Astral Acoustics Amethyst Review: Treat Yourself with Grandeur
Despite being a compilation of small land and islands, Hong Kong is one of the largest markets in the audiophile industry. This also means it’s more challenging to stand out, let alone even survive the competition, and it’s even tougher when it comes to custom upgrade cables. Since our last review, where we featured our first Astral Acoustics review, we’re here again with another one – the Amethyst!
Wait a minute…
Born in Hong Kong in 2016, Astral Acoustics has announced and released one of their newest cable product, and it’s named Amethyst (still a finger-twister to type even after writing all this review). In case you’re one of those to say “hey, I think I’ve seen that cable somewhere else…” then you’re probably right – Astral Amethyst will also be the stock cable for the newest summit-fi flagishp IEM making quite some buzz among the Head-Fi community – the Alpha Omega Fulgrim (1DD+6BA+6EST), a special, limited-edition collaboration project between Alpha Omega & Astral Acoustics. Oh, and another, Alpha Omega’s latest flagship IEM Alpha Omega Omega (1DD+4BA+4EST) also comes with Amethyst.
About Audio previously reviewed Astral Acoustics Mars (retail $650), a 2-braid coaxial cable made with classic pure copper materials yet packed with price-competitive performance and strong, balanced charms. Amethyst is priced at $580, which is slightly cheaper yet remains in a similar price category. With that said, let’s now begin the review and see how Amethyst sounds, performs, and compares, and match it with various IEMs and cables – including its own sibling, the Astral Acoustics Mars!
In case you’re new to hear about them…
For those who are new to hearing about Astral Acoustics, let me make a further introduction about Astral Acoustics. I wouldn’t say the scale of this brand is as gigantic as other major custom cable brands, yet their business operation is no minor scale – nor their products are. If you’ve been peeking around for custom cables, I’m pretty sure you’ve also heard of them – or you already know the quality of Astral cables if you already own an Astral cable.
Established in 2016, Astral Acoustics is a Hong Kong brand that’s been designing and manufacturing proprietary wires and cable components. Among the various cable materials and price tags, Astral Acoustics makes various sorts and types of cable, ranging from interconnect/IEM cables to speaker/headphone cables, ranging widely also in pricing, from low as $99 to $1k.
Specs & Features of Amethyst
Alright, let’s now start talking about the star of the show. To briefly share an extra backstory of Amethyst, this product wasn’t initially planned to be sold as a standalone cable (as it was intended and designed to be an exclusive stock cable for the Alpha & Omega Fulgrim IEM), yet Astral Acoustics and AO decided to release limited quantities of Amethyst for the consumers to have the opportunity to own only the cable. Due to its limited availability and this circumstance, Astral Acoustics and its dealers are already sold out or nearly sold out with the Amethyst.
Amethyst features Astral Acoustics’ latest FST (Ferromagnetic Shielding Technology), which is to reduce the atmospheric noise (RFI) that’s picked up by the cable, offering “an ultra-quiet background” as Astral Acoustics introduce. Amethyst is a 22AWG 2-braid coaxial cable with a wire combination of 7N OCC SPC and 6N OCC Copper. What’s interesting is that every Amethyst cable is shipped out to the customers after 1 week of 50hrs+ burn-in, which is needed for Amethyst to show its full potential as Astral Acoustics highlight.
Usability / Flexibility
Despite the thick gauges of wires, Mars is fairly easy to handle due to its slim form factor and unexpectedly light weight. Mars has an average custom cable usability and weight, giving nearly an idea using experience as any other 2-braided coaxial cable. All connectors and Y-splits are finished with lightweight metal with a matte black coating. A clean, monochrome color scheme for the parts with a combination of matte and polished parts. The wires are also considerably pliable as it’s a 2-braid cable, so there shouldn’t be any issue using these casually.
Sound Impression: How does the Amethyst sound?
Amethyst is a cable that prioritizes overall balance, so it doesn’t make radical changes to the IEM’s sound signature. However, Amethyst adds quality to the sound. The first change I feel is the depth. Not just a subtle depth but a significant one. Overall, Amethyst adds a mature, solemn nuance to the overall timbre without sacrificing the fidelity or laid-back in response. The multiple layers that formulate the soundstage get prominent, giving better separation sideways but also for the height and depth.
The bass drops noticeably deeper but doesn’t much boost the bass quantity itself – instead, Amethyst packs the bass with higher density and fuller body. Vocals with a crisp, clean texture don’t get soaked by this added depth, which is why I would consider Amethyst a highly balanced, organic-sounding cable. Respecting the IEM’s original sound, the mid-range body only gains a gentle improvement, yet the vocal density gets noticeably improved, adding weight and energy to the vocals without making the vocals sound bulky or fattening the mid-range.
Oh, and another major improvement that Amethyst brings to the table is the thicker color. The tone and colors of sound get much thicker, as if breathing in liveliness and richness to the atmosphere. I’d like to stress that I’m not referring to coloration. Amethyst doesn’t add any unnatural coloration to the tone but only reinforces the IEM’s original sound color and tone. It’s similar to appropriately tuning up the color to its original to a faded-out picture (or making the picture look even prettier by making the colors ‘pop’). Okay, I think we’ve talked enough about the general characteristics of Amethyst. Let’s now put it to actual application to IEMs as well as compare it with different cables.
Next Page: Matching with IEMs / Cable Comparisons