Same brand, different sound characteristics
Tunami – around 100 euro per meter
PA23 – around 45 euro per meter
Tunami
The Tunami has been around for quite a while now and is a well-known cable among audiophiles. I had heard it many years ago when a visitor brought it in for comparison. This was a factory-terminated cable complete with Oyaide connectors. Although the cable was impressive in a technical sense, I didn’t much respond to it emotionally then. It was fast, tight and detailed but in a forward, analytical manner. It wasn’t harsh or grainy at all, but combined with my Martin Logans this was just too much, lending too much a technical quality to the sound, pushing aside the emotion.
Fast forward a couple of years and again I have a 2 meter length of Tunami but this time fitted with IeGO 24k gold plated connectors. My system is now quite different from then but to make the test more meaningful, I also listened to it in two different friends’ systems. The outcome in my friend Mark-Paul’s all-Jadis tube system with Sonus Faber speakers was more or less the same as back then: technically very good with a very high level of accuracy and detail but presented in an overly controlled manner, it just didn’t sound emotionally involving.
Switching to my friend JW and his Jeff Rowland system and Apogee speakers with a ribbon tweeter/midrange (500hz and upward), the result was still disappointing overall, but different. For one, now we heard how excellent the Tunimi’s midrange is. It is open and detailed but also free-flowing and highly natural. In hindsight this aspect was also fine in the Jadis system but the quality didn’t stand out this much. But other than the high resolution and fine midrange again the Tunami wasn’t found to be particularly good all round. Bass was surprisingly lightweight given the conductor size: it wasn’t exactly thin, but it lacked substance, drive, power and most of all, articulation. Upper treble finally, was absolutely not grainy but did come across as shut in and lacking air and fluidity.
PA-23
This is a much thinner cable than the Tunami and it uses different materials. It is sometimes called the light version of the Tunami but given the different materials and its very different sound, I wouldn’t call it that at all. The PA23 has the same length as the Tunami and has had as much playing time, and naturally, is fitted with the same IeGO 24k Gold plated connectors (the connectors are the same type, despite the difference in colour).
Starting with the positives, the PA-23 in my view has much better upper treble than the Tunami. It is at once more open and extended as well as more fluid. Bass is much, much faster and articulate, but lacks the relative fullness of the Tunami, which really isn’t that full to begin with. Moving on to the downsides, the PA23 definitely didn’t inherit the Tunami’s spot-on midrange, instead delivering a more dull and dynamically restrained version of the original.
Overall, the PA23 sounded technically quite correct, but in these systems it plays with tempered enthusiasm and spirit, as if it really doesn’t want to get up and go. Mainly due to its lacklustre midrange, the PA23 to me still sounds technical, in spite of its airy and fluid treble.
Update June 2016
Years later I heard the Tunami again, both in JW’s system as well as my own. Still neither of us could really get into its sound, although JW was pretty impressed with the Tunami’s midrange. Eventually the Cardas Clear Beyond took its place feeding the Wadia 861 CD player. As for me, I just don’t understand what it is that many other people seem to like so much about this cable.
Conclusion
It seems that these cables really don’t match the systems they were tested in. You could also say that taste plays a part. But since I tried the cables on several occasions and in different systems, I guess it is fair to assume that my observations hold true in many more systems. Whether or not you will like these cables will come down to taste and system synergy.
