HiFiPig.com Kimber 4PR & 8PR review
Tuesday, 6th August 2024
Following top awards from Hi-Fi Plus magazine, Hi-Fi Choice magazine, Audiograde.uk and StereoNET.com, Janine Elliot casts her ears over this duo of speaker cables for HiFiPig.
For the benefit of readers not yet familiar with the long history of KIMBER KABLE®, the review starts with a summary of PR cable’s development since its introduction in 1979 (learn about the history of KIMBER KABLE® here).
An interesting observation Janine makes following this, concerns what she seems to consider to be the honest design of KIMBER cables. The design of the cable, she observes, “is visible for all to see” with no outer jacket employed to disguise the inner construction or cable quality. “There is no hidden agenda here”, she writes, “unlike some manufacturers who claim their cables are made from gold dust”.
This sense of honesty is also reflected in her comments regarding the price of the cables too:
“I was mightily impressed by the bang-per-buck of these cables, particularly the 8PR”
Even 8PR – at twice the price of 4PR – comes out significantly less than “many top-end cables that sound no better” she suggests.
So, how well does she think they perform?
The length and depth of the review illustrates that a lot of time was spent listening to the cables and analysing their performance, using different genres and different media to get a good overall view of their abilities.
She starts with a more recent remastered 160gm vinyl recording of the ubiquitous Kind of Blue from MIles Davies and found that the music “sounded pretty spectacular through the Kimber Kables” whilst noting that the move to 8PR gave more ‘bite’ to the performance.
Onto the album Come Fly With Me from the Amsterdam Jazz Trio and Janine reports that the cables brought a good sense of air and space in the upper frequencies whilst the overall performance was “exceptionally clean and detailed at all frequencies”. This, she asserted, reflected the efficacy of the VariStand philosophy.
Moving onto reel-to-reel recordings, first up was the legendary Tapestry album from Carol King allowing a chance to test the cables’ ability with vocals which, she reports, were very clear and supported by the accurate positioning of “instruments and backing vocals”.
The rendition of acoustic guitar was impressive too, reproduced with “detail and musicality”. Again, one of the notable changes when swapping from the 4 to the 8 was that lower frequencies were rendered better with more detail.
One of the excellent Chasing the Dragon reel-to-reel recordings of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Cello, Strings, and Harpsichord in Bb, RV 419 was equally well presented, again with a sense of air and space which captured her attention “from the first bar”. Indeed, the harpsichord on this track was reproduced so accurately that she felt as if she “were sitting in front of the musicians themselves”.
"Pure brilliance"...
In concluding, Janine feels that the design of the cable, along with the VariStrand technology, is “pure brilliance”.
The overarching feeling was that both cables were capable of breathing new life into the music - she suggests that this will be especially helpful if you feel your system sounds a little dull or lacklustre.
The cables are “beautiful and cleverly assembled” , she says, with a performance which is “excellent across all frequencies, with extended and detailed bass… focus and transparency” and are “surprisingly cheap for the quality of build and performance”.
Media: HiFiPig.com online magazine
Publication: July 2024
Verdict: 5 Hearts
Buy 8PR
Buy 4PR
Read the StereoNET review
Read the Hi-Fi Choice review
Read the Hi-Fi+ review
Read the Audiograde review
Written By Simon Dalton
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