The 10K shoot-out: the gold is not enough!

When you know what you wanted and tried most, if not all, the brands you drooled over previously, there’s just no stopping of you progressing. Man, only months after getting my AQ Cheetah and I’m already wondering what AQ Sky could achieve. Looking at how far AQ Panther falls behind AQ Cheetah, I get all hot boiled just by wishing I could get a pair of AQ Sky the fastest I could.

Anyway, after trying the Siltech G6 entry level Forbes Lake, retailing at RM19K, I started to wonder what the G6 lower siblings could give. Forbes Lake and the higher siblings used to be from the G5 family, before moving up the G6 line with more gold filing up the gaps within silver. Awed by the performance of Forbes Lake, I eagerly replaced my AQ DBS Panther and AQ DBS Cheetah duo with the G5 SQ-28 Classic MKII and G5 SQ-88 Classic MKII siblings.

First impression? They are like morning breeze, cool, un-imposing and easy to listen to. Not the descriptions that you are expecting? Certainly less uhh and ahh, but that does not mean they are any less than stellar. In fact, at sub 10K, they performed admirably to demand such asking price. Indeed, they stand shoulder to shoulder with my AQ duo. And only personal taste would dictate your choice over to either AQ or Siltech.

Just like all the good silver cables out there, there’s a sparkling quality to the music played thru the Siltechs. Live concert recordings like Justin’s One Good Show were rendered in good sense of layering. Indeed, layering is still one of silver’s many fortes. The Siltechs are open, spacious and airy.

There’s this fine grain within the presentation and delicate tops that make them good in pub like recordings. With Bianca Sings Timeless, where the musicians are recorded live and performing together, there’s this ambiance that’s so like smoky jazz pub with music flowing fluidly. And like G6, they could really resolve minute details thru out the frequency range, very much so in the mids.

Good silver could give you great speed minus the brightness that many mistakenly likened to cheap silver plated cables. The Siltechs are indeed very fast, with lower registers emerging taut, defined and tactile. Unlike AQ with a much macho presentation, the Siltechs provide just enough bass, providing a solid foundation for the rhythm of music to build upon. This is not to say that the Siltechs are thin, on contrary, the Siltechs are more than capable in portraying the action of kick drum impact. A ‘thud’, air turbulence building within and the subsequent portrayal of drum body is vividly ‘happening’ in front of you.


To me, with a pair of resolving minis like R8S, I find the Siltechs veering towards the top. Might this give me the impression that they are slightly faster than my hot-like-tropical-sun AQ? Maybe!

What makes me wonder is that unlike its higher G6 siblings, the grainy presentation is very much unlike most of the silvers out there; and with gold within, the presentation does not carry as much density as desired like its G6 siblings with more GOLD within! The lack of extra bloom also severed the ability of the Siltechs to render a more solid snapped-in imaging.

They don’t “bite” as deeply as AQ with violin, trumpet, sax, piano materials. I guess this might be due to AQ’s excessively concentrated “qi” within the mids area that makes everything “bite” so hard. The overly energized presentation might make things ruthless at times, making Siltech’s less intrusive presentation preferable.

Clearly, at 10K, you can’t ask for everything! Depending on your system’s sound temperature, both the AQ pair and Siltech duo could bring just the right balance. Further criticism is just asking too much from 10K!