QED Qunex P75 (coaxial interconnect)

 

Another pretty straightforward coaxial cable, this time with solid '99.999%OFC' copper conductor, foamed polythene dielectric, foil and double braid screen, and a soft PVC jacket. The phono plugs are QED's own, with their 'ergonomically shaped' metal body (as copied, if I'm not mistaken, by more than a couple of other cable manufacturers). These plugs have a solid centre pin but give plenty of grip on the earth contact, As usual, they do not connect the cable braid all round its diameter, though.

Sound quality

In many areas, this emerged as the most plausible cable in the batch, low price notwithstanding. Given the small differences involved between cables and the relative newness of digital interconnects as a topic of interest (I've been testing and listening to analogue cables for over 15 years, digital ones for more like five), it's hard to be dogmatic about areas such as tonality, but when a cable offers all-round better detail than its peers, without apparently sacrificing any other parameter, it's hard not to be impressed.

And that's basically what Qunex P75 achieved. In several familiar recordings I was struck by things I had not previously registered - little things like the sound of a guitarist's left hand on the frets or a singer's enunciation of some particular consonant. It's decidedly not the kind of detail that is forced on the listener, as occasionally happens with some equipment which tends to become very wearing after a while. On the contrary, the sound has a consistently relaxed feel which means that one is still concentrating just as hard at the end of a CD as at the start.

 

Tonality certainly seems fine on the whole, although on a couple of tracks I felt that bass sounded very slightly 'hollow', perhaps as if very slightly boosted in the upper bass region. Imaging is excellent and there is no detectable change in character with level.

 

Conclusion

It's nice to find a product that sounds comfortable with any material under any circumstances. It's even nicer when it's cheap. This is an obvious Best Buy.