ECOSSE REDUX SYMPHONY RCA INTERCONNECTS REVIEW

Ecosse Redux Symphony RCA interconnects are an update to the Scottish company’s original Symphony RCA interconnects, though they have a lower price. Janie Elliot takes a listen for HiFi PiG.

As soon as I buy something, it seems it’s out of date, whether my car or even my home cappuccino pods. It seems manufacturers need to push something “new” to persuade us into buying it. Sometimes, however, manufacturers think they have got it so right that they don’t need to upgrade it, even if that would mean just a new colour or name change. The audio cables from Ecosse (from Kilmarnock, Scotland) are a case in point. Some of their cables haven’t been altered in decades. I have used their RCA/XLR cables myself in the past, and their mains cables are still supplying juice to many of my components. 

Elliot Davies, CEO, should know what makes a good sound, having not only been an audacious audiophile for many years, but also as the owner of the Brill Building recording studio that produced major pop artists, including in 1994 “Wet Wet Wet”. As Elliot told me; “The Brill Building was our first foray into HiFi cabling. We wired the entire studio with our newly just-designed cables and then “Wet Wet Wet” went in to record one of the most successful and long running No.1 singles in British Chart history ‘Love is all Around’” The rest, as they say, is history. 

What got my interest in the company was their Monocrystal™ grain-free cable that they introduced in 1997. Originally only available in cables at great expense, they could now bring the topology to the mainstream market. It figures, therefore, that their motto is ‘Better and cheaper in terms of price versus performance’. Quite a mouthful, but it makes the point. Indeed, I remember several write ups in magazines where the reviewer stated that it’s so good, but the price is too low for anyone to take it seriously! Indeed, the Big Red IEC cable might not look special, but it just works so well, and I always refer to their orange mains IECs as my Flymo cables! Bearing in mind most of your cables are hidden behind your rack, looks shouldn’t necessarily be the most important feature (or expense!). Where some audio cables could be made from sugar and spice as far as I know, Ecosse go to great pains in instructing readers of their website as to the physics and chemistry behind it all, even the build of their RCA/XLR plugs. 

So, what makes the new Symphony cable so different to its predecessor? I always liked the original Symphony. This cable is 3-from-the-top in their 9-fold portfolio of analogue interconnects, and uses that Monocrystal™ technology in the Mach 3 plugs at each end. ‘Monocrystal’ is related to the grain structure of the copper or silver, and not to be confused with the purity (normally measured in “N”s, eg. 5N (0.00001% oxygen). Each single crystal of copper is a massive 1700m long. Elliot, like me J. Elliot, doesn’t mince his words, describing the Symphony as: “Conceived and designed as an upgrade to the world-renowned and multi-award-winning Ecosse ‘Maestro’ MA2 Interconnect (a bloody hard act to follow…)”. Where the Maestro conductors use that Monocrystal™ copper technology, the higher-ranking Symphony is silver-plated OFC cable with just Monocrystal™ technology in the plugs. Elliot wasn’t totally happy that topology, though, so he decided to bring out the Symphony Redux. There are two very important differences between the old and the new Symphony. Firstly, and most important for the audiophile, is that it now uses a completely new self-tightening silver-plated OFC RCA plug, keeping that consistency of metallurgy from one end to the other. The second difference will be for whoever pays for the hobby; the new Symphony Redox is now even cheaper, coming in at £305/m for RCA (rather than £435). That will hurt Trump, I’m sure.

THE REAL ELLIOT

My namesake Elliot Davis is a Scotsman I have known for many years; an energetic and compelling character who could probably sell ice to Greenland. He truly believes in his products, and that comes across not only when talking with him, but also in the highly detailed website that he produces. Hopefully, I would be as excited as he was about this new cable. 

