Review: PWaudio 1960s – Once you go black

PWaudio 1960s

Comparisons:

For that A/B comparisons I either use the fantastic Chord Hugo2 or its tiny brother Mojo for their dual outputs. My two Katanas ensure that I don’t have to worry about mismatching sound pressure levels. Excellent conditions to compare sound in my books.

1960s two-wire – Effect Audio Leonidas (799$)

The PWaudio cable has a warmer overall tone, Leonidas goes for a smoother approach. Both are very detailed, though the PW might be a tick upfront. 1960s also is a bit more transparent compared to Leo. Leonidas treble reproduction is smoother while 1960s is richer.

1960s two-wire – Effect Audio Leonidas LBE (899$)

The limited black edition Leonidas is quite different to its regular counterpart. Black Leonidas also is smoother in tone, but has a more open sound with incredible staging, layering and details. All of which are en par with the PW offering. Again, 1960s is warmer and has a richer treble, limited Leonidas has a crisper and slightly brighter treble in comparison.

PWaudio 1960s

PWaudio 1960s

1960s two-wire – Labkable Samurai III (~860$)

Two-wire’s low end is fuller and more dynamic. Labkable’s mids are more organic and lifelike, especially voices come through very nice. Both cables have wonderful detail qualities, yet the PW cable is more precise with better layering abilities. Instruments are also separated more carefully with the 1960s. The sound stage is bigger in width and depth with the two-wire as well.

1960s two-wire – PlusSound Exo GPS (599$)

The PlusSound cable is significantly cheaper than the PWaudio, but the price doesn’t define if a product is 40% worse than its competitor. To me PlusSound offers outstanding qualities, even though I admit it isn’t in the league of the PW cable when it comes to sound stage, details and transparency. The gold-plated silver Exo offers great musicality and a smooth presentation that suits a lot of monitors well. PW’s two-wire 1960s is warmer and richer in tone, with deeper reaching bass and superior layering. PlusSound’s Exo offers a really good price to performance relation here!

1960s four-wire – Effect Audio Horus (1599$)

That’s something a lot of people have asked for, a comparison between Effect Audio’s flagship and PW’s. Let’s talk similarities first. Both cables have an exceptionally big sound stage, impressive layering and detail reproduction. The PW focusses more on bringing out the finest of details with insane precision, therefore it renders at a higher rate. Both cables have a unique bass, PW goes deeper with more sub bass body, but Effect’s is richer and more dynamic in the mid and upper bass departments. Mids and treble are more resolution concerned with PW. Horus has the EA smooth house sound, but again is richer in tone. The base tonality of Horus makes it more suitable for a multitude of different monitors, while PW’s neutrally bright 1960s is better suited for warmer in ears.

PWaudio 1960s

PWaudio 1960s

1960s four-wire – Labkable Titan Au (2300$)

Labkable’s flagship cable comes with a shocking ten-wire configuration. This exact fact makes the Titan Au miss its prime purpose to me though: portability. PW’s cable therefore is loads more flexible and comfortable to wear. I never mentioned this one in any other comparison before, simply because the comfort difference was never notable, but in this case it’s very different.

Sonically these cables both offer their own outstanding qualities. Something that has taken me by surprise with the Titan Au definitely was the constructed sound stage. It is majestically big and wide. Titan Au really transports you in the middle of things where everything stretches out of your head. Just like Horus, Titan Au is rich and smooth throughout. Four-wire 1960s has again higher rendering and more details in it. Treble is cleaner and crisper with PW, but Labkable’s is clearly richer.

PWaudio 1960s

PWaudio 1960s

Conclusion:

PWaudio has created two wonderful sounding copper cables with a unique design structure. Their sound improvements are indisputably there for me. The two-wire quickly became one of my favourite cables and has been mainly attached to my Kaiser Encore because it elevates this already incredible in ear monitor to new levels. The four-wire has found its best friend in the Kaiser 10, though I wish I could use it with another monitor of mine – JH Audio’s Layla. The transparency of PWaudio’s four-wire flagship is unrivalled and the way it portrays even the finest details is outstanding. The two-wired version adds a touch of warmth to my reference and brighter tuned monitors and gives them a nice organic sound.

The big questions of course are, is the 4-wire version of the 1960s worth double the price, just because it has a double wire count? Are the sonic differences big enough to justify spending 1000$ or 2000$ on it? Only you can make that decision. I would suggest to audition both cables, if possible side by side, with your own gear. Both cables definitely offer great upgrades on stock sound, the craftsmanship is very good, yet some details could be looked into improving.

4.5/5 - (27 votes)
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A daytime code monkey with a passion for audio and his kids, Linus tends to look at gear with a technical approach, trying to understand why certain things sound the way they do. When there is no music around, Linus goes the extra mile and annoys the hell out of his colleagues with low level beatboxing.

5 Comments

  • Reply February 16, 2018

    WirePedant

    “The positive signals are 26 American Wire Gauge and use Teflon jackets while the negative conductor is only 24 AWG and uses a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) jacket.”

    AWG is weird, and smaller numbers are larger wires. So the negative conductor isn’t actually “only” 24 AWG, it’s in fact larger than the positive wire.

    • Reply February 16, 2018

      Linus

      Thanks for pointing that out! Changed 🙂

  • Reply September 18, 2018

    LUI XU YAO JONATHAN

    did u remember to rub some snake oil over the PW Audio cables?

    • Reply September 19, 2018

      Linus

      Yes of course, 7 litres and some fairy dust 😉

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