It’s early August, and I’ve just returned from Europe. In Vienna, I stopped in at Pro‑Ject Audio Systems and European Audio Team, which are sister brands, then traveled to the Netherlands, where I visited International Audio Holding (IAH), parent company of Siltech, Crystal Cable, HMS Elektronik, and Sphinx Audio Engineering. My writeups of both visits will be going live on SoundStage! Global right soon, but I’ve got a few pressing deadlines that I have to attend to first. Karen Fanas, our miracle-working art director (she’s made a thriving career out of removing dust from my photos), is going on holiday next week, so I need to submit my photos right now. And since I’m doing photography, I have to write up this editorial before I do anything else.
As you’ll read in my factory-tour writeup, IAH is a fascinating, ambitious company. Not only is it conducting exciting research into the nature of sound reproduction, but it’s also this close to releasing two new speakers under the company’s resuscitated Sphinx brand. I heard these speakers at High End 2025 in Munich, and also on this trip while at the IAH facility. If my initial listening sessions are anything to go by, these are exceptional speakers.
A few months ago, I received a full set of Siltech’s Royal Single Crown cables. We published a review of the speaker cables in May of this year, and I followed up with an analysis of the results of replacing the other cables in my system with Royal Single Crown cables.
I’ve had a whole bunch of impressive cables through my system over the years, but I’ve never found myself quite so invested as with the Royal Silver Crown series. I’ve had cables that sounded as good, and ones that felt as good in the hand, but none that did both at the same time. Sound? The Crystal Cable Art Series Monet speaker cables were serious contenders, and no surprise there, given that their conductors are manufactured from the same Infinite Crystal Silver as those of the Royal Single Crown line. The Monets were also challengers for hand feel and appearance, but obviously from two completely different angles. Thin and slinky is the Crystal Cable approach, versus substantial and luxurious for the Siltechs. Both equally satisfying, but wildly different.
At any rate, the last piece of the puzzle for the Siltech Royal Single Crown project was converting my analog front end to all-new cables. Now, it’s important to consider that the signal coming out of a cartridge is orders of magnitude lower than what’s spat out of a line-level component. The average DAC generates a maximum signal of approximately 2V. Compare that to the 0.5mV signal that’s squeaked out by a moving-coil cartridge. That’s 0.0005V—low enough to be affected by everything. A stiff breeze. Humidity. And damn straight, electrical interference of any kind can mess with a signal that small. Then there are physical and environmental considerations. The physical interface—stylus to record—operates at the micron level, and again, it’s extremely sensitive. Over the years, I’ve found that the turntable motor’s stability makes a significant difference to the sound quality of an analog front end, and yes, that stability starts with the power cord.
So we’ve got AC power going into the motor and a microscopic signal coming out of the cartridge, through the tonearm, and into the phono stage. Combined, these conduits are the neurosurgeons of the audio world, working to cajole and process the tiniest signals from the smallest, most fragile source.
So damn straight I expected the swap over to the Royal Single Crowns to affect the sound of my analog rig. The VPI Prime Signature has been the star player in my system since 2018—other ’tables have come and gone, but the VPI has been my main man—and it’s served me faithfully across a whole bunch of cartridges. I just love the DS Audio DS 003 optical cartridge feeding the EMM Labs DS‑EQ1 optical phono equalizer, but I’ve been running moving coils for the past few months, handing off to the Mola Mola Lupe phono stage. During my evaluation of the Siltech power and phono cables, I spent time with both technologies.
Yeah, I know—I changed two things at the same time. My thinking was that most people who are considering products such as the Siltech Royal Single Crowns would probably jump in with both feet as I did, rather than change out one cable at a time. Also, I was anxious to try them both. So sue me.
The Siltech Royal Single Crown power cable (US$9985, €8760) replaced the Audience FrontRow cable I evaluated a few years back. The phono cable (US$8920, €9438) bumped the Crystal Cable Diamond Series 2 Reference2 cable that landed last year. Now know this—these two cables are most definitely high-end products, and I’ve been very happy with their performance. I wasn’t expecting a huge improvement by changing over to the Siltechs, but I was expecting a change.
