NVA SOUND PIPES REVIEW

Interconnects are usually cables which just hang around. But they don't have to be. Dave Wiley tries out an alternative, NVA's Sound Pipe.

Well, aren't interconnects suppose to be all floppy and come wrapped in pretty plastic? Not according to NVA. Interconnects are supposed to be stiff and come wrapped in a solid metal shield, ooh-er. Inside, there's a dielectric and a solid core conductor.

NVA's Richard Dunn is keeping schtum about the genesis of the Sound Pipe. 'Just try them out, and let me know what you think', he said with the air of a man who knows he's on to a good thing. The Pipes need a bit of careful shaping round the back of the system, but the set I've been playing with for the past month haven't shown any sign of fatigue despite the hard time I have given them. In use, the Pipes are nothing short of a revelation. No matter how squeaky clean I thought the window between my loudspeakers was before, the Pipes have been applying elbow grease like never before. The system's powers of analysis have shot up many fold, yet it's not at the price of upping roughness and aggression.

Regular readers will know how much I value musical and emotional impact and integrity. It's on this level that the Sound Pipes work. I'm not going to talk about singing highs and growling bass. What they achieve is more to do with involvement and believability.

NVA now specifies the Sound Pipes instead of the captive leads between its power amplifiers and pre-amps, and between its head amps and pre-amplifiers. But even before upgrading my power amplification to accommodate the Pipes, they worked absolute miracles between the Micromega BS DAC and the pre-amp. At just £50 for a 25cm set, £60 for a 50cm set and £80 for a 1m set, the Sound Pipes really do deserve your attention - they've just blown away every interconnect I could find at home. And with no apparent sonic signature, they should be at home in almost any system, so on the strength of my experiences, they're well worth seeking out an NVA dealer for. 

Source: Audiophile (May 1992)