Kimber Kable KS 6000 Series Loudspeaker Cables and Interconnects

Kimber Kable’s 4PR was the defining entry-level cable for a generation of young audiophiles (including me) back in the early 1980s. Its distinctive brown/black braided design was my constant companion across a vast landscape of beginner systems. Its sound was honest and clean with no discernable tonal colorations to hijack an unwitting hobbyist. At that time it was the rare audiophile who didn’t own a pair of 4PRs, and didn’t keep them. I still have mine.

Available still, in various and more advanced braided iterations, Kimber’s 4PR is a testament to the enduring popularity of the original, a popularity so great, perhaps, that it sometimes obscures the fact that Kimber doesn’t just play small ball. It offers some serious Big League products, too. At the summit is Kimber’s Select 6000 Series wire, which debuted in 2010 and now vies for prominence in the most respected and competitive venues of the high end—a point that was driven home continually as I fell under the sway of the crown jewel of Kimber’s Select line, the KS 6068 loudspeaker and KS 1036/KS1136 unbalanced and balanced interconnects.

Everything about this blue-chip wire screams extreme (see the sidebar)—its sophisticated construction, geometry, and materials, large cross-section, pure silver conductors, and, yes, breathtaking price. Yet there are paradoxes, too. For example, compared with the unyielding stiffness of so many competitors’ cables, the KS 6000 is surprisingly supple and light for its size and girth, easy to maneuver. But there’s another area where “extreme” doesn’t apply. It’s the area of sound. It’s here, in the company of a finely tuned audio system, that the Kimber Select settles into such a natural and organic relationship with the music that you forget about the effort that went into designing and building these wires, forget that you’re even listening to a system, even forget the hole still smoking in your wallet.

With a tonal balance that’s predominately neutral, the KS’s overall personality—though not invisible—isn’t hard to nail down. And rightly so, as it promptly assumes the character of the system it’s immersed in. So, whether your audio rig is strictly grain-free photorealistic or gauzily impressionistic, that’s what Kimber is going to give you in return. But that’s not to say that this wire is without its own character. There’s a feathery, light-footedness to its sound that seemingly doesn’t so much add power but transient speed. There’s no lag time as Chris Thile’s flatpick accelerates across the mandolin strings, and no delay as the Turtle Creek Chorale takes a collective breath before the next bar of Rutter’s Requiem. The cable moves music in a way that leaves no corner of the soundstage unaffected. It has both directness and a dimensional component that unerringly position every player on the stage, yet fully immerse them in the surrounding ambience. As I listened to the “Duet for Cello and Bass” from Appalachian Journey I found each image physically established yet oh so finely focused, much in the way a precision set of optics edge-sharpens a subject.

By virtue of the combination of pure resolving power and a bottomless well of dynamic contrast and tonal color, the Kimber wire unearths a body of energy and atmospheric lift in even the most familiar recordings. For example, when I launched a weekend Beatles binge-fest listening to the complete LP box set of The Beatles in Mono the Kimber captured not only the warm vintage nature of hit songs recorded to analog tape but also the finely wrought precision of these deceptively complex mixes. This was an instance in which every instrument and vocal could be isolated and individually appreciated, even as the recording retains its monaural presentation. 

Sonically the KS achieves a level of intimacy and low-level resolution that’s almost embarrassing in its nakedness. As I listened to the high-resolution file of “Somewhere” from the San Francisco Symphony’s staging of West Side Story, I could almost feel the walls shimmering from the diaphragmatic power of the mezzo’s performance. As I cued up the DSD file of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” I became hypnotized by the interplay of Lindsay Buckingham and Christie McVie harmonies backing up the youthful Stevie Nicks. These startling moments add up to a talent for image specificity and macro/micro liveliness that would compel even the most OCD listener to drop whatever he’s doing or thinking of doing and just sit still and listen.

As great wire has the habit of doing, the Kimber Select prompted me to revisit one of my favorite LPs, the Reference Mastercuts 1992 pressing of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue [RM-1003] with the St. Louis Symphony, Leonard Slatkin conducting.

Recorded in Powell Symphony Hall, Saint Louis, the soundstage is somewhat exaggerated in scope, but musically it’s a superb recording for timbre, detail, and its “throw-open-the-barn-door” dynamics. Complex piano passages played at fortissimo levels never drift or confuse or clutter. In the same way the KS defines and delineates orchestral images, it similarly will take a run of piano notes, played presto, and deliver them to the ear without a hint of smear or indecision and not a single nuance left unexpressed.

Of course the Kimber Select also finds itself in some fast and expensive company. Tonally there is not a whole lot separating the KS from my two reference wires, the Synergistic Research Element CTS and Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 7. They both know how to cut a rug with panache, albeit with slightly different moves. Wireworld’s flagship matches Kimber Select stride for stride through the mids, and is arguably a bit bolder dynamically in the lower mids and below. Its treble is buttery, but the KS draws an uncanny bead when it comes to feathery, low-level information—the brushed strings of a concert harp, for example, or the decaying flutter off the drum head of a tympani, for another. Element CTS also dances but with a warmer, more boldly resonant style. During Adele’s “Someone Like You” her vocal possessed a heavier chest character and conveyed a hint more density in the lower mids with a darker overall cast. During Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” CTS delivered loads of low-end dynamic punch, more bass, air, and bloom—just a shade more than Platinum Eclipse—but the KS provided greater transient thrills and nuanced detail with every tap off Mick’s high-hat, each snare crunch, or Buckingham’s raucous acoustic guitar. The KS bass response may be slightly compacted, but Stevie Nicks’ youthful voice has never been more shimmering or translucent.

By any benchmark that I’m aware of Kimber Select Series 6000 is as sonically breathtaking as is its price tag. For the life of me I can’t think of another a top-tier cable that has ever compelled me to listen quite as deeply as I was able to with these wires. On the one hand it’ll expose every weakness in a system. But on the other, it will also permit an otherwise excellent system to realize a whole new level of resolution and musicality. Gulp, wallets at the ready? My highest recommendation.

SPECS & PRICING

KIMBER KABLE
2752 South 1900 West
Ogden , UT , 84401 
(801) 621-5530
kimber.com

Price: KS 6068 speaker, $23,880 (2.5m/pr.); KS 1036 interconnect, $3300/1m, RCA; KS 1136 interconnect, $3335/1m, XLR

Associated Equipment
Sota Cosmos Series IV turntable; SME V tonearm; Sumiko Palo Santos, Ortofon 2M Black & Quintet Black; Parasound JC 3+ phono, Lehmann Audio Decade phono; MacBook Pro/Pure Music; Lumin A-1 Network Media Player; mbl C51 integrated, Rowland Continuum; ATC SCM20, Kharma Elegance S7 Signature loudspeakers; Synergistic Tesla CTS, Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 7 speaker cables and interconnects; Synergistic Tesla, Audience Au24SE & Kimber Palladian power cords. AudioQuest Coffee USB, Carbon FireWire