Review: Luna Cables Gris IC

Audition

And cables with its signature should sound beautiful as well.

Go ahead, compare them with the best – demanded the distributor. Because these cables are so good that they’ll blow your mind.

And I did compare them, even though I didn’t believe there’d be any mind-blowing. Probably just another decent cable for a fair price. I’ve reviewed a few such cables, for instance, the marvelous cables from the cheapest line of Harmonix, or the not-reviewed, and much more expensive, but still pretty affordable, Acoustic Zen Matrix Reference in the section of cheap interconnects. After all, even the cheapest Harmonix was more expensive than Luna Gris, with a minor obstacle that it’s no longer produced. Perhaps it was too good. I’m sure there’s some story about lack of materials behind it – perhaps it’s even true, after all, the owner is not some shyster, but a Shintoist focused on experiencing the world to the full – anyway, you won’t get these cables anymore, unless you can find some leftovers somewhere. Another very good cable is the cheapest Entreq, but here we have a totally different price, because it costs well over four times as much as Luna. And the awesome Oyaide AZ-910 made of crystal silver also costs almost three times more…And interconnects, similarly to power cables, have this property that you’ll quickly find out you need more than just one in your audio chain, making the price issue even more important, but, God forbid, at the cost of quality. Therefore an excellent price/quality ratio – this would be a blessing. This is what’s been promised and this’s what I’m about to discuss now. It is there, for sure, but let me explain the details.

The cable came with playback time zero, so Karol took it for some warm-up. Once he was done with it, I had to ask him about the results – he replied shortly: “it’s not a cable for fools, but one with music.” If that’s so, it should be compared against some other cable with music, so that its musicality can be evaluated. It all started with a computer, because nowadays it’s a must. Already the fact that one interconnect usually suffices, and sometimes it’s even possible to do without any, is a measure of success. Anyways, who’d leave their computer to listen to some music? Sure, I’m exaggerating, but there’s something to it. Young people reluctantly leave their computers, and good sound quality is demanded not just for music. Off we go then – from the computer throught iOne converter over a coaxial for 48 hundreds, to the transducer for 13 thousands, connected with Luna Gris for 12 hundreds, with headphone amplifier for twenty some thousands and headphones for eleven thousands. And Sulek IC for comparison, with excellent musicality, but costing six thousands. It is also heavier and thicker and has copper forged plugs. I’ve grown used to the fact that hardly anything can match it when it comes to musicality and cables for dozen thousands sometimes were heavily defeated by it. But the comparison was supposed to be though – so why not? Here we go.

And with a good result.

First, I listened to Sulek, and it was an extremely pleasant experience. It’s because I’ve figured out the flagship ALO amp and I know how to indulge it. But I’ll talk about it in its review, now back to the interconnects. Something like this has never happened before – after switching to Luna Gris, at first I couldn’t hear any difference. At the time I was listening to some popular vocal music, naturally focused on mid-range, and nothing happened there. In a blind test, if I haven’t switched the cables myself, I would say: it’s the same audio chain. It felt the same in the case of calm, only slightly contrastive electronic music played right after. And it was only with songs exhibiting extreme ranges that it could be noticed that Sulek is able to go higher, as well as lower. The latter was even more noticeable and emphasized further by the Ultrasone with heavy bass. But emphasizing is one thing and the scale is another thing. In any case, it cannot be said that Luna Gris has lean bass. It is rather normal in this aspect, if for normal we take the standards of the best interconnects in the price range between two and ten thousands zlotys. For example, when it comes to bass, Luna is better than the otherwise great Entreq Discover, which is much more expensive. With Luna, perhaps the bass wasn’t seismic and missed the lowest subwoofer ranges, but nevertheless, it was able to produce a nice “boom!” Because the extreme low-range was missing, the bass was somewhat lighter and as a result, the midrange also lacked a clearly-defined bass edge, especially in some songs, but please note that first I had to notice it in the low-range, and then go back to mid-range to observe it. This clearly shows how little has changed with the change of cables, and how good Luna Gris is. Because, let me remind you – it’s happened that Sulek embarrassed cables costing over ten thousands dollars or euros. And here, nothing much happened, even though naturally, Sulek displayed extremes and mid-range better.

But Luna Gris also had something to say in this battle, offering more nice, non-obtrusive light that soaked deep into music. It was slightly narrower, it lacked some delicacy and fluidity, but when it comes to musical elegance and ease of combining phrases, there’s absolutely nothing to complain about, including the fact that at first, it was indistinguishable from its five-times more expensive opponent. And the longer I’ve been listening, going through more and more songs, the differences became more noticeable to me, but it also made me appreciate Luna more. Its brilliance deeply penetrating the stage was doing excellent work, and the way it could reproduce the authentic structure of sounds – with no hint of colorations and total naturalness – was truly awe-inspiring. Electronic jazz also highlighted the extreme lows of the double bass and saturated tones of the keyboard, accompanied by the clarinet and trumpet on a high-end level. So much for just twelve hundreds? I have no questions. Actually, I do have one: Where have you found this Luna Cables, mister distributor?  In Canada? Yea, right – audiophile Canada…

Don’t let the modest look fool you.

Generally, there was no need to make additional effort and go on with listening, but for the matter’s sake and out of respect for the cable, I’ve done another test, this time in a stationary audio chain. With extremely expensive Zingal columns and a few different headphones – Sennheiser HD 800 with the best Tonalium cable, Final D8000 and Final Sonorous X. In this great company, things were even more favorable for Luna Cables Gris. And this is not what I’ve expected – I thought it would be quite the opposite, that its shortages would become more audible. Meanwhile, it was not the case, and it turned out that in a worse (yeah, right) computer chain, with its denser bass and better saturation, Sulek worked like a healing patch. It is darker than Luna, which is also dark (despite its name) – and with its dense bass, it was correcting the slight, yet audible, tendency of ALO amp to color the highs.

Here, I’ve got to throw in an explaining passage. The distributor was right urging me to compare Luna against the best, but by doing this, he got me into some trouble as a writer. Because now, on every step, I have to begin with describing differences between Luna and Sulek – very slight differences, but by definition, the contrast becomes larger over time. This’s why I have to emphasize the subtlety of these differences. It really required some effort and close listening to notice them. And let me highlight that despite brighter and higher sound, the output produced by Luna Gris was still dark and hundred percent melodic. Slightly different settings, but almost identical image, if I was to compare it to display configuration. And the result is equally great.

To put it short, without omitting anything relevant, the mentioned differences can be described by saying that Sulek has more substance, while Luna has more brilliance. But – let me emphasize this again – we are still on the same level of awesome quality. Both cables performed outstandingly, however, Sulek (as you can imagine) was better in cases where some more substance was needed, where stronger attack and more darkness was needed, whereas Luna Gris was better in cases where more light and air was needed. And because it is the review of Luna Gris, let me say that it did great in every (literally every!) setup, but it performed best paired with Sennheiser HD 800 playing with the super Tonalium cable. Its brightness perfectly penetrated the vast stage, adding more space to it, and its tonal system reproduced sounds with excellent accuracy and naturalness close to the ideal. A bit dark and heavy Tonalium, used as a cable right next to the headphones, was perfectly balanced with Luna’s brilliance and its overall perfection.

Because look is not what matters.

And it’s worth adding that Luna Gris is a cable that is totally transparent, totally detailed and absolutely musical. Otherwise, it couldn’t compete with Sulek, and they competed almost like equals. All in all, I’d prefer Sulek and I wouldn’t replace it with Luna, but the fact that differences were so slight was shocking.