Mark Levinson HF-10c

“Don’t know how you’d find me, I don’t look much like the photos. Whatever man you’d come to look for, I’m not him.” sings Sean Keel, smack centre and wonderfully surrounded by the sound of acoustic and slide guitar lingering miraculously suspended in our studio. I can tell that my old Denon DCD-1420 is at times having difficulty keeping its worn-out laser optics focused on the track, thus giving Sean’s already cracking voice an even more endangered and fading impression. The amplifier of the evening is my thirty-year-old Uher UMA-1000, which—in combination with Luigi’s Mark Levinson HF-10c speaker cables—lends sonority and substance to Gabriel Rhodes’ sparse piano notes.

Keel's voice sounds musty with age and wisdom: “You sang blessed assurance. And then it was my favourite song.” The firmness and tonal richness with which our Tannoy XT8f speakers present each key stroke confirms the reality of assurance, despite the risk of losing it all right in the next second. It is a good evening for listening to slow music, with each note as distinct as it can be. Perhaps it is the start of the holiday season that supports this vast amount of clean energy from the grid, perhaps it is my cheerful mood, following the return of summer after a seemingly endless winter season that dragged on well into July this year.

Having been out of service for a long time, the large and heavy Mark Levinson copper cables proved difficult to resuscitate. Luigi had handed them to me without proper terminations and, in passing, told me to get some plugs that would fit the 6mm cable diameter. It was typical of Luigi’s suggestions to require at least some form of effort from my side. And I was usually only too eager to simply tag along. I liked the lockable gun-shaped WBT-0610 CU banana plugs that I had first seen on the HMS Gran Finale cables, but I was reluctant to spend that much money on a pair of cables that weren’t my own. I therefore ended up with an affordable replica of the WBTs, hoping that I would (from an audiophile’s perspective) get away with it.

It was obvious that the cable ends had seen some oxidation in their time, despite the fact that their bundle of individual strands—each no thicker than a human hair—was soldered to a single chunk at the point where the original terminations had been. I firmly sunk the hexagon screws in the solder, fully aware that these cables would take still considerable time to break in. On a side note, I have sometimes found that break-in times do not require the equipment to be running all the time, for as long as the components remain connected. The very fact that copper, led, brass, and gold are brought in direct contact with each other already leads to a slow homogenisation of electrical properties at the transition points, minimising the resistance between them. This is not a scientific statement, just something I have acoustically observed when confectioning and listening to new cables over the first couple of weeks.

I call the Tannoy XT8f setup my “new” system, not so much because of the age of its components, but because of the Tannoy’s relatively “modern” sound. Loudspeakers of our time tend to be tuned to measure well in the labs, whereas the engineers of the past did not have lots of fancy measuring equipment at their disposal. They almost exclusively had their ears to rely on. And—believe it or not—human ears are not a bad yardstick when it comes to making decisions on the merits of sound. This also explains why some classical instruments still sound superior to modern gear, despite the fact that technology has involved. The Mark Levinson HF-10c in combination with my old Uher amp make my Tannoys sound “musical” above all else, and this despite their tendency to sound modernly analytical.

Music becomes impressive with dynamics, but it only comes alive with tonality. The HF-10c support darker and more full-bodied tones. Pair them with a weak amplifier, and you will witness the life being sucked from the amp. The 150 watts per channel Uher, however, has no difficulties driving them. I can hear the amp, too, slowly coming out of its many years of hibernation. “World’s got a brand new baby, I lie awake listen to her bawl. Must feel a lot like flying.” Tonight, I understand what Sean means by it. I enjoy evenings like this, when the air smells clean after the rain, and the setting sun forms square orange patches on the otherwise anthracite carpet and the wooden beams in our studio.

I am reminded of the Madrigal Flat Copper cables that Luigi handed me for audition back in January 2022. Mark Levinson related products always seem to have an interesting twist to them. Something that makes them a keeper, even if the times have moved on. The musicality of the HF-10c is quite striking, even though speed, detail, and bass control are perhaps not their greatest forte. After all, these are not exactly shortcomings, when it comes to mitigating the deafening effects of high-power amplifiers. And Mark Levinson certainly has some of those in the house. High damping factors, lots of clean burst power right up into the treble, beryllium or titanium dome tweeters on loudspeakers, all these lab approved technical overkills will find a soothing counterbalance with these cables. 

Going through my usual repertoire of Folk, Jazz and Vocal Jazz, and Rock, the HF-10c maintain a soft and silky treble that is assuringly non-aggressive even when listening at higher volumes, a charming midrange that I can quickly warm up to, voluptuous true to life vocals that are displayed on a wide centre image, warm tonality and (especially in Jazz performances) a realistic amount musical detail. The sound is tube-like, rich and wholesome with stern piano notes. The cables offer a medium length of sonic decay, not as shortly cut as MIT’s Terminator 5 cables and not as long-lasting as Symphonic Line’s Harmonie HD.

In terms of potency, the Mark Levinson remind me of the Symphonic Line cables, although they are quite different: The Symphonic Line play louder and are more agile. When piano notes become piercing, this is apparent on the Symphonic Line cables first, because the HF-10c are far more forgiving. Bass control is firm and punchy on the Harmonie HD and perhaps overly punchy in some frequencies on the MIT cables. To achieve the same result of bass contour and punch with the HF-10c, one would need an amplifier with massive power and a high damping factor. And I do believe it was this powerhouse of an amplifier that the Mark Levinson engineers had in mind when they commissioned the HF-10c with a cable specialist in Switzerland following their legendary “never-mind-the-cost” approach.

Specifications 

• Type: ultra-fine multistrand speaker cable
• Diameter: 10 AWG (5,26mm) copper strands
• Gap between strands: 5mm
• Conductor material: ultra-pure copper 
• Length tested: 2x 2.24m (stereo)
• Terminations: adjustable bananas, 24K gold-plated
• Country of manufacture: Switzerland 
• Year: approx. 1992

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