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Foundation SX

Speaker Cables.

We engineered Foundation SX speaker cables to include core Synergistic Research technologies in the purest expression possible. We intended to make a complete loom of cables affordable for audiophiles who otherwise might not take that plunge. The loom effect acts as a performance multiplier within the Foundation SX line to deliver soundstaging, low noise floor, dynamics, and musicality beyond Foundation’s individual price points. Foundation SX distills technology from our highest-performance cables, so you can mix and match them with Atmosphere SX, Galileo Discovery, and SRX to maintain the loom effect when a total commitment to our higher-end cable families is not practical; they’re that good. Foundation SX speaker cables start with Air String geometries comprised of pure silver mono-filament conductors in an air dielectric hand-made in our California factory for high levels of detail and natural soundstaging combined with parallel heavy gauge copper matrix conductors, so you experience low frequencies with extension and control. We then apply a UEF Compound first developed for our flagship SRX cable loom for a lower noise floor than was possible with the original Foundation Series for enhanced detail with enhanced musicality. We then apply the same Long Duration High Voltage Conditioning Process that enables SRX cables to lead the industry with realistic sound stage scale plus resolution and musicality in equal measure. Lastly, we included newly developed UEF Carbon Tuning Discs so you can custom voice Foundation SX speaker cables to your system or run them straight. The choice is yours.

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UEF Matrix Shield with Graphene

Matrix shielding.

Learn more about UEF Matrix Shield

The previous Atmosphere X Series Cables started as an experiment to explore ways of improving UEF Shielding by placing UEF Tech at strategic grid points on the shields of Atmosphere cables, now called Matrix Shielding. Matrix Shielding arranges UEF elements on a grid pattern of the cable shield to lower its noise floor. Atmosphere SX refines Matrix Shielding further by using new Carbon Fibre UEF Tuning Discs developed expressly for Atmosphere SX to enhance the loom's ability to cancel noise that would otherwise cause high frequencies to sound harsh or fatiguing. As a result of our ongoing research into UEF Shielding, we have pushed the resolution envelope when voicing Atmosphere SX by developing new Carbon Fibre UEF Tuning Discs for a more holographic sound with enhanced resolution and musicality.

Included Carbon Tuning Discs

Tune to perfection.

Included with SR30 interconnects, speaker cables, and power cables, Carbon Tuning Discs ($199.95 MSRP) are a spinoff of our new Atmosphere SX Loom where they are placed inside cables at key locations and are instrumental in creating the SX sound. Based on our patented UEF technology, each disc gets treated with a unique UEF compound that interacts with EM fields wherever you place them in your system or on cables to improve sound quality. The conductive carbon fiber material of the disc enhances the interaction between the UEF compound and the surrounding EM fields where it is placed.  The Gold- Carbon Tuning Discs flesh out rich harmonics combined with a clarifying effect in the sound field for a more lifelike and holographic presentation. Purple- Carbon Tuning Discs get treated with a UEF compound that enhances clarity and extension in the soundstage even beyond Gold.

Quantum Tunneling

SRX Long Duration High Voltage Conditioning.

Originally developed for the flagship SRX series cables, the new high voltage conditioning process applies a sweeping frequency plot for an extended duration. We experimented with dozens of frequencies in different combinations over a prolonged time period before landing on just the right mix. We even built a new Tesla Coil to handle the excess heat generated during long conditioning sessions. Once finalized, the SRX conditioning process created holographic realism and timbrel accuracy far beyond our previous Tesla Coil conditioning protocol. 

Foundation SX Speaker Cable Specifications:

Global MSRP
US $749/8ft pair
$70 per additional ft.

4 each Silver Air String:

  • Silver Air Strings: 99.9999% pure monocrystal silver conductor
  • 8 separate conductors
  • Dielectric: Air (sealed)
  • Shielding: Silver Braid -Quantum Tunneled

4 each High Current Copper Air String:

  • Copper Air Strings: 99.95% pure copper conductor
  • 8 separate conductors
  • Dielectric: Air (sealed)
  • Shielding: Silver Braid -Quantum Tunneled

SR BoFa Banana and SR Silver Spade Connectors

Build Notes:

