Purist Audio Design 25th Anniversary Phono cable review

There is no doubt. Record players are back with a grand slam. A lot of attention circulated around vinyl reproduction past few years and while the entry level high performance products opened up the doors to many music lovers there is no second guessing of the impact on the upper echelon plane. 

New breeze of high-performance high-end audio record players and subsequently the need for acammpanined paraphernalia have risen and its not easy to explore the vast offerings. This is where one need to do their homework and differentiate the weed from the flowers.

Cables do matter? More then vast amount of audiophiles might admit. I do think we came to the point, where this subject matter is no longer automatically a heretic outspoke. For anyone  not biting it, I can only say that they are missing heck a lot in the performance. Its no longer a solitude few selected man standing ovation. High-end audio became an industry norm, like it or not. Yes, some cables are overpriced, full of bling and BS, designed to empty the pockets of many people. Still, there are high-end audio cabling products, that actually matters and can make all the difference. A lot of times its not really a matter of pricing, let us rather talk about a real scientific and technically elaborated efforts.

Purist Audio Design holds a long standing history of designing the high-end audio high performance and they are celebrating their 30th anniversary very soon. Longevity in market should speak for itself, but let us see what and why makes their cables special and of difference…

Purist Audio Design design each product with the end goal of connecting one to the music. Their cables are all about the silence. Purist Audio Design products are outstanding at operating with minimal interference such as RF (Radio Frequency) and EMI/EMF (Electromagnetic Interference and Fields) and initially they are design so that music is heard the way the artist intended.

25 Years of Engineering, Not Marketing

Purist Audio Design’s extensive research and testing gets down to the heart and soul of a product. At this most basic, yet extremely crucial, level is the raw materials. The first key is the choice of precious metals and alloys to be used for the conductors. They look at not only capacitance, inductance, and resistance, but also magnetic fields. That is why they’re useing alloys for their conductors, rather than simple copper or silver alone for the ultimate in sonic quality and performance.

Made in the USA

Purist Audio Design produce each cable from start to finish and offer what they believe is the most advanced shielding in the industry. Material treatment techniques that manufacturers are using today have been in use for years by Purist Audio Design. Yet, brand is trying to keep raising the bar. Carefully crafted designs examine the dielectric as well as shielding. Purist Audio Design engineer, craft, and research each product from start to finish.

The 25th Anniversary line of Phono Cables represent everything Puris Audio Design team have learned from over 25 years of hand crafting the best cables possible! Everything from the single crystal silver conductors to the advanced Ferox dampening let these cables vanish in the high-end system and deliver the music! The slender sleek design allows for easy installation in tighter spaces! They are available in standard phono interconnects (RCA to RCA & XLR to XLR) and tone-arm cables (Din to RCA & Din to XLR). They can be also custom-build to fit any specific needs!

As a part of Purist Audio Design’s Luminist Revision, 25th Anniversary is redesigned and comes with greatly improved, RCA connectors using beryllium copper and increasing the thickness of the gold plating. XLR connectors are also heavily improved by using beryllium copper with gold plating on the pins.

All 25th Anniversary cables come packaged in a stylish soft case.

Can you level instantly on a certain level of instant positive change with the product as specific as phono cable? Yes, if of difference and potency. Purist Audio Design 25th Anniversary Phono cable managed to strike with the level of transparency and more importantly flow even from the first few notes strike. 

It’s true… Anything and everything matters in the vinyl reproduction chain, even more then anywhere else in the high-end audio setup. We’re talking about tinies fragile signal flowing coming from the phono cartridge. With such delicate transfer of audio signal, phono cable will either make it or brake it. There can be a magnitude of BS, marketing talk etc., yet when it comes to the actual performance and ability to convey signal from the cartridge all the reality struck with no excuse for mediocrity. 

Especially with the phono signal flow an uber attention for musical flow is needed to be ensured as utmost important attribute. First and of grand importance are of course first centimeters of thin phono signal cables coming directly from cartridge pins and ending with the tonearm breakout box. Next in line is phono cable. The level of importance surely doesn’t end here. Its so easy to slow down the flow and energy transfer. Its never easy to create evenness.

As usually for the more demanding and critical listening I’ve pulled out my trusty and rare arsenal or vinyl records. Some of these gems are rare examples of what vinyl reproducing system can really bring; life of the music and unique interactive potency.

25th is not exactly of affordable nature, but for certain products under the loupe its no brainer to explore without a any reservation if it can ignite something that can captivate both the attention and senses. 

ENERGY

The Monty Alexander Trio – Live In Montreux. I’m sure many of you know this recording by heart. Monty remarkably explodes with his one of the kind emotional burst and expert playing. Any component under the stress reveals its true nature and level of performance with this record. The pure energy transfer is either in its full impact or of mediocre reservation. With Purist Audio Design 25th Anniversary Phono cable inserted into the signal path nothing was half baked. Energy flow was of full impact and I was smitten by the level of transparency and details being presented. Without proper energy conveying much of the constitutional information can be lost and reproduced music become more of sole sum of sounds rather then musical message with the ability to move the listener.

HARMONICS

Zia Mohiuddin Dagar playing the Rudra Veena, recorded by Georges Kisselhoff and released on the French label Auvidis is more then a special gem. This is the vinyl record, that reveals an intriguing harmonic encryption of the music. Audra Veena is very special, traditional Indian instruments being able to evoke different kind of energy, that many are used to. Embraced by the layering of the harmonics, that Zia Mohiuddin Dagar expertly projects a timeless musical universe on its own is being unveiled. In this black sonic space harmonics are the stars and the planets of the timeless constellation.

