Closing thoughts
There aren’t too many cables I can think of that have reached legendary status, and certainly none that I know of whose reputations precede them like Peter Wong’s mighty Orpheus.
While some of its appeal invariably stems from its potent mix of rarity, popularity and mystery – and, yes, sheer pricing audacity – having gotten to know Orpheus for myself over these past weeks, I can’t help but be smitten.
This is one of those truly special products that, as extreme enthusiasts, we aspire to at least hear, and which most of us can only dream of owning. The thing is, many similar products end up being disappointing for one or other reason; as the saying goes, never meet your idols. But if Orpheus is an audio idol, it lives by different rules for sure.
Orpheus does the single most important thing it needs to do extremely well: improve the sound of the high-end IEMs it’s designed to pair with. But to justify its seat on the pantheon of cable gods takes more than just a job well done.
For those IEMs that synergise well with what it offers, Orpheus transcends. It elevates the sound of some of my favourite IEMs beyond that which I’d hazard to say even their makers thought possible. In this scenario it is literally the perfect cable, with not a single flaw worth wasting time describing. Orphy’s is the sound of pure nectar, of laser-like focus, of a lover’s warm embrace, of endless space. It is each of these things and all of these things.
But be warned: that’s not the case for every IEM. As you’ve read in this very review, not every IEM benefits from what Orpheus offers, and even Orpheus can’t correct the flaws of every IEM. You’d hope that all of this goes without saying, especially for those in the market where cost is no object, but it merits repeating that there’s only so much a cable can do, and a lot more that it can’t.
And so, I’ll leave you with this closing thought: there’s no sense in trying to justify a cable like Orpheus. Its true worth is not in what it achieves on its own, but rather what it can achieve when every part of your summit-fi chain is perfectly aligned. It’s like the last rune in an ancient cypher that opens the gateway to a magical paradise, where rationality and reason play second fiddle to unlimited pleasure.
Orpheus is easily the best cable I have ever used, and will likely ever use, and represents the very summit of the state of the art.
