MELODIKA BLUE SKY RANGE CABLES REVIEW

Melodika Blue Sky audio cables are at the more affordable end of after-market cables, coming in at 568 Euros for speaker cables, a pair of XLRs, and a pair of RCA cables. Janine Elliot hooks them up to her system and gives these self-declared “voodoo-free” audio cables a listen for HiFi PiG.

Melodika is a Polish HiFi brand that debuted several years ago, and we have reviewed their offerings in the past. They not only produce cables but also offer a floor-standing loudspeaker and a large selection of installation speakers in different shapes and sizes. In October 2024, they introduced their Sky Blue series of cables and, courtesy of UPS, I have now received a big black box full of RCA/XLR interconnects and speaker cables for me to connect up and test.

The story of Melodika reads like many cable companies; not being happy with the quality of existing wiring out there, they produced their own. They had other discernible desires to add to their bucket list, that of “durability and functionality”, oh, and all to be available at very affordable prices. As with their speakers, their focus is more on the practical quality of the product rather than any glitz or voodoo. I recently reviewed a cable from another manufacturer and hinted there that, as most of the cables are hidden behind the components, it doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as it’s practical and has good EMI/RF protection. Melodika was set up in 2010, and their website presents them as Poland’s largest manufacturer of cables and speakers, with their cables being manufactured in Poland and their speakers in the Far East. They offer 5 series of cables named after colours, with “Sky Blue” the penultimate in the range, with “Brown Sugar” the sweetener at the top.

BUILD AND DESIGN OF MELODIKA SKY BLUE RANGE CABLES

The Sky Blue range might all share the same PE insulation colour, but there are many differences in the design of each model in the line, which also includes phono (with grounding), headphone extension, and even microphone cabling. As I write, a mains cable has also been released. For this review, I thought I should go through each product individually, but for the vast listening sessions, I connected the RCA between my reel-to-reel/server outputs and preamp, and XLR from pre to power amps. For loudspeaker cable, well, that’s obvious. All these cables come with a 5-year guarantee, and the packaging is as I would expect at this price point.

Melodika Blue Sky RCA (SB2R10)

This is a relatively thin cable using “new”, good-looking 24K gold-plated plugs with PTFE insulation and a nice, tight fit, all soldered with tin and silver additive. The cable itself is direction indicated, but interestingly, the writing goes from the destination to the source on one of the two cables, which is opposite to the accepted norm. Normally, the “M” in Melodika would be at the source end, and the “a” would be at the destination. Both XLR cables have the writing from destination to source to confuse me, though obviously, you can only connect them one way to your HiFi. Interestingly, the loudspeaker cable does not have any direction indication on it, but after speaking with the company was informed my accepted “norm” still stood. However, please see the speaker details below.

There are several different specs in the extensive Sky Blue range, so be careful to check which one you wish to purchase, as they are also at different prices as well as lengths. The SB2R10 RCA cable here for review has a core resistance of 48 Ohm/km, plus a shield resistance of 13.3 Ohm, so just under the standard 75ohm. With twisted cores using 4N (99.99%) OFC copper (the cheaper 69Euro version has concentric cores) this has additional dielectric, plus double polyethylene/PVC insulation. With double shielding (Myler foil) Faraday Cage, RFIs should also be fairly sorted at this price. The twisted Cores each have a thickness of 0.35mm², and are twisted together with an additional cotton dielectric to prevent crosstalk and “enhance signal integrity”. At 120 Euros for a metre, it is a very good price and, as you will read later, sounds pretty good. Being relatively thinly made and very flexible, it was easy to connect in my own HiFi spaghetti junction. Oh, and the cable is resistant to alcohol, so you won’t need to feed it sherry. Apparently, all this means is that it is suitable for in-wall use, offering resistance to mechanical damage, temperature changes, and moisture.

Melodika Blue Sky XLR (SB2X10)

As the initials suggest, this SB2X10 is the “X” (XLR) 1.0 metre version of the RCA above, so needs very little to be added to the description. Being XLR there is only one way to connect it, though the wording on the cable still goes against customary design on this one, too. At 199 Euros/m it uses standard Neutrik connectors and, like the RCA, it is soldered using tin/silver compound, and well-constructed.

Melodika SBSC4030 Loudspeaker cable

This loudspeaker cable does not have direction indicators on it, though the website specification suggests it is directional.  Due to the confusion over the writing on the cable, I initially reviewed it using the standardised direction protocol, but switched them over later to see if there is a preference.

