Siltech MXT New York, MXT Paris, MXT London and FTM-4 Gold G3 Interlinks – Mini Review
Siltech MXT New York
Great value cable that performs beyond expectations. Sounds like other Siltechs but smoother and less cool than some earlier series and with very solid, sonorous bass. It is neutral and sounds solid, well articulated, quite transparent and quite revealing. Meanwhile, it has a “musical” performance, lacking any technical stridency and it is absolutely not harsh or bright at all. Also, the MXT range is one of the most stable cable ranges I heard, the cables not changing much with use. They sound 95% great right out of the box.
Siltech MXT Paris
Containing slightly less conductor material than the New York, the Paris is still superb value and actually one of my favorite affordable cables. The Paris may be the mid-level cable of the MXT series but it has a truly excellent balance between body and transparency. I use several of these for my review work and they always work predictably and satisfactorily. The cables simply seems to work with the large majority of products which is a testimony for its well-optimized sonic balance. Yes, there are cables with even higher resolution and even more transparency, but often, these cables also sound less involving. Cables that are technically better as well as emotionally involving simply cost multiples of the Siltech’s modest price.
Siltech MXT London
The London is the most affordable cable of the MXT range and also the thinnest. This one I think is less great. While still possessing most of the New York and Paris qualities such as neutrality and transparency it does sound a bit lean and tends to make acoustical instruments sound less convincing and real. This cable can lend a synthetic timbre to the music in some combinations. Still, at the cost, it performs absolutely fabulously.
Siltech FTM-4 Gold G3
This cable surprised me. It was brought along by a friend who considered buying it second hand (and well run in). In his system, he heard a few downsides and so we decided to see how it would behave in my system where it was compared to the Transparent Ultra XL XLR interlink.
What I heard was completely opposite of what you might expect from any Siltech cable. Even compared to the Transparent, which is on the forgiving side of neutrality, the Siltech sounded flat, small-scale and even less refined. The Siltech’s strong point could be considered its neutrality. Nothing stood out and nothing was amiss. It had good detail and was never aggressive. But it always sounded slow, didn’t image much outside the speakers and somehow just sounded rhythmically impeded. It simply failed to sound engaging. The exact same things were noted in my friend’s system, where we didn’t use the adapters. Sure it wasn’t bad, but for its price, we expected much, much more.
Admittedly we had to make use of Cardas XLR adapters but the resulting sound was not in line with other Siltech experiences nor what I know the adapters normally do. They don’t add nor subtract brightness and certainly don’t dull the sound.
There is a possibility that there was simply a mismatch in both of our systems or that the cable just needed more time, but it was still a strange result given my excellent experiences with the affordable MXT range.
just a reminder that wire is wire..in an industry shootout at home depot with the top overpriced snake oil wire all in play, I mean Siltech, Dhlabs, Transparent , Purist, Mit , the Home Depot 40cents a foot LAMP CORD came in 4th out of 12 in a blind test of top industry insiders who all swore they could hear a difference…
maybe a reality check is in order…
in a shootout with the top cable snake oil brands of the industry, Puris, Siltech, Transparent,Mit, DHLabs etc and with their most pricey models being used, the 30 cents per foot Home Depot lamp cord came in 4th!!!!!time for a reality check..cables are not wine.. they are just wire..I think I will buy some lamp cord right now!
I frequently do blind tests and even try to fool friends now and then, but the differences are real. Now whether or not one finds these differences large enough to justify the cost is a personal matter. More importantly, when fine tuning audio systems, it is all about balancing. I’ll happily admit that more expensive products are certainly not always better. Sometimes cheaper products actually make for a better match in a given system. For this reason I have been using 6 euro per meter speaker cable in my otherwise expensive system for years. But if a more expensive product does match better, or caters to a personal preference, and one is willing to spend the required sum, then why not do so?
Siltech cables needs time…. once you’ll reach the top than can you make the right review. I can promise you, they are totally different of the first impression…
Thanks for your comments. I updated the review with some more info. Granted, the cable may have needed more time and I will certainly give these and other Siltech cables another chance when they come around but this sample was second-hand already and should have seen plenty of use.