Cables from the Harmonix brand are regarded in the audiophile Word as being among the bestin the world. We will check, how the analog interconnect made by this company, will perform.
Users of Harmonix cables value it
mostly for its not pretentious andincredibly musical sound. I personally,
was always enchanted by its naturalsmoothness and lack of aggression in
it sound, and that not at the cost ofdynamics. In addition, the Harmonix
wires are incredibly transparent –they approach the ideal of high fidelity– so they almost do not interfere withthe transmitted signals. So if you want
to change the sound of your system

by using a cable, the Japanese
products probably will not meet yourexpectations, because they will not up
some parts of the sound at theexpense of others. This should not betreated as a drawback, absolutely not,in contrary, in audiophile products
transparency is the most highappreciated characteristic, and this isalso the reason, that Harmonix
products are so often chosen byowners of high end audio systems, as
it does not impair the sound it.
I have dealt with many top cables
offered by different brands, often very
expensive, but a sound like the one
offered by this Japanese cable is not
to be found at this price level at any
competition. The construction details
and some other elements related tothis cable are a highly protected Iinfluencing the quality of the
reproduced music, but also usedmaterials and elements of higher
quality than in case of previous
models. For example the new plugs,
with adjustable mounting force are
drawing attention – the comfort of
installing the cable improved,
although I have to confess, that thecable is very stiff on a length of about
10cm from the plug (including theplug), what can be troublesome, when
we try to using to bind gear placednear the wall. This is a detail that will
not matter for most people, but I
needed to mention it forcompleteness of my review.
Harmonix is almost obsessive about
the quality of its products, and its
success can be attributed also to thefact, that it takes care about thesmallest things. It is worth knowing,that the cables with different lengths(0.75m, 1m, 1.5m) are tuned
individually. So there is nothing likethe cable being manufactured as a bigspool of hundreds of meters of cable,that is being cut to the desired length.
Here the cables slightly differ indetails of the construction, likesymmetry of the conductors or theirthickness. It turns out, that even suchsmall details are so important, that
Harmonix decided to tune the cables
individually.
ABSOLUTE SYNERGY!

secret of its manufacturer, but even if
you would dismantle the cable to its
elements, probably you would notknow how it works. What is known,that while tuning those cables, manydifferent elements are being taken
into account, like inductiveness,
capacity and other factors that are apart of the relationship between theconductor and the shield. Harmonix
just has an idea and develops it. This
Japanese manufacturer keeps on
improving its cables, and the tested
cable is a visible result of such a policy.
In my opinion, the tested model
HS101-Improved-S is the absolutely
best construction in its price level
Harmonix offers. This interconnect is a
derivative of the earlier cable HS101
and at the same time the mostadvanced and developed model.
In case of the tested cable themanufacturer concentrated not only
on the process of balancing the things

Always when I used Harmonix cables,
regardless if those were power cords,
loudspeaker cables or interconnect
always felt an almost infinite
organicity in the sound. Plugging
Harmonix cables into a stereo system
result in an above average synergy
and harmony, which I neverencountered before. Of course there
are many interesting products on themarket, some of which I could test
myself, and which I respect highly, forexample: Oyaide, Acrolink, Nordost orSiltech. Much depends on personalpreference or even sympathy. I
confess, that for many years I like
Harmonix products, and I never got
disappointed. The Japanesesucceeded in combining all theelements that compose high quality
sound in such a coherent way, thatHarmonix cables really cannot be
praised for only one, chosen asset. For
many high quality sound lovers thiscoherence and homogeneity in thesound of Harmonix is the key toquality. The tested HS101-Improved-S
turns out to be better than its twoyears old predecessor, theHS101-Improved, in a very subtle way.
The most visible are the external

differences – new, better plugs,
massive and with regulated
connection strength, what makes
connecting more comfortable. The
plating was also improved – now a
combination of rhodium and gold isused. It is much harder to discern the
differences in sound. The previous
model was extremely good, so for thenew one to be better, the company
had to go for lengths. According to me
they achieved that, by a hair, but still.
In some aspects of the sound the newinterconnect is a tad better. I am
talking about the characteristics I
value most in these Japanese cables,
meaning coherence and musicality.
Music rich in detail and differentiatedsounded with an even higher finesse,
the sound was smoother and thetimbre even more natural. Listening to
instrumental music, jazz and rockshowed, that with this interconnect
we have an even higher freedom ofsound. This was incredible, how well acable costing what it costs, can sound!
Those small changes place thisHarmonix cable in an even better
position than its predecessor, because
it can now compete with even more
expensive competition.
Like I mentioned before, the mainasset of this interconnect is the idealtransmission of the music while
keeping incredible transparency. On
the other hand plugging this cable into
an at least correct sounding stereo
system may increase the soundquality a lot – as if an invisible veilwould be removed from the speakers.
I recommend this interconnect tolovers of a true and natural music
reproduction, who like to go a stepfurther with their systems in terms of
openness of the sound in aspects liketimbre, breath, rhythm or musicality.
Arkadiusz Ogrodnik