First, some logistics. The Royal Single Crown phono cable is a chunky little guy. The cable itself is fairly thick, but the terminating blocks on each end add significantly to the weight, and they subtract from the flexible length of the whole. That means if the cable hangs in free space, there will be a fair amount of weight levered off the end of the component’s RCA jacks. The VPI Prime Signature is heavy, and its terminal block feels like it’s anchored to the earth’s core, but I would imagine a smaller, lighter turntable might end up wheelie-ing or having its RCA jacks torn out unless the cable rested on the rack or was supported in some other manner.
The Siltech’s ground connection is not conventional. Since the cables are dual-mono, each channel has its own ground connector, but only on the phono-stage end. There’s no dedicated ground connector on the turntable end of the cable. I dutifully hooked each ground wire up to whichever phono stage I was using at the time, but via both preamps I still got some hum. Fortunately, Siltech supplies a separate, dedicated ground wire that’s very thin and easy to work with. I used this ground wire exclusively and ended up with no hum and zero interference.
The power cord, on the other hand, was plug and play, so to speak. It’s a heavy sucker also, but so is the industrial-scale motor on my VPI.
Writing a review about phono cables and turntable-related products is like hunting a sick antelope. As I said, every change is immediately audible, and so too was the insertion of the Royal Single Crowns, so this was an easy write. The biggest difference was down in the bass. I did not expect the low end to change much, if at all, but good lord—I had to check to make sure the Bowers & Wilkins DB2D subs were in fact disconnected. Listening to the Abbey Road half-speed remaster of Day for Night (Universal Music 7747461) by the Tragically Hip was a different experience after this change. It sounded like there was an extra amplifier driving the B&W 805 D4 Signatures’ woofers. “Grace, Too” starts off with thunderous, deep bass that feels like it’s been genetically modified to traumatize the unprepared listener. With the full Siltech treatment on the VPI, the growl was deeper, louder, more three-dimensional. A full-on win here.
Bass—it’s addictive, a prostate thing I’d wager. This success with Day for Night encouraged me to pull out Holly Cole’s Temptation (Blue Note / Classic Records, JP5003), which is another low-end extravaganza, albeit a whole bunch calmer than Day for Night. This collection of covers was instrumental in nudging me towards my full-blown Tom Waits addiction. My favorite track on this album is “Tango Til They’re Sore,” which is packed with delicious hooks and galactic imagery. Sure enough, the bass just jumped out at me, redolent with punctuated tidal waves of power, notably more powerful than via the Audience / Crystal Cable combination.
I played “Tango Til They’re Sore” several times, and I still don’t think I’m tired of it. What was also interesting was the spatial positioning of the piano that tinkles back and forth through this track. Via the Siltech combination, those little right-hand flourishes occupied a slightly tighter, more precise location, one that was easier to pull out of the background, easier to place in the soundstage. The piano was definitely slightly more forward, as was Cole’s voice, which reached out toward me with more presence, more actual body. The first few piano trills go right across the front of the soundstage, larger than life, with some studio hijinks making that right-hand passage about five feet wide.
I’m talking this through with you as I listen, mark this. While I often write while listening, I don’t always write about what I’m listening to in real time. Right now, I’m dissecting the Siltech experience, sharing what I’m discovering with you.
I just sat through the entire album. Temptation is a delight, a gem, a work of art. That Holly Cole is a Canadian, and that I had the pleasure of attending one of her concerts early in her career, at the small venue at the bottom of my street, makes me feel closer to her and to her music. But holy hell, is this a superb record. The changeover to the Siltech Royal Single Crown power and phono cables added a sense of space around the instruments and around Cole’s voice. Please keep in mind that there was nothing wrong with the Audience / Crystal Cable setup. True, the bass was deeper and better controlled with the Siltechs in the loop, but the previous configuration also sounded wonderful, with a huge, deep soundstage and a feeling of expansive depth.
But with the Siltechs working tag team, I felt closer to the music. The Royal Single Crowns brought instruments closer to me, slightly more forward, providing a more intimate presentation. It was subtle but delicious. This sort of change is one of the most difficult to describe, but that’s the job, right? A tighter, more prominent bottom end and . . . this ethereal sense of intimacy.
I’ll take the win on this one. I highly recommend you investigate this combination of cables.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
