The QSA Lanedri Sound
Contents
So how does all this sound? Well… simply put: very open, fast, insightful and organic. The music flows into the room and gives the idea that there are simply no more cables. Regardless of the source or type of music. And we love that at Alpha Audio!
Note: your author doesn’t think a cable is good at anything. A cable simply holds the signal back a bit more or less. So there is more or less loss. So keep this in mind when reading.
Bubble
What is immediately noticeable when we hook up the QSA Lanedri speaker cable is that the stereo image grows. It’s not so much that the cable places instruments or vocals larger; we just hear more acoustical information. Space grows and the TADs disappear even more. Impressive, because the Nova already does this extremely well!
What also stands out is that the music becomes very tangible. Beth Gibbons is really in front of us: in three dimensions. Effects with Moby’s album “Porcelain” we can point out and they have both tonal and physical structure. This is what distinguishes high-end from hi-fi; the tangibility of what is playing in front of you. Being convinced of its authenticity. It’s almost scary!
In recordings where the image is already large, we are even more in the bubble. Think of Mooie Dag by Blof or certain live recordings by Steven Wilson or Portishead. It’s simply fascinating how good this cable is at placing effects in space without it feeling artificial. It all happens with the greatest of ease.
Flow and layering
Now regular readers know that your author values layering and flow in music reproduction a lot. That is exactly the reason the TAD Evolution 2 became our reference speaker. These speakers can do that like no other in this price range.
Now everyone sometimes has that “how can it get any better?” feeling. We certainly have that with the VdH Nova in our system. Beautiful cable with heaps of great qualities. But honestly: the QSA Lanedri just goes above and beyond. Just a fact. We can distinguish the various layers even more easily and the flow increases even more.
How this happens, we don’t know exactly. Perhaps it is related to the higher conductivity of the Ultimatum Infinity, or perhaps the lower capacitance of this cable. For you – the consumer – that’s not so relevant. What matters is what the result is. In our system, we simply hear even more control, calmness and flow. Very impressive!
Coherent
Finally, the sound balance. Let’s start with the ultra-tight and insightful bass. Here we hear the great advantage of a cable with extremely high conductivity and low impedance. The bass is just super tight and gets loads of detail. Nice!
Then to the midrange and treble. We hear a slightly milder treble and a slightly more layed back midrange than with the Van den Hul Nova. These are very subtle differences (which are also reflected in the measurements), but they are audible during all listening sessions.
Looking at the overall picture, the cable feels excellently balanced. There is a pleasant, soft signature in the mids and treble. It is not at all at the expense of energy or insight in this frequency range. That’s something QSA Lanedri has managed to do very well.
Ouch
By now you have probably realized that this is a beautiful cable with special qualities. Unfortunately, more often than not, quality costs money. And in this case: a hefty sum.
For a 2.5m pair you will spend 22,000 Euros. Unfortunately, it is also true that this kind of quality also costs serious money with the competition. It takes a lot of material to create such an insane conductance. But just a lot of copper, silver or a mixture of these will not get you there. The quality of the material is also important. And then the insulation, shielding, connectors, etc… It is not easy to make a really good cable.
