commonly asked questions when it comes to headphone upgrade cable are:
Will the new cable add more bass to my headphones? Can I use it to make the vocals sound more forward or recessed? Is it possible to cut a few db in the treble to make my headphones sound smoother? Can I buy a cable for equalizing my headphones?
Well, the answer to all the above and similar types of questions is, in my opinion, a definite NO. The Lavricables Grand is not some kind of a passive equalizer and cannot be used to alter the frequency response of your headphones. If there is something that you don’t like about your headphones frequency response or how they synergize with your sources then you better invest in a new headphone or use a software/hardware equalizer to fine tune your existing system.
But if you love your headphones as they are, then keep reading to find out how the Lavricables Grand can maximize their sound performance.
Listening impressions
I have been using the Lavricables Grand for more than three months now while regularly rotating with the stock and the Meze copper upgrade cables, keeping notes of my listening impressions and thoughts. The gear used included among others, the iBasso DX320, FiiO M17, Violectric V380² and Cayin N7.
The Elite with the Meze copper upgrade cable, is an already supreme sounding, and very transparent headphone with great musicality, excellent technicalities and class leading timbre realism so I was a little skeptical about what improvements could the Lavricables Grand bring to the table. Switching back and forth between the Grand and the other cables yielded some sonic improvements that kept growing as I listened more and more. After a while, these scattered audible differences started to combine together, like small puzzle pieces, to gradually form the larger picture of what I was hearing with the Lavricables Grand.
The transparency of the Lavricables Grand is miraculous, the cable is surpassing the already class leading Master cable of the same company, literally vanishing from the audio chain and allowing for a direct bond between the headphones and the source. With the Lavricables Grand the Elite becomes ultra revealing, to the worse or the better depending on the situation, but not more analytical or magnifying than already is. The cable just helps the Elite to squeeze all of its fidelity potential to the maximum possible amount.
In the same way, the Grand greatly enhances treble extension, resolution and refinement of the Elite without adding a single trace of brightness, harshness or any signs of artificiality to the timbre, unless they are present in the rest of the chain. You can’t also fail to notice how better the music flows, it is like nothing standing between the headphone and your ears, micro detail retrieval is phenomenal but also unforced and natural while the timbre becomes even more realistic. Actually I would never have thought that the Elite can sound more musical and organic than already is, until I tried the Lavricables Grand.
More absent than present, the Lavricables Grand is the kind of cable that will help your system to reach its maximum dynamics. All of the amplifier energy is passing directly to the headphones without losses, something that leads to explosive dynamics with impressive physical impact and bass contrast.
The last piece of the puzzle has to do with the soundstage. The Lavricables Grand offers class leading imaging and positioning accuracy. It greatly improves layering, the overall sense of holography and the grandness of the presentation by communicating everything that was captured during the recording venue.
The Lavricables Grand is the most transparent, resolving, revealing and natural sounding cable that I have ever tried but this doesn’t automatically translate into sonic improvements. As expected, the better your chain is the more apparent the sonic enhancements will become or on the other hand the cable will ruthlessly expose anything about your system you might not like that much.
With the Lavricables Grand both the Meze Elite and the Empyrean were able to reach their maximum audio capabilities and offered the ultimate listening experience. The cable synergizes very well with these two headphones and when combined with a top class source they make a system for seriously critical listening that is highly recommended for the most demanding classical music pieces like Mahler’s 9th symphony.
In the end
The Lavricables Grand, true to its name, is a really grand performing cable that can make the best headphone systems in the world sound even better. A well made and beautiful looking cable with class leading transparency, resolution and timbre realism that will help your system reach the summit of its capabilities and reward you with a sound that you could not possibly have imagined till now.
Copyright – Petros Laskis 2023.
+ Masterclasses transparency + Class leading resolution and refinement + Improves timbre realism + Helps soundstage to sound grander and more holographic + Enhances imaging and positioning accuracy + Improves system dynamics and low end impact + Doesn't add brightens, harshness or artificiality + Excellent build quality + Zero microphonic noise + Available for most headphones on the market + Also available as speakers, interconnect and power cable - Requires careful matching with a high-end sound system - All sonic improvements are audible but not in a night and day fashion - Highly revealing nature might have opposite results than expected - This is a cable and not some kind of a passive equalizer
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