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SilverFi IEM-R5


The R4 is a majestic cable, nothing short of spectacular. It reigns supreme when it comes to soundstage width, while combining high resolution with a neutral signature – but the right kind of neutral, where neutral converges with natural: a lightly warm midrange, with smooth treble. And a beautiful timbre. As R4 and R5 both share a cotton-sleeved 12-wire design, they offer a variation of a similar signature, rather than a completely different one – each presenting themselves as strong representatives of the SilverFi house sound. However, they differ in their wire geometry; by means of endless experimentation, Sezai varied the gauge size of the individual wires in order to fine-tune the sound. R4 forms the neutral offering; lightly warm, natural, and fairly linear. While R5 shares a similar smooth signature, it diverges in a different direction – R5 sounds melodious, following a lift in the upper midrange. It’s a different variation of natural, that adds a touch of beauty – a euphoric sound even.

The smooth treble works in unison with the midrange, as does the natural-sounding bass. It’s a coherent sound, that doesn’t lend itself to being broken down to pieces. But one of the most crucial aspects of the SilverFi sound, lies in understanding the way it represents the treble. The R5, just like R4, provides an excellent top-end extension – instrumental for its high resolution. However, the upper-treble region itself is softly attenuated. As a result, the general tone of the midrange is warm, while its treble remains smooth. The R5 creates clarity by extending the treble, rather than lifting it; emanating in a clear, but ‘soft’ light. It’s a staging that allows detail to come forward in a smooth manner, by means of the stability of the image. Much like R4, the R5 constructs a grand stage in overall dimensions, facilitated by its 12-wire design. It’s not quite as wide as R4, but its depth is impressive, while improving the quality of layering, and ultimately, the general organization of the stage. But more than the absolute improvement in depth, R5 impresses with its ability to recreate a realistic sense of space – an organic environment. As a result, the R5 constructs a clear stage, with a stable black background.


Similarly, by means of its top-end extension, the R5 improves the quality of the bass; its control and definition. For instance, when pairing with warmer iems as the 8.2 and Prelude, the increased control of the bass not only reduces the warm air, but opens up the stage. This not only results in an airier stage, but a lighter tone. The mid-bass itself is clearly defined – a highly resolved bass. Even so, it’s a soft bass in its impact, resulting from the smooth upper treble. A natural-sounding bass, rather than a hard-hitting one. But nevertheless sufficiently impactful, resulting from improved bottom-end extension, as well as excellent balance between the sub- and mid-bass. In addition, R5 delivers a linear upper-bass response. There’s a certain vibrance in the sound that can seem a bit messy at first, as attenuating the upper-bass results in a neater stage – an effective method to clean the stage, by reducing the noise. But at the same time, there’s a loss of information. R5 instead maintains a linear presentation, resulting in a richness in the sound: a slightly thicker note structure, and full representation of the lower harmonics.

The midrange in turn is smooth, and lightly warm in tone. Not necessarily resulting from enhancing the bass, which remains fairly neutral in quantity – but by lightly attenuating the treble. Besides creating a warmer tone throughout the signature, it improves its coherency; the bass, midrange, and treble all share a similar tonality, that binds the music together. Even so, the R5 doesn’t sound predominantly warm, staying fairly close to neutral. There’s a slight thickness to its midrange notes, providing greater body to the instruments. Its vocals are smooth, and inviting. They’re lightly warm in tone, and sound very natural. However, the lower midrange is slightly laid-back, following the lifted upper midrange. As a result, its vocal presentation is positioned slightly further, relative to the comparatively neutral R4. But it’s the upper midrange where R5 truly gets to shine; by enhancing its upper midrange, R5 pulls instruments forward, while adding a touch of light. A dreamy touch to a gently struck electric guitar, or soft note of a saxophone. But always within the SilverFi constraints – sounding smooth, rather than bright.


