Qed came up with a new speaker cable recently called Genesis Revelation. Up till now QED have been incredibly successful at the budget end of the market with Silver Anniversary and more recently Silver Anniversary XT. These are £5/ metre cables that are ideally suited to entry level hifi systems and mid level home cinema systems. They both do their job well and offer great value for money but in common with other £5/metre cables their limitations become clear quite quickly when compared on a serious system with cables costing £15 and upwards.

They make all the right sounds but lack the spine tingling illusion of reality that high end systems are capable of delivering. But then they only cost £5/metre and are not intended to be used on high end systems.

Qed Revelation has an RRP of £15/metre and typically sells for £12.75/metre. So it cost a fair bit more but is hardly in the price bracket of high end  speaker cables. So how does it perform and is it good value compared to QED’s £5/metre cable?

We tried both on our main test system with components well above the quality that you would normally put a £15/M cable on:

• Resolution Audio CD player directly connected to
• 2 x Roxsan Series-1 mono blocks
• Linn Kan speakers
• Tannoy supertweeters
• Chord Indigo interconnect
• Various high-end power cables

It worth saying that when we test cables we worry little about trying to dissect the performance of the cable in terms of bass, mid-range or treble capability. We concern ourselves with:

• how well the sound creates the illusion of real instruments in the room
• how well the subtle characteristics of those instruments and how they are being played is portrayed
• whether the music is engaging and maintains our interest

Given that we usually run Chord Signature speaker cable on this system, the first impression with Silver Anniversary XT is what a credible job it does and that the end result is quite acceptable. The sound is clear, bright and dynamic and you can still hear what all the musicians and up to without straining to pick them out. But it is a bit on the boring side and comes no where near to making the spine tingle.

When the Revelation was hooked up we were genuinely surprised at the results. Judged on  three criteria above the Revelation was in another league. The sound started to sound like a real bunch of musicians rather than a hifi system. And this happened across the range whether you listened to drums, bass, guitar or vocals. They all simply became more convincing and motivated you to keep listening. This is  level of performance which we haven’t experienced before that this price level. It says a lot about the Revelation that when the Chord Signature went back on there was less difference between these two than between the Revelation and the XT.  Considering Chord Signature is £125/M this is quite some achievement.

The Chord Signature will be staying on for everyday listening because it still does things the Revelation cannot. But if you can afford £12.75/M and buy the Revelation you can be confident it will be deliver well beyond it’s price. And in terms of whether it is worth the premium over XT? Unequivacably yes, if you can afford it and have a reasonable system then go for it.

You can buy Revelation HERE