Ecosse is a small “handcrafting outfit” where their cables are meticulously constructed in a picturesque town near Glasgow. I first met Elliot at a London HiFi show in the 90’s and was instantly impressed by his knowledge and belief in his cables. However, he wouldn’t want something bearing his name on it unless he had faith in its credibility. He, therefore, hasn’t found the need to change or improve anything for many years. However, just as water can get stagnant unless it is moving, I am glad that new life has been instilled into the Symphony by improving on the connector. I was very impressed when I tried his almost-top-of-the-range La Prima Donna a few years back, and hoped then that Ecosse would bring even more products onto the stage. The Symphony Redux is a surprise for me, as I will explain later. The definition of Redux describes things that have been brought back, and Elliot will surely hope that this will bring back Ecosse to the fore in terms of cable excellence. Ironically, I mistyped the word when I started putting together this review, writing “Redox”, which is everything Elliot wouldn’t want this cable to be; oxidation and reduction.

CONSTRUCTION AND BUILD QUALITY OF ECOSSE REDUX SYMPHONY RCA INTERCONNECTS

Apart from a slightly greyer look, there is no difference between the old and new cables other than from the connectors. That connector was always an issue for me. This cable is very thick, highly insulated and with a great Faraday Cage design, but that means it is not easy to bend in tight spaces, and therefore means that the connector needs to give a very secure fit onto whatever it mates with. I therefore sometimes found the original Symphony connector departing from its socket if I wasn’t careful. This new connector has OFC “Locking Plug” terminations, so that you can now “tighten up” the negative shield onto the component’s socket to get it to stay firmly in place. A lot of companies quite rightly use plugs like these nowadays. Whilst this connector is great in looks and also in design (Ecosse connectors have always been very well engineered) it is rather large and means that in older HiFi where the RCA sockets are constructed as close “pairs” of left and right channels (eg. in my Revox B77 and A77 reel to reel recorders) it can be hard for them to connect side by side in such a confined space. 

Inside the cable, though, is where all the clever engineering continues. This is a pseudo-balanced cable, meaning it needs to be connected only one way round; an outer earth screen made from Al-Mylar (an Aluminium polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic tape) is connected at just one end to create a Faraday Cage, stopping EMI/RF interference, as is a tinned copper drain wire providing a low resistance to ground. In the centre are the two spirally-wound ‘SPUHP-OFC’ conductors (+/-) wrapped around a polyethylene central cord. ‘SPUHP-OFC’, for those not used to acronyms, is Ultra High Purity Oxygen-Free Silver-plated Copper wire. As Elliot told me, silver has a 10% gain in conductance compared to copper, and a copper wire plated with silver will have less signal loss especially at longer lengths. My review sample was a generous 2m in length. Oh, and that vibration-numbing polyethylene dielectric is a gas-foamed low-density polyethylene (LSFPE). How did we put up with basic cables from the 60s with just positive central wire and outer sheathe return! The Redux is highly sophisticated for the price.

SOUND QUALITY

Ecosse interconnects are always classy sounding cables; the original Symphony has a great bass extension, musical mids and a refined top-end. Would this new version of the original sound even more refined. I predominately used the review cable on reel-to-reel and CD sources, spending many hours running in the cable to give it a good chance of success before putting pen to paper. 

My initial choice of music was using my 15ips ½ track high-speed Sony TC-766-2 reel to reel. This is a highly underrated machine, with most amateur tape lovers rather worshipping the Technics RS1500/1700 series, largely because of their unusual looks! This is a great sounding machine, though, and a series of 15ips CCIR recordings from Hemiolia, recorded on RTM SM900 tape and which started my listening sessions, really showed me just what it can do. The Davide Pannozzo Trio and their Portrait of Jimi Hendrix really sounded clean and extended, especially that bass in “May This be Love”. Davide on voice and guitar is really passionate and controlled in what he sings and plays, even if English isn’t his first language. With Simone Pannozzoz on drums and Lello Somma on bass, this is an emotional recording with great sound engineering. No other medium would give this recording its full respect. The performance from the Ecosse is microscopically detailed, whether it be the cymbals or the distorted guitar. The ride cymbal hits are pin sharp, but not “thin” sounding like when using some cables. The carbon Tactic mid/bass on the Wilson Benesch is just so fast, so all the instrumentation and vocals are beautifully controlled and an enjoyment to listen to. For an album of just 32 minutes and 5 tracks, this might not initially be seen as value for money (R2R tapes are expensive!), but every minute is pure magic and for me as enjoyable as the most expensive chocolate or wine. 

