PW Audio Orpheus Shielding Review: Silk Road to Musical Perfection
Among all popular cable brands, it’s no exception that PW Audio is one of the most well-reputed cable brands. Not only they’re the earliest generation custom cable brands but also the rare ones that still make revolutionary products that surprise the audiophile community every product cycle.
PW Audio makes budget-friendly upgrade cables such as Copper V28 or Illicit which are sub $100-200 while some reach far beyond $3k. Of course, those that reach that high are PW Audio’s flagship line-ups. However, for a brand like PW Audio, there’s always the summit-fi, the top-notch, or the “flagship amongst flagships” that the company would offer. Yes, today we’re talking about Orpheus Shielding – PW Audio’s most expensive and genuine “flagship” product that reigns among all, priced at about $5860, marking almost $6k. Since the users of such expensive custom cables are pretty much in a different field from those who don’t go this far with custom cables (or those who don’t even deal with upgrade cables in the first place…)
Talk the talk, let’s begin this grand review of a grand cable product – the PW Orpheus. Also, as I unfortunately don’t hold the original packaging of the Orpheus, I’ll be skipping the packaging introduction and jump right into talking about the cable (the packaging details are already well known at this point after all).
Orpheus Cable Geometrics/Specs
While there are various PW cables made of different materials, the major cables that made PW Audio particularly famous were the pure copper cables, giving Peter Wong the nickname “The Copper Magician”. While pure copper cables were and are still often looked down upon as an inferior material to pure silver or gold-plated wires, PW Audio has been continuously defying such stereotype for over a decade since the legendary PW 1960s cable. Being the ultimate flagship product, PW Audio once made a daring move to use only pure copper for both wires and insulations.
PW Audio states they’ve been spending many years researching to find the right formula and copper materials, and concluded that a well-insulated wire will produce a noticeably better sound (especially for the technical analyticity, soundstage, and high frequency) once the number of the wire cores is equal. Peter also commented that he noticed enameled wires produced a superior sound than non-enameled wires, and this also led to another necessary trial of testing between multi-layer enameling and single-layer enameling. Last but not least, PW Audio has levels
With such accumulation of trials and errors, and eventually finding multiple solutions and elements that could be improved, PW Audio has combined all these findings into one cable – leading to the creation of Orpheus, the Greek God of ultimate musical talents. Despite using pure copper wires, Orpheus cable has a complicated structure and is comprised of different copper material types. Further detailed information is addressed below:
Specification of Orpheus
Jacket Material: Soft PVC, PVC, Soft FEP, Cotton
Conductor Material: Supreme Level OCC Copper (Beyond PW Copper Level 1/2/3)
Conductor Structure: 7 groups of multi-strand copper wires with 3 different types of insulation
Conductor Gauge: 26 AWG
Number of conductors: 4-braid
Orpheus Shielding Edition: Additional shielding with OFC Copper for from 4.4mm plug to Y-Split
The Sound of Orpheus Shielding: The PW Magic Begins
Living up to the expectation of PW’s “King of all PW Flagships” cable, the Orpheus Shielding completely overhauls the sound of the IEMs. It’s one of the rare cables, even among the flagships that could give you a direct sensation that the resolution has boosted. It’s a similar experience to where the hidden particles and texture details have now all suddenly started to rise from the unknown. The way how Orpheus Shielding ‘boosts’ the sound differs from others.
While most other cables boost the resolution (which is still extremely difficult and impressive), they most likely make the sound brighter, sharper, or drier. However, the true magic of Orpheus Shielding is that none of that happens. While bringing significant improvements in technicality and resolution, Orpheus Shielding introduces daringly vivid, emotional, and musical characteristics.
Orpheus Shielding is a majestic cable as it perfectly understands where to highlight the crispness and where to keep the emo, butter-smooth texture. The texture are crisp, tight, and clear all while keeping a smooth, consistent surface. Orpheus Shielding has a neutral-warm tone that introduces a gentle warmth to the low-mids, yet again, this cable is full of mysteries as it gives abundant airiness and openness to the mid-highs despite the low-end warmth. It’s not a type of airiness and openness that would boost the brightness. Orpheus Shielding respects the IEM’s original brightness and incorporates an airiness that isn’t necessarily cool or chilling. It’s
The Unique Spatial Soundstage & Graceful Bass Overhaul
Another bass depth and soundstage. If you thought the vastness could mostly be made or driven by the upper frequencies and refreshing airiness, Orpheus Shielding would make you change your thoughts. Without unnatural timbre or phasing, Orpheus Shielding creates a very spatial and unique mid-range with a prominently warm airiness, gracefully decaying the vocals away, creating an open-ended mid-range. I count this as one of the scarce species as it’s rare to find such airiness and penetrating resolution while keeping a neutral warm and dark tonality.
Let’s talk about the bass depth. While some fine flagship cables (like Rolling Force Cosmos) would rather aggressively dig down for the ultra-low details and quantity, PW took a different approach: an approach that is more gentle, mature, and careful. Orpheus Shielding fulfills the bass almost “secretly”, enriching and bringing up the hidden bass details all the way down from the ultra-lows but keeping a silky, butter-smooth texture, which also doesn’t ruin the overall balance of the IEM’s sound signature. The extent of improvements that Orpheus Shielding brings for the low-ends is surprising considering how the original sound signature is kept intact and won’t make the upper-frequencies muddy – even for the mid-high centric IEMs like Aroma Audio Ace.
Next Page: Pairing Orpheus with TOTL IEMs / Final Verdicts