Excellent performer with a friendly price tag
Along with the Ricable Supreme HDMI cable I reviewed a short while ago, came a speaker cable of the same brand. Like the HDMI cable, this speaker cable has a friendly price tag, and it also performs admirably.
Review sample supplied by manufacturer Ricable
Retail prices:
2 x 2m 370 euro
2 x 3m 450 euro
2 x 4m 520 euro
Technical properties
The Ricable Supreme Speaker Cable is a 100% Italian hand made product utilizing highly pure OCC copper consisting of 0.05mm strands. In spite of a 2x 7mm2 conductor thickness and Teflon insulation, the 20mm tick cable is surprisingly supple, and once laid in position it simply stays put. Connectors are gold plated bananas that can be tightened to stay locked in place.
Sound
Most cables need running in to a larger or smaller extent. I have owned cables that needed hundreds of hours to settle in, but I have also used cables that sound good right from the moment they are first used. The Ricable Supreme seems to be of the latter category, sounding excellent right from the start.
To assess the sound, I compared the Ricable Supreme to two other cables I have: the Transparent Reference and the Cardas Quadlink 5C. The former really is admittedly not proper comparison material because of its hefty price tag, but because it is my personal reference and I know it so well, I decided to use it as the starting point to form my opinion.
With the Transparent Reference connected between Rowland model 6 monos and Kharma 3.2FE’s, the sound is rich, smooth and full-bodied, with excellent focus and a very broad, room-filling soundstage. Swapping the Transparent for the Ricable was a step back for sure, and this is expected, but what I didn’t expect was that the Ricable too, sounded rich and smooth and still very nicely full-bodied. And even from the very first connection, there wasn’t a hint of aggression. A lot of the Transparent’s character was actually retained, with the most apparent losses being a smaller soundstage, lower resolution and less focus. Although this perhaps doesn’t sound like the best advertising material, if one factors in that the Transparent is 16 times as expensive I’d say that this is actually a pretty good achievement.
Now that my reference point was set, I compared the Ricable Supreme with a cable more of the same price category: the Cardas Quadlink 5C. The latter are fine cables, offering very good detail and transparency, with tight, articulate bass, but they have always sounded somewhat bleak and dry to me, too devoid of color for my taste.
Comparing the Cardas to the Ricable Supreme only substantiated this assessment. Even if the Cardas has the edge in terms of transparency and bass articulation, overall I find it to sound less musical than the Ricable. The latter just seems to invite the listener to relax and enjoy in a manner that the Cardas doesn’t. Importantly, the Ricable manages to tread a fine line between sounding smooth and forgiving on the one side and being open and transparent on the other. It’s not one of those cables that seems to work as a magnifying glass to dissect the music, but it also isn’t a “smooth everything over” kind of cable. There’s plenty of transparency and detail, and the cable certainly doesn’t sound thick, compressed or slow. And most important to me: it offers an airy and open treble, without any harshness.
I have heard more OCC cables and although the slowly drawn copper usually means smooth treble and a refined sound, there’s often also a tendency for these cables to sound overly mellow. Not so the Ricable Supreme.
In retrospect, the Ricable Supreme kind of remind me of a set of HiDiamond cables (I forget the model), which also managed to sound smooth and relaxed while maintaining transparency, speed and neutrality.
Conclusion
The Ricable Supreme is finished to a high standard, and performs very well, sounding full-bodied, relaxed and smooth, with just the right balance between relaxed musicality and audiophile traits such as transparency, low-level detail and neutrality. This cable might be easy to overlook among the abundance of cable offerings these days, but this one is hand-made in Italy and performs considerably better than I expected based on its price tag.
Hi Christian , im about to buy speaker cable from Ricable , i have got the supreme in XLR , would you recommend Ricable Supreme or Ricable hi-end speaker , my system is Meridian 508.24 Cd , Bryston Sp1.7 pre and Marantz SM11s1 power and Holfi Speakers a very musical system i believe ? Best regards Peter
Hi Peter, all the Ricables that I heard put musicality first and typical audiophile qualities second. But to be honest, I cannot remember the precise differences between the Hi-End and Ultimate models so I’d have to go by what my reviews describe. Reading these I do recall that the Ricables’ main downsides are in terms of precision, refinement and resolution and I’m not sure of the Ultimate is actually better in that regard than the Hi-End. I do recall that none of these cables struck me as true high-end cables but that’s only fair at their modest prices. An alternative with a similarly lush and organic sound but also very good resolution and refinement is the Driade Flow 405 but even if it has a very reasonable price tag considering its performance, it is considerably more expensive than the Ricables.
Christiaan,
shortly after your review of the Ricable Supreme speaker cables, some time ago, I bought them and I have to say that I am satisfied with them. My speakers are Martin Logan Theos and they benefit from a full bodied cable like the Ricable Supreme. I agree that maybe the last ounce of transparency is missing, but most of the times you don’t care.
Ever since I read your review of the Driades I’ve been intrigued and I’ve been wondering if, in your opinion, they would be an improvement over the Ricables, taking into account the sound characteristics I wrote you about.
Thanks
Best Regards
Hi Stefano, it’s like you say, transparency and resolution are often not the most important factors in music replay. But they’re certainly nice to have. 🙂 It’s been a long time since I heard the Ricables and my system changed a lot ever since but if memory serves, I think I can safely say that if you do want to take steps to improve on the Ricables weaker areas while retaining a smooth and full-bodied sound, the Driade cable could well be ideal.