The IEM-R5 stands proudly at the top of an already special product line. As with IEM-R4, there’s a unique naturalness in its signature. It yields a smooth, but resolved sound. And it conveys clarity in its stage, despite the lightly warm tone. But in contrast to IEM-R4, the IEM-R5 doesn’t strife for a completely neutral sound; there’s a beautiful deviation of its upper mids. It’s a variation that logically lends itself for pairing with warmer or darker iems. But personally, I tend to prefer to pair it with already bright iems; a combination that allows the upper mids and lower treble to shine as never before, while remaining incredibly smooth – in a way, the R5 is SilverFi’s form of a guilty pleasure.

 

SilverFi IEM-R5
Material:          Pure silver wires
Conductors:    12 wires in a flat braid
Shielding:         Individual cotton shielding
MRSP:               $2499

Manufacturer website:
silverfi.blogspot.com

 

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ABOUT AUTHOR

flinkenick

flinkenick

Nic is currently in pursuit of a PhD degree in social neuropsychology, while trying not to get too distracted by this hobby. In pursuit of theoretical knowledge by day, and audiophile excellence at night. Luckily for him, both activities are not mutually exclusive which helps to lighten the workload. Always on the go, Nic's enthusiasm for hi-fi is focused on all chains of the portable system: iems, cables and daps.

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11 Responses

  1. Thank you, I really appreciate your candour and thoughtful replies to all my posts here.

    So I wear a belt around my head for a few years – I’ve done stranger things… 😉

  2. SilverFi cables are incredibly unique, but it comes as a combined package. No other cable will sound like a SilverFi, period. Nothing comes close to that sense of naturalness combined with high resolution. But as mentioned they also come with peculiar ergonomics. It is theoretically possible to walk outside with them, I walk around in my house for instance. But R4 and R5 are just incredibly broad and flat, it is more like a slim belt than a cable. So they are not very flexible and it will def look odd. I always have to mention the ergonomics, but for me the SQ outweighs all negatives.

  3. Your last sentence is something I’m going to experiment with. I don’t mind looking like a weirdo and surely it’s not unwieldy to the point of *unusability*?

    p.s. the Focal Utopia + iFi Pro iCAN amp + iFi iDSD DAC was pretty much indistinguishable from the HE1 and had far more impressive bass slam. An insane rig. I’ve heard that the Utopia + Chord Dave is a beast.

  4. That’s pretty much as good as it gets for (semi)portable audio. Every favorite setup I can think of starts with the R4 or R5, the iem follows next 🙂 Just a reminder that the R4 is only for home use.

  5. Haha, no I am merely listening to a *demo* of the HE1 in Melbourne, as Sennheiser is in town. That’s a bit rich for my blood! $80K Australian dollars, I’m sure I’ll be fine without one of these in my life.

    Amped AK380+IEM-R4+U18t is pretty damn good for me I reckon. 🙂

  6. Ah, you weren’t kidding around when you said money wasn’t a deciding factor lol! Yes the HE1 is really good of course, beautiful tube sound. So you won’t be needing the R4 anymore then if you drop the U18? For blues and rock I would suggest the VE8 or Zeus-XIV paired with IEM-R4. Heavenly.

  7. Thanks so much for replying, I really appreciate it. I mostly listen to guitar driven rock and blues, so I think the R4 is where I’m headed.

    This Thursday I get to hear the Sennheiser HE1 for the first time, so it’s all irrelevant anyway… because I’m sure I’m going to bin the U18s and my amped AK380. 😉

  8. Thank you Hamand! And my sincere apologies for the late reply. The question of this specific pairing is a bit subjective due to my association with the U18; personally, I use my A18 mostly for pop or electronica. So within this context, one of my favourite pairings is between the A18 and IEM-R5, as it provides the most beautiful and melodious upper mids, along with high resolution. That being said, If I had to pick between the R4 and R5 over all genres, I prefer the R4. The R4 is a perfect execution of neutral/natural, with a bit more body in its midrange and a wider stage than R5, although R5 has a nicer ring to its upper mids/lower treble. So in conclusion, for most band-based or vocal genres I would pick R4. For electronica or classical perhaps I would pick R5.

