As with many of my audio discoveries over the last six years, the Sunny Cable Technology brand was introduced to me via Clement Perry’s ever evolving system. At this stage of the game, it is all about refinement and fine-tuning for his system as the components in place represent a special synergy that is rarely, if ever achieved.

My rig on the other hand has been a bit of a revolving door. Gratefully, I have narrowed down the key players though I’ve still not committed to the final purchase of loudspeakers. Over the last couple of years I have had use of the lovely sounding Focus Audio Master II and most recently, the remarkable Dynaudio Evidence Master. Either speaker would be considered a blessing upon any audiophile’s domain. That said, it looks like the Dynaudios may be sticking around.

Upon my first few seconds of experiencing the inclusion of Sunny Cable’s Supreme 5000 Series cables in Clements’ system, I heard something I had never really heard to this level before. Taking into account the contribution of the Behold electronics, the Dali Megaline speakers and the Nova Acoustics Memory player, all of which I am intimately familiar with, I thought I knew what those components were capable of. As impressive as the system was before, with the Sunny cables strewn throughout the system, the sound just transformed into an organic, texture-laden, harmonically fleshed out representation of recorded music, the likes of which I had never heard, short of a live performance. The tonality of each instrument could only be described as true. This synergy is something very special.

My trance was abruptly shattered when I found out the asking price for such wonder. I would just have to mentally move on to more realistic goals. Just below the Supreme Series, the 1000 Series lurks amidst the very long shadow cast by its superior.

When I saw the prices of the assorted offerings in the 1000 Series, I was a bit relieved, though $9,000 for two meters of speaker cable is a heaping bowl of cold comfort. Even at that price, the cost curve moving up to the Supreme is neck-snappingly steep. Typically, the price curve is a bit flatter as you ascend to the top of a product line. So I was a bit skeptical about the claim by designer Sunny Lo that the 1000 Series offers “70% of the performance” of the Supreme at less than 1/3 of the price. I casually dismissed the 1000 Series as a wannabe product. Since I could not afford the Supreme, I scooped up my metaphorical marbles and with bottom lip protruding I skulked on home.

Some months later, in addition to my reference Vitus Audio SM-101 monoblocks, I had an opportunity to live with the Behold gear for a lengthy audition. Knowing what I did about the system synergy the Behold/Sunny Cable achieved in Clement’s system, I thought I would give the 1000 Series a try.

Sunny Cable’s Andre Au sent over two eight foot pairs of the 1000 Series speaker cable, two pairs of balanced interconnects, four power cords, a digital interconnect and the Sunny “Box”, their version of a power distribution center. While the speaker cable and interconnects cable are not exactly thin, they are very easy to work with and very light weight. The AC power cords on the other hand are very thick and not for systems with little space to maneuver. The speaker cable has a feature I really like; a bare solid wire at each end in place of spades that can be formed into a hook and secured around the binding posts which all but eliminated accidental disengagements. My wire came in white, which in some applications may be the way to go, but I would opt for the black version for which there is a slight up charge. Each cable also has a grounding wire that attaches to the grounding screw on the sunny box.

Once put in place, I went through the normal practice of burn-in. At first blush the impression was that of a slight mellowness and a warm, overall tonal balance. Like a morning fog burned off by the midday Sun (sorry for such a lazy analogy), the Sunny cable really opened up while retaining a very pleasant listenability. Now this may sound like damned faint praise but not so fast. The listenability and or musicality, whichever you prefer, was not the result of euphonic colorations, particularly through the midband and treble. Like my experience with the Supreme, I was caught a bit off guard and forced to listen with a bit more acuity in order to dig deeply into the complex musical information. What I found was the harmonic truth and natural color of instruments much like that in Clement’s system. They were allowed to develop and decay with such linearity and time coherence, that the sound had a “washing over me” kind of presentation that one gets used to very quickly.