This cabling is much thicker than the XLR/RCA. Generally, a thicker conductor improves lower frequency reproduction. Melodika call their solid core the “Basscore”, which covers the low frequencies (1 x 1.1mm), and this is surrounded by flexible strands for mids and highs (170 x 0.15mm). Note: other (cheaper) versions of the Blue Sky are available with different strand size/structure. The overall response is a slightly warm mid-range and excellent bass in conventional connecting direction, but in reverse, gave a tighter top end, and less extreme bass. As Melodika insist on its website, there is no hidden “audiovoodoo”. This is a basic cable design, again with 4N OFC copper and double shielded using Mylar foil for 99% of the cable. Again, the two conductors are twisted together to prevent crosstalk. Fitting to the standard 24K gold-plated banana connectors uses their “Solid Grip Technology”; instead of using just a standard screw connection as on cheaper cables (which can mean that the exposed wires over months can get bad oxidisation, which increases resistance and therefore affects the sound), the SBSC speaker cables are crimped tightly and carefully, which also allows for more contact area being connected. Additionally, being plated with 24k gold, it won’t oxidise in air, also ensuring that low resistance is maintained. “Spade” or no termination versions are also available.

Overall Construction

Generally, the cables are very well constructed. The loudspeaker terminals are shrink-wrapped very neatly, but perhaps the separation of red and black bananas is a little too close for my liking, since plugging in the black and then trying to feed the red into the next socket means a bit of trial and error, and luck that the other plug doesn’t try to escape, especially if it is hard to get two hands behind to see what you are doing. The blue PVC is a nice colour, though your partner might be a little concerned with colour-coordination with the speaker cables running along your flooring!

SOUND QUALITY

Melodika suggests between 50-100 hours exercising of the cables before they reach their fittest, though that is always hard for a reviewer (at 2 hours playing a day that means 50 days!) Spending as much time, though, was well worth it to give the cables a chance to succeed. HiFi Pig reviewed the “Purple Rain” cables back in 2015 and recommended them, though stressing that, as it is such a cheap product, it wasn’t going to be magic (voodoo?). Issues on the bass and extreme top end were mentioned in that review concerning certain music, so I thought, why not start by playing one of the albums in that review, Fink’s 2012 compilation ‘Wheels Turn Beneath My Feet’. This album is a series of tracks, each recorded at different locations around the world, and the original cables didn’t allow differences in audience and ambience to come across as well as the reviewer could hear from more expensive cables. The Sky Blue was certainly very clear with drum kit spread, vocals and soundstage atmosphere. Whilst each track had similarly positioned instrumentation and vocals, I could at least hear differences in atmosphere from the different physical locations. From my Wilson Benesch speakers (without the Torus subwoofer, for a more accurate reviewing perspective), the guitar placement was exactly 2 o’clock, and 2 feet behind the speaker. Indeed, the precision of placement was excellent for this price. The selection of tracks is from Fink’s 2011-12 European tour, and there were definite changes to the ambience, despite the rather unadventurous sound engineering (the same engineer?) of instrument placement on each track. “Biscuits” recorded in Copenhagen and “Blueberry Pancakes” from Vienna gave me a little food for thought, though some tracks were more obvious in the acoustic changes (e.g. “Wheels”). The recordings are all crystal clear, with a very tight and fast top-end from the cymbals and a good extension in the lower regions. Only the mids weren’t quite as natural as I would expect to hear from my own cables, though they are more expensive; there is a limit to what you can do within certain price barriers; the complexity of internal dielectric and screening with the Sky Blue is very promising, but I guess the sky (blue) can’t quite be the limit.

Next pun, let’s listen to “Mr Blue Sky” from the ELO double-album ‘Out of the Blue’. I was brought up on this Birmingham musical genius long before my B.Mus at Birmingham Uni; when my parents pushed me to knuckle down on my piano and viola studies, they didn’t want me to waste time listening to “that pop music stuff” until I mentioned the cellos in ELO hits and even the strings, brass and sitar in Beatles records. Every instrument and vocal line from Jeff Lynne are as carefully assembled in “Mr Blue Sky” as the complex counterpoint on the Bach Fugues I had to study, and the Sky Blue cables enabled me to explore the musical construction as much as enjoy the musicality itself (and test my foot tapping as well). This was a good cable in terms of its solid and rhythmic punch and positioning. It just played the music with good detail, and nothing was held back. When I reversed the direction of the speaker cables (see earlier discussion), I found an even better stereo and soundstage, but at a slight cost to the bass end. To be honest, I preferred it this way round, so I guess it should be connected “destination” to “source”.

Next for listening to was the brand new ‘Live at Pompeii’ album from another of my childhood haunts, Pink Floyd. There has been much hype about this brand-new album, as the original 35mm film of this legendary Film Concert has now been reprocessed onto 4K with a matching HR/LP soundtrack being released. Alive on 2^nd May 2025, this 1971 concert (but with no audience) in a Roman amphitheatre has never been published on LP before this date. Criminal! (I agree-Ed) This “double” album contains both original footage from the performance as well as Abbey Road Studios segments. Whilst this album is also available on Dolby surround formats, I was happy just in 2.0, though the cables did give me a good sense of the position and atmosphere, especially in the reversed cable set-up. To be honest, though, I was somewhat disappointed with this album, as I hoped to hear things I hadn’t heard before; several of the tracks are duplicated; the bonus tracks “Echoes Part 1 – Edit”, “Careful with that Axe, Eugene – Alternate Take” and “A Saucerful of Secrets – Unedited” were slightly different, not only in engineering but also in duration! The “Echoes Part 1 -0 Edit”, for example, cuts in at 2’29” and then fades out at 5’50”, where the original track on the album is 11’55”. I preferred the first takes of all three, so why bother? This is a very spectacular performance not only by the band, but also by the cables. To think, this concert was before ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. Interestingly, 548 cans of the original 35mm negatives from 1971 were incinerated at their storage offices near Paris. As the French probably said, “Sacré bleu!”

