Back in Issue 92 of Positive Feedback, Bob Levi did a review of the Unique Innovations Technology (UIT) Perfect Music Purifier Series of audiophile cables that he had recently discovered. According to Bob, the UIT cables provided quite a substantial percentage of top-notch performance at sub-$1000 pricing.
In his summary, he stated, "The Unique Innovation Technology Perfect Music Purifier (PMP) Interconnect Series has taken connectivity in the under $2000 per meter category to a new supreme level, maybe even to the highest level. I will leave that conclusion to you, dear reader, to decide, but if you were considering any interconnects up to that cost, the UIT are your first and last option, in my judgement. Hell, the UIT cables cost half as much as the previous $2000 entry point for high-level performance high-end cables that I had previously assumed!"
Tall words!
In follow-up, Bob asked me to give a brief listen to the UIT PMP Series cables here at PF River City. At this time of year, my evaluation schedule is tighter than usual, what with a busy October and end-of-the-year projects like my Brutus Awards for 2017. Nevertheless, Bob's enthusiasm persuaded me to give the UIT PMP's a quick try.
You'll find the details about these cables in Bob's article above, and on the UIT Web site. My comments will focus on my own time with these cables over the past several weeks.
Since time was limited, and the new LampizatOr Golden Gate 2 8x DSD DAC with its RCA-only output was in place in our reference near-field desktop system (details by clicking my byline name at the top of this article), and since I was in the middle of careful listening evaluations for my Positive Feedback DSD Sampler, Volume 2 project for NativeDSD.com, I put the UIT PMP RCA's in place between the GG 2 and the PASS Labs i250 integrated amp. This in turn fed a pair of Evolution Acoustics MMMicro One loudspeakers on Wave Kinetics Isolation Feet via Skogrand Beethoven Reference Speaker Cables. The configuration is a rough equilateral triangle for listening, presenting very detailed listening.
Before putting the UIT PMP's into place, however, I put them on our Cable Cooker for 2.5 days to condition them, as recommended by CC's Alan Kafton. Several days of general music followed, to let them bloom.
The LampizatOr Golden Gate 2, a truly superb 8x DSD DAC, used during the evaluation of tracks for the new Positive Feedback DSD Sampler, Volume 2. The UIT PMP's were the output cables during the completion of this project. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson)
Once that was done, I was able to spend the next several weeks using the UIT PMP's while I did my track selections for NativeDSD.com. This involved listening to albums in Single, Double, and Quad DSD in near-field, a very demanding task. A cable that couldn't meet my minimum requirements would have simply irritated me, and it would have been sacked. I don't have time for mediocrity when I'm in the midst of a task like this one.
In the event, I wasn't tempted to pull the UIT PMP's while working. That in itself was a real sign of confidence, since I found the new cables to be quite respectable in their performance after they bloomed. In short, I found them to be quite detailed, with a generally fine tonal balance. There was no sense of grain, and none of smearing, and a pleasant lack of coloration throughout. Imaging and soundstaging was solid; harmonics were well integrated. They were certainly up to the job of helping me evaluate the DSD recordings.
Overall, quite a fine performance by these UIT interconnects.
Are the UIT PMP's better than the best reference cables that we use here? No, I'd have to say that they aren't. Then again, I would have been shocked if they had been. We have access to some exceptional state-of-the-art cables here, and the expensive reference-level cables on hand are operating at a level that's really quite phenomenal. No, the UIT PMP's are not better than, nor equal to the best that I know.
But: I don't think that I can remember a sub-$1000 RCA interconnect that did as well as the UIT PMP RCA has done here when put to work doing critical listening for extended periods. Had these interconnects fallen short in application here, they would have been politely returned to UIT.
They didn't, and they weren't.
Whatever Mitch Ko is doing with these cables, it's working quite nicely. I'll add my general agreement to Bob Levi's take on the UIT PMP Series. If you're looking for interconnects with an excellent price-to-performance ratio, or are on a budget for cables and cannot afford cost-no-object cable designs, then the UIT PMP Series certainly deserve your serious attention. In its price bracket, this is a real winner.
Product photograph courtesy of Unique Innovation Technology; LampizatOr photograph by Robinson; drawing by Dan Zimmerman.