Steve Dickinson of Hi-Fi+ has posted a review of the Tellurium Q interconnects and loudspeaker cables at AVGuide. His conclusions:
What you’re getting for your money is partly extra bandwidth, better articulation, timing and control, but much, much more significant is the way the Ultra Black lets the listener perceive the musicianship. It’s not something you simply hear, you’re just aware that this is better: the musicians are more skilful, and playing higher quality instruments. This makes for a pretty compelling level of musical connection, we’re now comfortably, firmly, irretrievably in the realms of being able to enjoy the performance, rather than merely hearing the music. There’s no going back from here. The sheer physicality of Joanna Macgregor’s playing on ‘Libertango’ from Live in Buenos Aires for example. That track also shows another strength of the Ultra Black, its inner focus, lucidity and general cohesiveness. This isn’t simply about being able to hear low level detail, but tonally everything is tightened up, there is less noise, backgrounds are blacker, there’s a sense that everything is being given every opportunity to work properly. Piano, for example, sounds very slightly blurred by comparison through the regular Black but Ultra Black gives the instrument not only clarity, but proper weight and scale.
The Green sits below the Ultra Black in the range and offers a fairly substantial cost saving. It shares the flagship cable’s profile, but in comparison sounds a little held-back. Perhaps slightly less subtlety, timbral detail and definition to soundstage depth and solidity but the vital tunefulness, timing and leading edge detail is still clearly there. The impression, through the Green, is that the musicians are slightly less determined than they are when heard through the Ultra Black. Listening to the Kings Singers perform ‘Villancico Catalan’ the Ultra Black gives a more open, fluid and expressive performance than the Green, which lacks some of the sense of ethereality, born of the commitment and concentration of the performers. This is a serious lack, once you’ve heard the Ultra Black, the Green just won’t do. Having said all that, I’m quite sure the Green is a significant step ahead of most cables at the price in terms of communicating those nebulous qualities we think of as musicality and performance, so if you can stretch to the Green but no further, I’d give it a hearty recommendation but, whatever you do, don’t audition the Ultra Black. As I said before, once you do, there’s no going back.
You can read the full review here.