Purist Audio Design cable could captivating sense of musical narrative and “demigod” like interplay. Overlapping notes enriched by the delicate subtle language were encapsulating the very epicenter of the majestic raga archaic message. Call it harmonic purity in action. Potent, harmonically correct and with the sense of subtleness!

FLOW

Sam Cooke – Night Beat still stand strong among the highlits for the recording sound quality. In many studios and for many of the recording engineers and record producers Nigh Beat holds a reference place and shows how high-quality music should sound like. One of the main attributes of this album is musical flow. This record can really reveal the ability of any product potency as transparent via medium. 25th Anniversary Phono cable did not only level on impressive level, but also resolved in the real, raw musical flow. Usually many if not most of the phono cables act as a filters and seriously mask the audio signal. 25th Anniversary has shown its intrinsic interactive nature, conveying the musical flow intact and without introducing their own agenda. Sam’s vocal really came as vibrant as it needs to be. Its not easy to project real, three dimensional sculptured illusion. With right ingredients illusion becomes enticing and Purist Audio Design acted beyond austere sounding. It rather explored flow continuum, that was actually not expected.

Duke Ellington And His Orchestra – Masterpieces by Ellington. Columbia Masterworks. Another album that its part of the mandatory arsenal and with this album is not exactly easy to keep the sense of tension and complex density intact. This vinyl record demands dead end seriousness without fail.

Masterpieces by Ellington was remastered by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound from the original analog tapes and recorded on an Ampex 200, using 3M-111 magnetic tape running at 15 inches per second. Masterpieces by Ellington was released at the time of magnetic tape recording and the 33 1/3 LP long-playing record introduction. Its a historic milestone and my listening notes revealed quite few of interesting remarks. Instant immediacy was followed by the extended transparency, spot on timbre, tone and color.

Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady, Solitude and The Tattooed Bride are all masterpieces on their own showing incredible ability to render the reproduced music at its higher peaks with the seriously balanced high-end audio system.

I’m sure that this is not Duke Ellington’s most recognized album, but it might be one of his biggest treasures. This is one of rare albums that can project “in the room” feeling of musicians and band. Purist 25th anniversary rendered feather like natural density where all the part and particles are constitutional in making the music of actuality and vivid projection making these songs inexorably immediate.  

Being the man of tone and timbre I like and love when these attributes are embed with the transparency. It was a real pleasure to experience Purist Audio Design 25th Anniversary Phono cable virtues with this legendary album. Purist Audio phono cable do matter and made all the difference. 

Rather then showing freckling attributes 25th Anniversary phono cable connects sound particles into a highly believable sonic story that stand out. 

Formula One always comes handy for the analogy with the analog vinyl reproduction. With the F1 bolid all of the smallest nuances can change the final outcome. In similar way vinyl reproduction demands fanatical attention to the detail and setup. 

Everything starts with the mechanical profundity of the turntable following the cabling and phono preamplifier. All needs to be of balance and perfect match. Even more importantly on the same level of high-performance with the rest of the system. There is no black and white solutions when it comes to the system synergy. Put in put out logic is not working within analog domain and for that sake with no balanced high performing high-end audio system.  

Purist Audio Design 25th Anniversary Phono cable impressed me a lot. For a start, this is no nonsense product. Backed up with some serious mileage and R & D it was a treat to deal with the cable manufacturer, that invested almost three decades into their cabling products, elaborately refining them and combine everything in the actual product that can deliver sonic performance beyond typical performance. 

In the era, where anyone tries to exploit the high-end audio industry by taking their part, its over important that we have actual and factual cable products of difference and high performance. Make no mistake, Purist Audio Design moves further then many.

Do the electrons float around in a specific mysterious ways? They might even do so :), still there is a lot of logical movement translating into the music reproduction ability of the  Purist Audio Design 25th Anniversary Phono that matters and captivate not only experienced audiophile and music lover attain but also the emotional side.  

Text: Matej Isak

PRICE

PAD – 25th Anniv – Phono Cable – RCA-RCA – 1.2 M : 10.875 euro vat included 
PAD – 25th Anniv – Phono Cable – XLR-XLR – 1.2 M : 10.975 euro vat included
PAD – 25th Anniv – Phono Cable – DIN-RCA – 1.2 M : 11.200 euro vat included
PAD – 25th Anniv – Phono Cable – DIN-XLR – 1.2 M : 11.375 euro vat included
PAD – 25th Anniv – Phono Cable – 0.5 M Xtra : 575 euro vat included 

25th Anniversary Phono Technical Specifications

Conductors SCS

Metals Ag

Shielding Braid 100%

Dielectric Material PTFE

gauge (effective) 24 AWG

Dampening Material Ferox

Capacitance 20 pF/FT (pin to shield)

Resistance 0.072 Ω/m (conductor)

Estimated Break-In Time 300 Hours

Cable Diameter (RCA-RCA/XLR-XLR) 1/2″ OD

Cable Diameter (Phono Din) 5/8″ OD

Connector Type Phono RCA /Phono XLR or Din

Material Treatment Triple (3x) Cryomag©

Purist Audio Design

1606 Old Angleton Rd, Clute

TX 77531

United States

Phone: +1 979-265-5114

email: info@puristaudiodesign.com

web: www.puristaudiodesign.com