With the bass, I had to work a bit harder to get a grip on the wire’s character, or for the most part, lack thereof. There were times where I felt the bass lacked some dynamic slam and focus. A few CD’s later … WHAM! I get it right between the eyes. My Focus Audio Master II speakers do have a slightly warm bass and an overall sweet presentation which shaped my early impressions of the 1000 Series. When I had the opportunity to live with the Dynaudio Evidence Master, I was confronted with a very different view into the music. This is a speaker with zero fat on the meat. The stunning neutrality and linearity, particularly in the bass, proved the 1000 far more neutral than I had thought. Upon reflection, the presentation between the two speakers had absolutely nothing in common, save the fact that both were very enjoyable, if for different reasons. With the Dynaudio, at three times the price of the Master II, you got the unvarnished truth. With the Master II relative to the Evidence, there is a rose colored view of reality, which at times holds a very dear place in the musical dopamine receptors of this reviewer’s brain.

The point is that the 1000 Series seemed to impart so little character on the sound, yet allowed each speaker’s (and the partnering electronics) great strengths to shine through.


And now for something completely different
For me, the $2300, 50 watt Melody tube integrated amp could not be any more different from my usual fare. After finding the megabuck components of my dreams in the Behold and Vitus electronics, my audio ADD got the best of me. For the sake of this review, the question would be how would the Sunny 1000 work with a modest tube amplifier? There was absolutely nothing modest about the results. The sound was far better than I had expected. With liquid, vivid, and beautiful tonal color, the Sunny 1000 again passed along the great strengths of the component while retaining enough neutrality to gain insight into the reality of a lower powered amplifier in my very large room. True, there was far less bass power and macro dynamics, but what bass was there was quite true sounding. It had texture and pitch definition along with very good mid bass snap. In the end, you would not mistake the Melody integrated for the $45,000 behold amplifier, nor the $50,000 Vitus mono amplifiers, but with the Sunny cable in place, the Melody integrated amplifier was welcomed into a very elite group. You will be hearing more about Melody amplifiers in upcoming reviews.

As I alluded to earlier, the midband and treble of the 1000 Series cable are extremely hard to fault. Listening to Damien Rice on the achingly beautiful “Cold Water” from his album O [Vector], I just sat and literally began to weep. This song about contemplating God’s ambivalence while metaphorically sinking into the cold water of despair features a closely mic’d lead vocal backed by an ethereal female vocal. Damien’s voice is loaded with inflection at times trailing off into a mere whisper. With the Sunny 1000 in place, the simplicity of the arrangement gave way to the complexity that great neutrality and resolution can bring.

The Beatles “Here Comes the Sun” from Abbey Road could be the song that has most touched me on a spiritual level. Yes I could hear this song sung over the New York City subway transit systems PA and still well up, but with the Sunny cable and my components firing on all cylinders, the layering and mix of instruments unravel, relaxing the flow of the music befitting the spirit of the song.

If I had to compare, I would say it is in the treble where the Sunny Supreme most distances itself from its sibling. The 1000 may lack that last vestige of organic purity the Supreme Series posses on a beguiling level. It really is only in comparison to a cable such as a Supreme Series that this would come to light. I would bet you could go a very long time with the 1000 Series in your system and never have a clue as to what I am alluding to. Read the previous words as a veiled warning, audition the Supreme at your own mental, emotional and financial risk.

Don’t let the Sun(ny) go down on me …
So where does this experience leave my system? In the Sunny Cable Technology 1000 Series we have some pretty expensive cables that yield results you will have a very hard time finding in a cable short of its price tag. I have been reviewing high-end cable for a very long time and the Sunny 1000 may be one of the two or three best cables I have ever heard. The Silver Smith Palladium, and more recently the Stealth Audio Dream (I have only auditioned the Stealth speaker wire) leave the Sunny in some pretty rare company. As a complete system however, the Sunny hits all the right notes, from the digital link to AC power cords and everything in between, the 1000 is a single brand solution that will bring out the best in your components that your old wire may have been keeping a secret. If not for the impending purchase of the new speakers, I would not hesitate to make the 1000 series a permanent part of my system.

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Specifications:
1000 Series Digital interconnect $2475 - 1.5 meter
1000 Series Speaker wire $8100 - 3 meter pr
1000 Series power cables $2700 per 2 meters
Address: Sunny Cable Technology
PMB 238
21c Orinda Way
Orinda, CA 94563
U.S.A.
Contact: Website: www.sunnycable.com
Email: info@SunnyCable.com
Telephone:(925) 258 3688