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Matthew Bond Audio Insight Speaker Cables and Interconnects

By The Absolute Sound
December 28, 2024

The Absolute Sound

The name is Bond…Matthew Bond. If the name has a familiar ring to it, it should.

He founded The Absolute Reference Audio Labs in Australia in 1984, which ultimately became much-heralded TARA Labs. Bond’s cutting-edge air-dielectric designs known as the Air Series and the vacuum dielectric cable known as The Zero were received with unalloyed raves by critics in these pages and by consumers as well. But alas, TARA Labs like many companies, audiophile or not, had to confront some internal issues and Bond moved on.

Until now. Mr. Bond is back with his own new line of cables. They are offered in three versions, priced according to construction, complexity, and application. There is the mid-level Intrigue, the upper-mid-level Insight, and the no-holds-bared GSC 36. According to Bond, all are based on soft-annealed, Six-Nines™, solid-copper-core conductors. The term “annealing” refers to the method whereby a conductor can be made softer and more conductive. Specifically, the three conductors in the Insight speaker cable are 1mm each. Lower-cost Intrigue speaker cable have two conductors each. Bond states that “the gauge is 14% larger than the 1mm conductor in Insight, giving some warmth and slight smoothing of the upper frequencies. However, he considers 1mm the optimum diameter overall because it “has the lowest DC resistance versus AC resistance.” Bond elaborated: “Quoting LCR numbers [measurements for inductance, capacitance, and resistance] for the Insight and Intrigue speaker cables is not relevant … they vary slightly depending upon the setup of the +/- cable runs. The real sonic performance of these cables has to do with the conductor type … the 6N pure copper, the 2-micron thick insulation … polyester mica, the Teflon tubes, and the arrangement of the conductors. Most of the construction is, of course, air.”

The focus of this review is on Insight, likely the sweet spot of the Bond line that most system budgets can accommodate. (As for the top-of-the-line GSC 36, it took no time at all to realize they were something special, indeed, mirroring the sonic personality of Insight but with even greater resolution and broader soundstage dimensionality. Taking their full measure will be a challenge, and I hope to have more to say about this cable in a future issue.)

It might sound counterintuitive, but, in my view, the best-performing cables recede into the background. They don’t comment, and they are not “fixers.” Nor are they the stars. And yet in the best instances, they let the system’s stars shine more brightly. So, in turning to sonic performance, the words that best described Insight’s signature are lush and earthy, as far away from “electronic” as any cable I’ve experienced. Insight possessed an authenticity and naturalism that repeatedly conjured up the word “organic.” It seemed to flatter the resonant character of wood instruments, in particular, as in the darker melancholy voices of cello and bass violins, or the soft air flow from the hollow of a recorder. Insight cables were paradigms of a steady, weighty (but not plodding) midrange, assertive but not aggressive, and awash in harmonic energy in the upper octaves. Alive and lively but not edgy; gritty and raspy when it needed to be, as for a Clarence Clemons tenor sax solo. Trumpets should be forward sounding, not recessive; they are ballsy and brassy by nature—the extroverts of the orchestra with rat-a-tat transients. Yet, they also need to have a certain bloom and glow rising from the instrument’s bell. Sibilances were rightly kept in check. Hard t and s consonants touched my ear with air but not a metallic-like static charge. Further, the Insights were indefatigable during lengthy listening sessions. Was Insight detailed? Yes. But do they sound “pushed” or artificial? No. The cable’s low-level resolving power and general knack for detail was especially finely wrought— “insightful” you might say. Flamenco guitar icon Paco de Lucia’s prestissimo arpeggios were clean and represented each picado note without smearing. Listen to the repeating marching drum figures of “Mighty” Max Weinberg during the intro of Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia.” Tight, tactile, and resonant. A real reverberant skin sound with soft flutters of air. Insight revealed minutiae like this without artifice or exaggeration.

Later in this evaluation I listened exclusively to Insight interconnects through my active tri-amped ATC system (no speaker cables needed), with the dCS Bartók Apex DAC front end and Pass XP12 preamp. For comparison, I had my two long-term reference interconnects on hand, Analysis Plus Micro Golden and Audience Front Row.

As I listened to John Williams’ score to The Cowboys via Tidal (performed by the Dallas Winds on Reference Recordings), Insight put on a clinic, often matching these more expensive wires across a range of criteria, most notably on image clarity and inner detail. The outlines of images and delineation of venue and acoustic boundaries were clean and well defined. And the individuation with which I could locate trombone and low brass was excellent. The secondary theme of this soundtrack is carried by the French horns with an assist of glockenspiel, and there was little to no congestion around these orchestral images—just a natural and harmonious blending and interplay. Insight imparted the music’s crescendo cymbal splashes and kettle drum sustains with equal verve. Except for Insight’s soundstaging ability, which was not quite as expansive and three-dimensional as I would have liked, its performance was pretty much a photo finish with Analysis Plus and Audience—a result I couldn’t have anticipated.

In my imagination I see cables as empty vessels, the music pouring in one end and emerging unaltered at the other. At their best, they let the intrinsic resolution and transparency and sensitivity of a stereo rig take centerstage—no more, no less. I could enthusiastically continue extolling Insight, but TAS readers such as yourself certainly get my drift by now. And with sonics this good, sometimes the less said the better. But this much needs to be said: Mr. Bond is back, and he hasn’t lost his touch. Of that there can be no doubt.

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