The more I listened, the more I felt I was missing something, not just the choice of music, but still the very slight lower-mid constipation (maybe it was mixing biscuits with Blueberry Pancakes, earlier!) when connecting the speaker cables in the manner Chord Cables and others designate. Even on my clinical WB Arcs, the sound didn’t quite give me the amount of detail that I wanted. But, I must remind myself and the reader that these are affordable HiFi cables, and so experiment as I did with the direction, if Melodika can’t put arrows on the cables.

QUIBBLES

That obviously leads me to my only gripe. The cables are so well constructed for the price (I have had some really expensive cables that I have had to reconnect/solder over the years). An indication on the loudspeaker cable for the suggested direction would be advisable. If not, if you want to EQ your music, just reverse them…

CONCLUSION

Melodika are certainly a cable manufacturer to take (musical) note of. Their extensive range and care in manufacture and design make them a very important contributor, offering a very musical and relatively cheap solution to our audio needs. The speaker cable has 170 + 1 strands; I remember the very first recommended industry-standard “QED 79 Strand” speaker cable from 1976 – which, incidentally, is still available, but I had no idea then that advances in the design of cables over the next half century would take audio to such high levels with or with more strands. If you feel that the same make/model of cable from source to output should be deployed in your system, then this company should be on your radar, offering very honest, simple, and effective solutions to your needs. No audiovoodoo here, as they keep reminding me. If the Blue is the wrong colour for your room, then at least there are other colours available. My favourite is the Brown Sugar, but alas, that is the most expensive! Isn’t that always the case!

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:

The cables are very well designed and with careful insulation/screening, with the speaker cable coming with a thicker jacket

Good connections and connecting

Sound Quality:

A good performance from all the cables

Value For Money: At 568€ for the complete package, this is a very good value cable in terms of sound and physical design

We Loved:

Good detail in mid-high regions

Tight top-end in my preferred LS cable direction

Musical soundstage

Good connectors in all their terminated models

We Didn’t Love So Much:

The thick rubber construction at the LS cable terminations prevents easy connection to speakers without using both hands simultaneously

Inconsistency over the right direction to connect it up

Elevator Pitch Review: Yet another choice for your complete cable requirements from the biggest Polish producer of audio/visual cables. Would they be worth taking note of, I wondered, as I opened the packaging. With excellent connectors and a simple but clever design, the colourful Sky Blue cables produced a full, honest and capable sound from my kit. The only thing I wondered was whether the blue would match my flooring and walls, and which way round to connect them!

Price:

Melodika Blue Sky RCA -120.00€ 1m

Melodika Blue Sky XLR – 199.00€ 1m

Melodika SBSC4030 Loudspeaker cable – 249.00€ 3m

Janine Elliot

SUPPLIED BY MELODIKA

Audio System used:

Bluesound Node (Qobuz); Akai GX-635D ¼ track and Sony TC 766-2 15ips ½ track (R/R); Krell KPS20i (CD); MFA Baby Reference and Synthesis Roma 98DC KT88 mono-block (pre/power amplifiers); Wilson Benesch Arc and Graham Audio LS5/9, Townshend Supertweeter (loudspeakers); Russ Andrews/Ecosse mains cables, Coppice Audio stand and Townshend rack.

SUPPLIED SPECIFICATION

RCA and XLR

• Conductor material: OFC oxygen-free copper 99.99% (4N)
• Construction: Directional
• New RCA plugs with wavy notched connections for a more secure fit in sockets
• Double Shielding (Mylar foil + 99% coverage braid)
• Solder: high quality tin/silver
• Additional dielectric in the form of cotton fibers to reduce electrical permittivity and cable capacitance
• TwistedCores: Two conductors twisted together to prevent crosstalk and enhance signal integrity
• Cable resistant to: UV rays, salt water, ozone, alcohol, excellent impact resistance in both room and low temperatures, high mechanical energy absorption, good abrasion resistance
• Double PE, PVC insulation
• Core resistance: 48 Ohm/km
• Shield resistance: 13.3 Ohm/km

Loudspeaker cable

• Conductor material: OFC oxygen-free copper 99.99% (4N)
• BassCore Technology: A special wire optimized for low frequencies
• Solid Grip Technology: Gold-plated copper alloy plug, tightly compressed with the cable into a single unit
• Construction: SBSC40: 170x 0.15mm, 1×1.10mm
• Two wires twisted together to reduce their own interference
• An additional dielectric made of polypropylene fibers with lower electrical permittivity improves insulation loss and reduces cable capacitance
• Double PVC insulation