by Roy Harris, July 2014

I was recently contacted by Miranda Billing, a representative of Harmonic Technology. She was previously associated with another company, Legenburg, whose cables I had reviewed, years ago. She asked me if I was interested in reviewing the latest version of the Melody Link interconnect, the Mark III version. After briefly perusing the company’s website, reading a description of the Melody Link MK III, I noticed that at the time, that there was no review of the cable linked to the website.

The Melody Link MK III, contains both continuous cast silver and copper wire. The combination, according to the company’s design engineers, is to provide a balanced frequency response and avoid an emphasis upon bass frequencies, given the particular cable design, which I will discuss shortly.

I own and have reviewed a Neotech single crystal silver cable and have owned a continuous cast copper cable. My experience with such cables is that its sound properties include a balanced frequency response and high resolution.

Cable Design
The geometry is balanced symmetric. There are 8 PE tubes arranged in a circle, and an additional hollow PE tube passing through the center of the cable. Continuous cast silver conductors are placed in the middle of two PE tubes on one side of the cable, and two continuous cast copper conductors are placed in the middle of two PE tubes on the other side of the cable. Thus, the conductors are parallel to each other and do not touch each other at any time. One conductor is solid core, the second is multi-gauge, multi-stranded. The 4 conductors combine to a thickness of 19 gauge.

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by Roy Harris, March 2011

This is the third in a series of reviews of HDMI cables. This cable differs fromthe Cardas and Audioquest in that its conductors are copper, without silver plating. In addition, like the Audioquest, there is an aarow at one end. Jim Wang, president of Harmonic Technology, informed me that directionality is important for lengths greater than 7 meters. Lengths less than 7 meters do not impact the sound regardless of orientation.

Since this is the third review of HDMI cable, I wanted to include an explanation as to the reason(s) for auditioning these cables. Essentially, it is in response to PS Audio’s assertion that its power wave transport and dac is optimized, sonically when using I2S via HDMI. According to Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio, PS Audio uses the HDMI connector for their differential I2S, having nothing to do with the HDMI spec. They are just using the connector. A technician at PS Audio has stated that the quality of the shielding and conductors affects noise, and that two HDMI cables may reveal differences in frequency response, but the latter has not been tested by him. I believe that if there were no difference in the performance of HDMI cables when using their digital hardware, eventually such information would be revealed to the user.

I applied the same break-in procedue as used for the Audioquest and Cardas cables, namely, 1 week (about 42 hours) from cable box to TV, followed by 24 hours of a signal between transport and DAC.

Cable Construction
Metal is all copper, 22 strands. Gauge is 24AWG. Geometry satisfies the 1.4 specification. Dielectic is polyethylene. Connectors are gold plated copper. Conductors are soldered to connectors using silver solder. Jim Wang suggested that silver plating exaggerates the impact of the skin effect.

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by Roger Gordon, February 2011

INEX Innovation/Harmonic Technology – The equipment in this roomm consisted of Marten Getz speakers with INEX CD Player ($7500), INEX Pre-A200 preamp ($12,000), INEX mono block amps ($14,000 which includes one pair of 5m interconnects), and all cables by Harmonic Technology. Each time I visit the INEX room at the shows, the sound keeps improving. This year was no exception. I was able to play quite a few tracks on my test CDs in this room. No matter what type or genre of music I played, the sound was very good.

Harmonic Technology system with Marten speakers

Harmonic Technology CES 2011 room with the complete line of INEX electronics

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by Rick Becker, September 2010

The Harmonic Technology Photon Digital Cable brought such sonic purity to CD playback that it challenged my belief that I needed to upgrade my vintage Muse DAC. Quick on the attack as well as the decay, the space between the notes was silent except for the micro-dynamics of low level room tone when present on the recording. Being used with Class A tube preamp and Monoblocks, the Photon created a large and transparent soundscape with exquisite detail and delineation of position. Perhaps because it breaks the electrical ground between the transport and the DAC, the Photon seems to divide and conquer the noise generated in each of those components. It placed me a little further back from the stage than I’m accustomed, but I could hear more of the music and I was more engaged by it. Though it is completely neutral, it caters particularly well to left brain analytical type listeners. However, if the rest of your system is equally high in quality, the music will likely be enjoyed by all. I don’t normally endorse such expensive cables, but Jim Wang’s Photon Digital, with it’s extraordinary application of opto electrical isolation technology, forces me to break my own rule. Read the full review and if at all possible listen for yourself.

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by Sue Kraft, The Absolute Sound, Jun/Jul 2009

Harmonic Technology Reference II Special Edition Power Cord impressed straight away with substantially improved clarity, smoothness, and definition that stretched up and down the frequency spectrum and everywhere in-between. It will simply peel away the AC line impurities and replace them with heavenly neutrality.

by Robert H. Levi, Positive-Feedback Online, Mar/Apr 2009

The boys at Harmonic Technology never rest. They are driven by supreme audiophile Jim Wang to improve their designs and indeed they do! I wrote about the under-priced and over-performing Pro-9 Reference bi-wire speaker cable, the first cable in their reference series, just two years ago. It was a terrific speaker wire and one I used as reference against many more expensive designs. [Even ARC used it at RMAF in 2007.] The 2009 version, now shipping, pushes its performance so far that you must, absolutely must, check out a trade-in immediately of your original version.

Yes, you have read it before, why consider a more expensive cable with the Pro-9 2009 around. The retail price is $1499 for Spade connections and $1699 for Banana connections for 2.5 meters, external bi-wire. Its convenient connection of one pair of spades on one end and a pair of spades and a pair of bananas on the other is still there. However, the cable is more flexible …make that very flexible…and the tweeter wire is now about 80% as big as the woofer wire. HT uses more high tech Teflon insulation increasing the isolation of the wires. They are 100% super pure single crystal copper. I love their added flexibility for winding around tight corners.

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by John Atkinson, April 17, 2011

The modest-looking system being demmed by Atlanta dealer Playhouse Audio was my final stop on the first day of the Show but turned out to be one of the highlights of that day. Nola’s new three-way Contender speaker ($3400/pair) was being driven by an Audia Flight FL2 integrated amplifier, with the source a Mach 2-modified Mac mini feeding USB data to a Peachtree iNova that was being used as a DAC. Cabling was all Harmonic Technology: Pro-10 speaker cable and Magic 2 interconnects, as well as a Silver Oval interconnect from Analysis Plus and a Platinum USB cable from Wireworld. In one of those too-rare audiophile moments where one track organically led to another to another to another. I listened to Dave Grisman and Tony Rice (“Turn of the Century” from Tone Poems), Taj Mahal and V.M. Bhatt (“Come On Over My House”), Herbie Hancock and Luciana Souza (“Amelia” from River: the Joni Letters), but a discovery for me among the music played was a live version of Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy” by Swedish singer Lisa Ekdahl. Nice. Very nice.

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