Ultimate Ribbon (discontinued in 2006)
Ultimate Ribbon - an optimized and geometrically arranged combination of various individually insulated flat solid-core pure silver conductors
(9.5 AWG per cable, 6.5 AWG per speaker). Standard Termination is pure silver spade lugs (6 mm binding post opening) This is an attempt to design the best possible
pure silver speaker cable, leaving economic considerations largely aside. It is thick enough to be capable of driving any speaker full-range at well over 1000W constant power with excellent transient response and great bottom end and treble extension. It achieves close to perfect coherence and tonal balance, while keeping the "sweetness" and naturalness of a silky-smooth "silver sound".
REAL LIFE OPINIONS
Please check the latest reviews and customers' feedback on the UR speaker cables.
... I couldn't help myself and swapped in the STEALTH Ultimate Ribbons in my tube system, and the Varidig and - Oh, my God! I thought I had died and gone to heaven. This was amazing! I didn't budge for about an hour, really really nice. I might leave this as it is. The Ultimate Ribbon sure is something special and made an enormous improvement on that system, Like I said, I was transfixed. The detail they convey is remarkable and their quickness and extension awesome. The center image is more than amazing it is magic, you feel like you can reach out and touch the musicians!
It has such power to the bass, and the highs really sound pristine. The mids do not suffer, I can hear the fineness of clarity and freedom of the high end, female vocals just float like silvery clouds. The bass is stupendous, has a whole different character and too I can detect a quietness or blackness between the notes when separated from the highs. The URs are so fantastic, I mean they're worth the entire system!
Thank you so much for this opportunity to remove all doubt about which of STEALTH speaker cables I like!
Hugh Mandeson human@digcomputers.com
... It is unfair to compare cables before burn in, but the enthusiasm does not let me wait. I want to share my firsts impressions of STEALTH Ultimate Ribbons. First we opened the package and installed one cable to the right channel only, left channel was originally running by MIT 750 CVT (around 900$ retail) We made one channel testing. First my friend said that the MIT cable is better, after 5 minute of listening, he yielded. Stealth URs clearly became more transparent; cellos, violins became more apparent with full detail and presence, he and other audiophile friend accepted immediately. MIT connected speaker became so dull as if somebody put a thin curtain over it. We also expected the Stealth cable to be immediately softer, milder and silky - but it wasn't. Then I came home and connected one UR cable to the right channel for another quick testing again. (Bi-amping mode, STEALTH UR connected to mid/tweeters only, not to the bass). The other channel was connected by 70 cm Transparent cable, taken from Wilson Watt/Puppy's internal wiring. I don't know what level of cable is it, Reference or Ultra, no idea, but it is a very good cable, the best match to my system so far. So at the beginning, there was no major difference, even with two speakers running, it was difficult to tell UR cables from the Transparent, but after half an hour listening, focus of the speakers moved to the Stealth connected speaker as if this speaker had more mids/treble. With each channel running seperately, Stealth was more silent, upper frequencies were cleaner than the Transparent, but expected softness was still not there. I connected both channels with the UR cables and kept my equipments running with burn in CD full night and listened again (after 7 hours burn-in). The expected softness became apparent in the morning. Especially upper frequencies were silky smooth and clean - better than I've ever heard in my system before...
After more break in, it became clear that the Stealth UR cables made really big improvements in mid/high frequencies. As it was predicted human (female) vocals became smoother and more natural. Especially the big difference for me was in the upper frequencies. Treble became so clean with lots of air, definition of notes such increased that any third person may clearly hear the improvement, not only me. The differrence can be compared to HDCD versus "normal" CD. Most of Jack Luissier records are recorded in HDCD format, (Satie/Ravel - definitley audiophile) and their unique upper frequencies were noticeably superior to "regular" CDs, but with URs, some of my "regular" CDs were also playing like Luissier. The UR cables are great, and I am going to keep them!... Another point is, if I have such an improvement from a 60 cm cable, I might also have big improvement if I replace the original signal/spkeaker cables of my Cary's with Stealth wire. I guess I will try doing that...
Ozhan ATALAY oatalay@teknolojiholding.com
So far I've tried three kind of speaker cables: XLO's Ref 2 type 5a, Pure Silver Sound's Sextet, and Stealth's Ultimate Ribbon (UR). XLO's bass range is tight, but XLO treble is rather harsh. I felt some artificial hardness in the upper region with XLO. So I switched to Pure Silver Sound. They are a lot cheaper than XLO, but the sound quality is much better than XLO's. I was quite content with them until I heard STERALTH UR. The UR are simply a different class of cables. Even before any burn-in, they sounded better than XLO or SSS. The UR are the smoothest sounding cables I've ever heard. They removed all unpleasant edginess from the treble range. Yet, the UR extensions of upper and lower frequencies are superb too. I can hear fundamental more clearly than before. Their resolution is excellent too. I can hear the very tiny tinkling of the triangle more distinctly than ever. One thing I like a lot about UR is they achieve the superb resolution and excellent extension without artificially stressed any range at all. To sum up, UR has the most natural, yet the most lovely sound which I find too hard to resist. I'm looking forward to receiving the UR jumpers for my Wilson Audio's System 5.1 speakers which I recently ordered.
Eiichi Mimura, Tokyo, Japan. emimura@mbk.sphere.ne.jp
PRICING
Suggested retail price for a 2.5 meters (8 feet) set of UR
was $2400.00
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