Giovanni Mirabassi and Roberto Traufic ‘Ao Amigo Guinga’ is the music of their amigo Guinga and played by Mirrabassi on clarinet and Traufic on guitar. Quite an unusual orchestral duo, but it really works.  This (even shorter) album is highly addictive and was a really good combination to try out the Symphony with its superlative bass and mids. In “Aria de Opereta” even the forced high notes from the clarinet aren’t out of place, and the finger slips along the strings from the close-mic’ing just sound like they should all be there, rather than an uncomfortable recording error. Similarly, the breaths into the clarinet to play the notes are like sandpaper, but again, just sound like we should hear them. The lowest plucking on the guitar is full-bodied, and the wide dispersion from the two musicians in this and the other works in this album also creates an intimate relationship between the listener and the musician. This was beautifully produced music,c and the cables gave a brilliantly vivid picture of all that was going on. 

“Improvvisazione” from the album ‘Daniele Mencarello Meets Hemiolia’ has a wide variety of world percussion instruments to augment the double-bass from Danielle and piano played by Claudio Filippini. With power from the hi-hat and tom-toms the performance from my Arcs with Torus sub was very realistic with tight sound. Sometimes cables can add graininess to the cymbals, particularly the silver-plated varieties, but this Ag/Cu cable was very honest and insightful. You can almost feel the movement of the brushes on the snare drum, with my speakers giving a very accurate and refined performance, and clear definition between all the percussion instruments. The Danielle Mencarello duo also play “Treni a Vapore”, with Danielle this time on bass guitar, plus Spanish singing from Stefania Patane. I might not understand what she was singing about, but it was a very passionate and intimate performance. Her deep and wide vocal range is here shown off to the full with these cables. All the fortissimos were handled with great naturalness, and that bass-end detail, speed, and honesty from the cables allowed me to really take part in this performance, even though I had no idea what she was singing about. Even the breaths into the microphone had a purity that many cables just simply wash over, and were so controlled and realistic, that she could well have been playing live in front of me.

 

I needed next to play some full orchestral works to see how the cable could disseminate each individual instrument. Come to the rescue Chasing the Dragon and Rimsky Korsakov’s powerful ‘Scheherazade’, played by The National Symphony conducted by Anthony Inglis. This epic work, written in 1888, is a symphonic suite all about the series of Middle Eastern folk tales “One Thousand and One Nights”, with lots of musical themes representing the various characters, including Scheherazade, and lots of water. More on that shortly. The story is about King Shahryār, who is alarmed to learn that his brother’s wife is unfaithful. He then discovers that his own wife is even worse and so he has her killed. In his bitterness, he decides that all women must be the same. Thus, he decides to marry a succession of virgins and then execute them the next morning before they get to dishonour him. When he marries Scheherazade, she begins to tell the king a tale every night, but does not end the story, and as the king is curious as to how it all ends, he is forced to keep postponing her execution, hence “1001 Nights”. Thus, the 4-movement work is full of historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, etc. It also includes on board a ship, the sea tsunami vividly visualised by the string section. The Ecosse allows these musical paintings to powerfully tell their tales. The loud opening is followed by a beautiful section of open chords and solo violin. That violin sounds so lush; a bright sound complemented by the full-bodied sound of the full orchestra. The Redux transparency allows each instrument to be placed carefully in its own space; for example, the open cello arpeggios under the main theme. Only on a few occasions did the fortissimos sound a little congested, though this work is hard to play with fluidity and compassion at the same time. However, the resolution from the cable kept pulling me more and more into the music, that even I was wanting to know the outcome of the stories. Only on a few occasions did I think the higher frequencies were very slightly stifled, such as the triangles in the second movement, but the lowest pizzicato from the double bass and the brief cello solo towards the end of the second movement were both brilliantly precise. The final very high long vibrato “E” on the solo violin at the closing stages was so clear and passionate, I could almost touch it. 