  9. Hi Nic, what a fantastic review.

    I know it’s mostly a subjective aesthetic preference, and I’d welcome some input please as you’ve heard the options I’m now considering. Specifically, I have a pair of U18t IEMs and they’re pretty amazing, certainly the best I’ve heard, and like you I found the Fourte just a bit too bright in the treble region. I am deciding between the IEM-R4 and the IEM-R5 to pair with the U18t. Thoughts? Money is not a deciding factor.

  10. Hi John, this is indeed an age old question. I don’t know enough of physics to confidently go in-depth, so I have asked a friend of mine with a PhD in physics to tackle the subject. But first, I would like to say that our understanding of physics when it comes to sound is still very limited. Currently people tend to use imperfect measurements with limited validity at best, to analyze sound. For instance, it might seem true that cables ‘just transport a signal’. But earphones ‘only transport a frequency curve’, yet this results in a beautiful sound with depth, resolution, etc. However, we are just uncovering that it is not just about this frequency response, but also the way the signal is presented, for instead with sine wave analysis, or time decay with CSD graphs. So I think when we look these issues we tend to see it in a very simple way, ignoring that there might be many factors that equally contribute to sound that we are still unaware of.

    From my friend, Daniel:
    Cables are made for transporting the signals, that is currents that mobilize electrons in the strings. Here, it is important that only the electrons at the surface of the strings are relevant, since the electric field inside a metal is always zero. Therefore, the architecture of strings changed over the decades from heavy and inflexible solid core wires to nowadays heavily braided thin strings. As for the sound, pure science is not the only factor that determines the quality of the cable, which is greatly subjective. If you are only looking for scientific aspects, then there is nothing to argue about: pure OCC silver is the best material for conducting the signals, fullstop. However, this leads to a sound which many of us would find unpleasant, since it is purely analytic. That means that what most of us perceive to be pleasant for our ears is not a perfect signal without distortion, but this is exactly where subjective factors come in. Gold and silver platings for instance change the signature, since they affect the electrons transport on the surface. Here, gold platings have a worse conductivity than the underlying silver or copper strings. Hence, the signal becomes distorted. Poorer conductivity leads to losses: the signal gets attenuated in a certain range. The same happens with impurities: nowadays marketing gives the perception that UPOCC cables are best due to their high purity. Scientifically, that is surely true.

    However, impurities might make a sound more pleasing. The metals react with the molecules around, may it be air or dust. These impurities form scattering clusters, which can be thought of as stationary bumpers the electrons run into when mobilized. This affects conductivity in a similar way and makes the sound warmer (less analytic). Besides sound changes through direct physical doping (that is what you call other atoms acting as impurities), the sound gets affected by other measures that don’t change the impedance as above, but rather make is less audible. The most relevant example here is a large count of braids. Silver cables with eight braids sound different than a four braid configuration. The more braids, the warmer the silver cable, up to a level at which the cable loses its characteristic analyticity entirely. The amount of braids and strings needed to reach that change is dependent on the single wires. The outer they are, the more strings are needed. This way you may perceive some eight braid cables to sound more or less warm than others. (Edit: However, there are a large number of factors that come into play, such as gauge size of the wires, as well as the strand count of each wire, i.e. if an individual wire consists of 20 or 100 tiny wires).

  11. OK…
    You are obviously an educated person, with money as well, although the two are often not related..???? but…
    Tell me, if you ever did physics at school, how a cable can have sound characteristics? It simply carries electrons down it’s length, and the volume can be affected by impedance, but in terms of being “dynamic” “laid-back” “warm” etc simply defies any intelligent application of scientific knowledge.
    Don’t just delete this comment please, try your best to articulate how exactly a piece of metal can change sound?
    Thanks.

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