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.