I always seem to find I hear better when I take my glasses off; Whether there is any science in this, I don’t know, but with my vision all blurred, my hearing seems to be even more precise (they do say the best piano tuners are visually impaired…). To really check out that top end, I decided to play David Gilmour’s album ‘Luck and Strange’ on CD. I chose it as there are two outputs on my Krell CD player and I wanted to compare the excellent top end cymbals in this album, along with my resident cables, which I know have a very detailed top end. I generally don’t do A/B comparisons, and bearing in mind the 2 outputs are XLR and RCA, I wouldn’t be able to do a direct comparison as the levels will be 6dB out. What it did show me, though, was that the resident cables sounded grittier than the Ecosse, especially from the ukulele in “Piper’s Call”. Whether that was more accurate, I’m not so sure. The Ecosse just sounded more musical. More organic. More passionate. The bass drum was also tighter. In the opening track “Black Cat” the eerie introduction sets the scene, just as does the solo violin in Scheherazade, with a weighted bass, that I haven’t heard so well sculptured from other cables. Compared with the original Symphony, I felt this new version was more honest, more lifelike. That surprised me, as it is cheaper. I guess that uniformity of metallurgy across the whole cable and connector allowed it to speak better. I remember a discussion many years ago with a phono-stage manufacturer who was concerned about the sound degradation of his products when he now had to use silver solder to non-silver components, after lead solder was abolished. The Symphony uses their own special “supersolder”. It has ultra-high-purity silver and tin alloy in conjunction with passive organic flux to ensure a joint with ultra-low chemical contaminants.

CONCLUSION

If you want a cable that allows you to get deeply involved in the music, a class act where you feel like you should be wearing the best posh frocks as you begin your concert, then the Symphony Redux is certainly a box-office contender. Nothing was out of place; no bum notes or wrong positioning here. This cable just didn’t do anything wrong. But you might find it’s just a little too cautious for your liking, though I never ever found it boring. I think Elliot should sing and dance about his new cable, because for such a well-priced contender, this really is a class act, and should deserveably find its way into more home set-ups. 

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality: 

The cable is very well designed and with a thick jacket, and this time with a better connector that can be tightened up in place

 Being so thick it means, though, that it doesn’t bend as well as many thinner cables

Sound Quality: 

A brilliantly defined and honest frequency range, with excellent bass and mid clarity

Value For Money: 

At £305/m this is a very good value cable in terms of sound and physical design, and considerably cheaper than the original Symphony

We Loved:

Honesty of sound and engagement

Bass and mid-range detail

Design of the new RCA connector

We Didn’t Love So Much:

Low on the scale of bendability, it needs plenty of space behind your HiFi components to wire it up.

Elevator Pitch Review: I have heard very little about Ecosse over the past few years, a company that was often in the HiFi press in the nineties and noughties. CEO Elliot Davis has always believed in his cables, not wanting to change anything just for the sake of it, when there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. However, the typical audiophile is always searching for something new. Their search for a new Symphony interconnect is over with the Symphony Redux. But is it just the same as the old version? No, as an owner of the original, this one is even better, and now cheaper.

Price: £305/m RCA

Janine Elliot

SUPPLIED BY ECOSSE

SUPPLIED TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

UHP-OFC wrapped in UHP-OFS™ rope-lay woven conductors

Dual Conductive Polymer and SP-UHP-OFC close-lapped braid screens

Patented Isohelix ™ separator

RCA direct silver-plated all-copper contact pins

Polyethylene and ultra-low-loss LDFPE dielectrics

Vibration-absorbing low-density 9mm circular o/d LDPVC jacket

Supersolder™ – ultra-high purity silver and tin alloy solid wire used in conjunction with passive organic flux to ensure a joint with ultra-low chemical contaminants and very high strength.

Audio System used:

Bluesound Node (Qobuz); Sony TC 755-2 15ips ½ track (R/R); Pre-Audio GL-1102N/Ortofon Kontrapunkt b (turntable/cartridge) plus Manley Steelhead (phono-stage); Krell KPS20i (CD); MFA Baby Reference and Synthesis Roma 98DC KT88 mono-block (pre/power amplifiers); Wilson Benesch Arc/TORUS, Townshend Supertweeter (loudspeakers) Tellurium Ultra Silver 2 L/S and Russ Andrews/Ecosse mains cables, Coppice Audio stand and Townshend rack.