Belden ICONOCLAST XLR Cable Review

[DSJR]

Whew, 15 pages of posts, round and round we go…I’m done trying to follow this discussion.

It's a length of wire dressed up for consumer audio use - what more to add about the wire itself?

The rest of it is just 'us' exercising our keyboard typing skills

 

[DWI]

I stopped participating in "audiophile societies" because all they wanted to do was talk about the latest "thing" they just bought, whether wire or accessories or DACs or whatever. The people they were trying to impress was their peer group. All of the talks were sales promotions by traveling hucksters or local dealers.

When I was living near Chicago, I offered to give some technical talks, like what does "balanced" versus "single ended" mean, how to run valid listening tests, how to interpret measurements, etc etc etc. The officers of the club thanked me for my offer, but replied, "We've done stuff like that before and the members weren't really interested." And the meeting that day featured a fashion audio amplifier sales guy talking about their latest and greatest unit, which was developed after thousands of hours listening to differences in PCB material and resistor brands.

So I do think that showing off to your friends is a big part of the fancy wire deal. Unlike buying Porsches or custom Italian suits, it doesn't get you any closer to getting laid, so I don't personally understand the attraction of this.

I've never even heard of an audiophile society. The tradition in London was that if you wanted to hear some nice hifi, you used to go sit in a store until you got thrown out. I may have done that once or twice. Now they are all by appointment.

 

[DWI]

They must have opinions as to what they stock, but not knowing the current crowd I can't say as to their experience in what a good product is to them (same with most dealers I suppose as it's a multi-faceted decision - what do they think they can sell, how much can they sell it for and at the end of the day, do they like the 'sound' enough in their dem room to be able to demonstrate it properly).

I've seen the opposite to business common sense in a competing dealer now long gone, with totally blinkered narrow minded dedication to the 'terrible two' UK brands back in the day (those that don't know, don't need to ) The clients wishing to upgrade from this narrow level ended up going to the likes of KJ and other sellers of the 'Absolute Sounds Portfolio in London and my pal and I felt it was a huge and business-limiting shame. we were kind-of proved right in the mid 90's, but that's another story not for here or now....

There are some stores that stock hundreds of brands because they also sell as much or more online, so it becomes a numbers game. Analogue Seduction comes to mind. A store like KJ stocks enough product to give sufficient choice at a range of price levels from budget to Uber-expensive, without having too much leading to confusion, plus retail space is expense. So you know they have selected all their products carefully and none are really preferable beyond personal preference and budget. I know of other dealers who say Naim (or Linn) pays the rent and all the other brands are the surplus.

Anyone in business should know that the better you know your client, the easier it is to meet their needs and do mutually beneficial business. KJ and other dealers I know operate this way. I've only dealt with one person at KJ the last 10 years, he knows what I like music-wise and what I might be prepared to spend. He's never tried to over-sell. I have not bought everything there, I bought a server online based purely on specification and a turntable direct from a manufacturer back in 2012.

At the very high end, deals can be done in an hour or take months. It takes a lot of epxerience, patience, client management and negotiation.

 

[Robbo99999]

My reply to the review: as you say "The cable is innocent...", it certainly is.....I'm pleased the cable(s) are innocent.....we know they are unless they are major offenders....as in they're broken.......cables don't matter. "cables are innocent" - I like it! "Cables are Innocent!"

EDIT: voted "Poor" for the added expense and snake oil, but it's not a broken cable, so that's good, but it's still snake oil & a rip off, can only deserve a "Poor" even if it performs fine.

 

[theblackangus]

Got to quickly add that when I used to travel up and down the M1 motorway from our London base to the home counties store, I'd often see Porsches and Ferrari's all travelling at *exactly* the speed limit in the inside lane quite often, as being a bit 'naughty' with their speeds would be immediately picked up by the police patrols, often in unmarked cars. All the reps in their current flavour of the month tin box would zoom past them doing well over the limit.. My thought was 'Why own such a vehicle when you can't safely or legally use its performance advantages?' I didn't understand the answer 'Because I can!' back then

you can safely and legally use the performance... at the track.

 

[Da cynics]

Am I understanding correctly this:

What Galen is saying is that - While you can measure a cable in isolation, there are additive effects once it is hooked up with a speaker and amplifier thus the "Network" (or pre-amp/cable/amp)
Implying that while the signal passed is transparent there may be additional effects on the signal based on electrical handling characteristics of the whole network? - This I could maybe understand/believe.
However that also should be measurable with additional testing gear.

It could some sort of The principle of a lever

 

[Robbo99999]

Got to quickly add that when I used to travel up and down the M1 motorway from our London base to the home counties store, I'd often see Porsches and Ferrari's all travelling at *exactly* the speed limit in the inside lane quite often, as being a bit 'naughty' with their speeds would be immediately picked up by the police patrols, often in unmarked cars. All the reps in their current flavour of the month tin box would zoom past them doing well over the limit.. My thought was 'Why own such a vehicle when you can't safely or legally use its performance advantages?' I didn't understand the answer 'Because I can!' back then

Car analogies are kinda silly, any analogy is kinda silly......after reading the last few posts I can't tell what we're even talking about. I'll be just as irrelevant in this post saying that your analogy is even wrong, you enjoy those types of cars for their acceleration & handling & feel when driving them on the road, not their top speed. But that's irrelevant, what the hell we talking about. Anyway, we know silly expensive cables are snake oil, to keep it relevant to the review, what we talking about!

 

[DSJR]

you can safely and legally use the performance... at the track.

