Shunyata Venom XLRs

es347 · Mar 7, 2016

Has anyone tried these bad boys?

http://www.shunyata.com/our-products/signal-cables/124-speaker-cables-signal/646-venom-ic#!Venom_RCA_Connector

It appears they have all the right ingredients and I can't imagine anything sounding better for $295..

Folsom · Mar 7, 2016

I bet they'd make a good comparison to ZenWave D2's.

The venom's sure look nice.

Speedskater · Mar 8, 2016

16 AWG conductors for a XLR balanced interconnect cable???

marty · Mar 8, 2016

Speedskater said:
16 AWG conductors for a XLR balanced interconnect cable???

Not sure how their XLR balanced cable will sound, but I am currently using a Venom for my phono cable with RCAs on one end and XLRs on the other so I can run a balanced signal from my Goldmund TT to my ASR phono stage and it is excellent. (It replaced a Nordost Valhalla.) I just love this no-frills cable. As Caelin said, he wanted to provide some genuine technology (good wire, great shielding, good construction etc) at a fair price. I think he's certainly done that with the Venom line.

es347 · Mar 8, 2016

Speedskater said:
16 AWG conductors for a XLR balanced interconnect cable???

..overkill?

BlueFox · Mar 8, 2016

I have the Venom speaker cables in the HT/Surround/Stereo system, and they bought that system up to its potential. I can enjoy it almost as much as the two channel system.

Wayne A. Pflughaupt · Mar 8, 2016

I wouldn’t touch the Venoms, no matter how good they may sound. Their XLRs look pretty, but are substandard. As described in this post, the female is a poor design, similar to cheap cables offered by Monoprice and Hosa, that I’ve seen fail time and time again.

By contrast, the ZenWave D2’s appear to use a Neutrik-based connector – can’t go wrong with those.

Bottom line, I can't see spending good money on high-end cables with structurally-inferior connectors.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

es347 · Mar 8, 2016

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:
I wouldn’t touch the Venoms, no matter how good they may sound. Their XLRs look pretty, but are substandard. As described in this post, the female is a poor design, similar to cheap cables offered by Monoprice and Hosa, that I’ve seen fail time and time again.

View attachment 26156

By contrast, the ZenWave D2’s appear to use a Neutrik-based connector – can’t go wrong with those.

View attachment 26157

Bottom line, I can't see spending good money on high-end cables with structurally-inferior connectors.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Price of the D2s?

Folsom · Mar 8, 2016

Failing connectors... that's not good.

GrantS · Mar 8, 2016

We don't make products that fail, period. We offer limited life-time warranties on he vast majority of our products and anyone that has ever contacted us with any problem, sometimes even when they caused the issue, its been taken care of. We have had _zero_ failures with these connectors, the RCA's or any other aspect of the Venom's design. Regardless of anyone's experience with other connectors that have a similar design aspect, that is not necessarily relevant to our XLR connectors. We've used Neutrik in he past. They are good connectors. We've tested both and prefer these, both in terms of how they perform in our stress tests and in listening tests. These are solidly engineered parts and connectors.

I'm traveling right now, but thought it important to address this since we have had ZERO failures, zero returns or technical issues with these, or really, anything else we have ever made or sold into the market.

Regards,

Grant
Shunyata Research

Folsom · Mar 8, 2016

That's good you offer support. Sometimes products look similar but are not the same.

I was looking at Zenwave, he uses Furutech connectors; perhaps it was meant they're in Neutrik style. Prices are $325/345 XLR/RCA .5m. He's also got the D1 for less. He has demo cables but I'm not sure if that's true for all models.

thedudeabides · Mar 8, 2016

Sounds like another "wolf" cry in the woods. This is how bad rumors get started.

My experience with Shunyata has been excellent, sonically and physically.

And I just purchased their PS 8 power strip package from Music Direct.

I think I'd put my faith / trust in Grant vs Wayne.

nc42acc · Mar 8, 2016

You do realize in an XLR plug the outer shell is not connected to pin 1,2 or 3. How can you base reliability on a picture? Really?

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:
I wouldn’t touch the Venoms, no matter how good they may sound. Their XLRs look pretty, but are substandard. As described in this post, the female is a poor design, similar to cheap cables offered by Monoprice and Hosa, that I’ve seen fail time and time again.

View attachment 26156

By contrast, the ZenWave D2’s appear to use a Neutrik-based connector – can’t go wrong with those.

View attachment 26157

Bottom line, I can't see spending good money on high-end cables with structurally-inferior connectors.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

es347 · Mar 8, 2016

..Wayne are you and Zenwave by any chance joined at the hip?

Wayne A. Pflughaupt · Mar 8, 2016

Nope – never heard of either company before today. I’m glad Shunyata weighed in and it’s good to know they stand behind their product.

That said, anytime you see a connector like that it's a cause for concern, unless you can be assured otherwise.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

GrantS · Mar 9, 2016

The best way for any company to stand behind their products is to insure they will hold up in extreme conditions and under strain prior to releasing them into the marketplace. We do that with every part and product we produce and sell. We've been making products for 18 years and I've yet to see comments here or elsewhere that took the reliability of anything we produce to task.

We support the products from our least to most expensive products, generally in perpetuity whether new or used, first owner or fourth owner. The only way we could maintain a program like that is to be certain that few problems will _ever_ occur upfront.

If you have experiences with a specific company's product and wish to site specifics, that's fair. Pointing out one small part as likely to fail on a custom-made connector or a product you've never had experience with, is not what I would term a reliable observation. There are literally hundreds, likely over 1000 of those XLR Interconnects in dealer and customers hands by now. We've had exactly zero problems. That's essentially true for our power products as well and the few issues that have come up these past 18 years were resolved.

Regards,

Grant
Shunyata Research

thedudeabides · Mar 9, 2016

GrantS said:
If you have experiences with a specific company's product and wish to site specifics, that's fair. Pointing out one small part as likely to fail on a custom-made connector or a product you've never had experience with, is not what I would term a reliable observation. There are literally hundreds, likely over 1000 of those XLR Interconnects in dealer and customers hands by now. Grant Shunyata Research

Agreed. One has to wonder what WAP's motivation really is. It certainly is not "seeking the truth".

Criticizing a product that he has absolutely no knowledge of is inexcusable at best. Slanderous at worst.

Reminds me of someone who fires a gun first and then asks questions later.

I'm so tired of unsubstantiated, misinformed claims.

PS: I will give him credit that he had the decency to apologize, sort of.

thedudeabides · Mar 9, 2016

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:
That said, anytime you see a connector like that it's a cause for concern, unless you can be assured otherwise.

With all due respect, who is the "YOU" in your post? Singular or the collective plural?

Folsom · Mar 9, 2016

WAP is in the right here to be concerned, but Shunyata is standing by their product and assuring despite similarity in design the function is not relatable. WAP may even be willing to purchase on good faith since Shunyata has been known to be reputable.

WAP does have experience with the same basic design, dozens of them. I think that absolutely warrants concern. Perhaps he came on a bit strong, but that's no reason to discard a wealth of experience. I'm not surprised Grant says it's not a good observation, but I don't think that's true. The claim really is that their product only looks similar, does not function similar. This isn't a rumor because no one is reporting failures of the Shunyata's. To me it's clear Shunyata invests more in their connector that clearly is not exactly the same as a cheaper version. But I don't have to worry anyway, they'll fix it if there's a problem.

thedudeabides · Mar 9, 2016

If Shunyata has, per Grant, up to a 1,000 of these connectors in the field and there have been no issues, I see no basis for any concern but maybe I'm missing something.

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