Not sure many drivers of these motors really know how to drive them to best performance. I'm an old lapsed IAM trained driver but it'd scare me whitless today if I had the chance to drive one of these things around a track, even supervised (I did once with a 'warm-n-nippy' domestic car around the Silverstone circuit and the skilled chap with me kept wanting me to increase the revs to at or near max all the time, thereby acting like a motoring version of a Class A amp - not my driving style I'm afraid, but it was an education if not outright fun ).

These days, I'm more concerned about the large (for UK roads and parking facilities) SUV gas guzzlers around these parts, cluttering up our side streets. What Car magazine (related to the HiFi WTF title ) kept sending me emails about the latest SUV comparisons when I subscribed to emails for a while and I had to stop because it became boring..

Anyway, sincere apologies for the thread drift.

 

[Descartes]

Another cable rip-off!
Amir thank you for your review but honestly your precious time would be better spent elsewhere than to continue reviewing cables!

 

[Billy Budapest]

I have to modify what I said earlier regarding the genesis and marketing of Iconoclast cable. The information below is from interviews from Gareis that I recently rewatched.

Galen Gareis did indeed present his “pet project” to Belden and was allowed to “run with it” as described.

When it came to actually marketing the cable, Belden did so and called it “Belden Audio Visual cable” or “BAV” cable. It is MUCH cheaper than the Iconoclast-branded cable and actually can be purchased on the Iconoclast website. The materials used by Belden are different (more flexible) but the geometry is the same. A 3 foot XLR cable is $260. Definitely more consumer friendly but still not inexpensive.

Belden "BAV" Power and Audio Cables from Iconoclast Cable

Gareis retired from Belden and now works either as an employee of or consultant to Blue Jeans Cable.

Iconoclast appears to be essentially a product line of Blue Jeans Cable. There does not appear to be a separate Iconoclast company.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Here’s Belden at AES marketing Belden 2468 microphone cable (ie, the flexible version of Iconoclast XLR cable):

 

[srkbear]

No, I’ve never visited head-fi because I don‘t use headphones.

DSJR said “nobody” and the few people I know with static audio systems are not in the least ostentatious, quite normal because in the UK it’s quite rude to boast about money or wealth or even mention it. Property here is expensive, $2m or $3m is nothing special, a first small apartment for $800k is common, so if someone had a Mackintosh audio system it wouldn’t even register from a financial perspective. I don’t have any friends with a media room, most tend to have systems wired in (often ceiling systems, Sonos etc.). I did know someone who rebuilt a house with a media room, but he also put in a bowling alley and an indoor pool, which in Central London really is impressive. His wife said it would be nice for the children.

Plus, in a town where the speed limit is mostly 20 miles per hour with no urban freeways, if you drive a Lamborghini Coutache most people will think you are a complete idiot.

“No, I’ve never visited Head-Fi because I don’t use headphones”.

If as an audiophile you’ve never visited Head-Fi, then you certainly forfeit your credibility to speak on behalf of the purchase motives of the audiophile consumer base as a whole. And I simply don’t know how to respond to your generalization that in the UK people don’t practice conspicuous consumption because they find ostentatiousness rude.

As for the rest of your anecdotal arguments here, you’re suffering from a case of terminal uniqueness mate, and I encourage you to stick around on this forum with an open mind to learn a bit more about the principles of the scientific method in formulating your arguments—no facetiousness implied whatsoever. It’s worth your while. Cheers.

 

[sam_adams]

Here's what the cables look like on the inside:

Airtube and Teflon coated glass beading thread to support the conductor is what makes the cable itself expensive. More info here.

 

[Doodski]

This pic shows off the geometry a bit more lifelike.

 

[sam_adams]

Whew, 15 pages of posts, round and round we go…I’m done trying to follow this discussion.

If you think that the discussion here is overblown, Paul and friends have been talking about this subject since 2015.

 

[Doodski]

If you think that the discussion here is overblown, Paul and friends have been talking about this subject since 2015.

Wowowow...lol.. There are 4030 posts about it too.

 

[Midwest Blade]

Well I tried to stay away , there is a link but who owns what and who works for who is ???
Belden makes the stuff, Galen seems to be involved is formerly of Belden but now is Iconoclast, BJC seems tied to Belden and is the assembler for Iconoclast. Not clear who owns what or who actually works for who.

 

[Midwest Blade]

Wowowow...lol.. There are 4030 posts about it too.

NUTS…and I just added another post here at ASR.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Well I tried to stay away , there is a link but who owns what and who works for who is ???
Belden makes the stuff, Galen seems to be involved is formerly of Belden but now is Iconoclast, BJC seems tied to Belden and is the assembler for Iconoclast. Not clear who owns what or who actually works for who.

Galen has said he is retired from Belden but is now working for BJC. Whether that means employed by or as a consultant to, I don’t know.

BJC isn’t owned by Belden. Belden is a supplier to BJC.

 

[Mart68]

“No, I’ve never visited Head-Fi because I don’t use headphones”.

If as an audiophile you’ve never visited Head-Fi, then you certainly forfeit your credibility to speak on behalf of the purchase motives of the audiophile consumer base as a whole. And I simply don’t know how to respond to your generalization that in the UK people don’t practice conspicuous consumption because they find ostentatiousness rude.

No he's absolutely right, the British cultural norm is to consider an ostentatious display of wealth as vulgar and to despise those who do it. This is true across all social classes.

It's okay to have a big house and car, and a flash watch and so on but you should never show them off or even mention them. If anyone compliments you on such things then you are supposed to say something like 'I've been very fortunate.'