  • 16 point-to-point hand soldered connections
  • SRX Matrix Shielding: UEF coating with Graphene is applied directly to connectors significantly reducing the noise floor and allowing a purer signal to transfer with less grain providing more warmth and detail
  • Silver Solder: 4%
  • Hand build time: 2 hours
  • SRX Quantum Tunneling: After the cable is completely assembled all connections and cabling are treated with 1,000,000 volts of electricity at specific frequencies and pulse modulations, creating a canal in the conductor material and contact points at the molecular level that allows electrons to flow more freely. This allows the maximum amount of low level information through the conductors and provides for the highest amount of realism in your music
  • Secondary UEF Blue Treatment originally developed for SR Blue Fuses
  • 5 day Burn-in: 2 step process
  • Hand crafted in our California factory

Review

50 Greatest Bargains in High-End Audio

"Jonathan Valin wasn't expecting much- and certainly not this much-from Synergistic Research's immensely pliable, bargain-basement Foundation Series interconnects and cables, which are far slimmer, lighter, and less sophisticated in design than their rich relatives, the superb Galileo SXes. But, trust him, sonically the Foundations come way closer than shouting distance to the Galileos.  Indeed, these two SR lines have a great deal in common-rich vibrant tone color, robust dynamics, spacious staging, lifelike imaging, high resolution.  Oh, the more sophisticated Galileos are less bottom-up in balance, more finely detailed, and harder-hitting than foundation: then again, they ought to be-the cost ten-to-twenty times the dough.  Put plainly, the Foundation Series is the best budget-priced wire Jonathan Valin has hear-and one of his references. (forthcoming)" 

The Absolute Sound, 2020 Buyer's Guide

 

Review

Synergistic Research is clearly on the cutting edge with their flagship Galileo line and new SRX power cable. The new Foundation Series cables are ample evidence of trickle down technology designed to capture new customers at price points where a lot of audiophiles call home. Dressing my gear with a complete loom from sources to speakers produced a consistency of sound among the different sources and easily revealed the differences when other components were swapped into the rig.

 I was skeptical that the Foundation cables would make such an improvement in my system, yet they have replaced cables that cost far more and taken my music far higher. Combined with a handful of their fabulous Orange Fuses, a $2000 to $3000 investment toward Synergistic Research's Foundation cables has taken my mid-five-figure rig well into six-figure territory. That's real value and an admirable feat!

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Rick Becker - Enjoy The Music - January 2020

 

Review

"They were very detailed and dynamic with stellar bass and beautiful harmonics. I really could find no fault with them and they were very musical. They were just superb cables that got out of the way and allowed the harmonics to pour out. It was hard to pin a character on them as they were very neutral sounding in this combination. A stellar interconnect that deserves an audition."

"the ultimate question is whether the Synergistic Foundation SX cables contribute enough to the musical experience and bring the listener closer to the musical event. I have found them to be so musical that I will be asking Synergistic Research for an extended evaluation so a few friends of mine can see how they compare with their costly cables and use them in future reviews. They are very good musical components and deserve an audition."

Full Review>

Jeff Wheaton - Secrets of Home Theater - October 2023

Review

"Clearly, you are getting a fairer taste of Synergistic technology and build-quality than you might’ve expected in the affordable Foundations.  But it isn’t the relatively sophisticate way they’re made, but how they reproduce recorded music that comes as the true surprise."

 

Full Review>

Though my current set of Crystal cable Ultimate Dream wires from Gabi and Edwin Rijnveld of Crystal Cable and Siltech is undoubtedly the best (the most vividly and accurately colored, powerful, quick, detailed, three-dimensional, just plain lifelike) stuff I’ve had in my system in better than forty-five years of cable-swapping, its incredibly lofty price tag brings into painful focus a problem I’ve had with “gourmet” cables from the get -go.  You see, that “loom” (in the parlance of our time) of Ultimate Dream costs as much as my reference MBL 101 X-tremes, the MBL electronics that drive them, and the MSB DAC, the Walker and Clearaudio turntables, and the United Home Audio reel-to-reel tape deck that feed those electronics put together! You’d not only have to be stupid rich; you’d also have to be clinically insane---or an audiophile, which, I guess, amounts to the same thing-to buy it. (And the funny part is that the Ultimate Dreams don’t even come close to the sticker shock of the most expensive cable and ICs out there.)

                Over the years, the exorbitant cost of high-end cable has troubled me that I used to regularly swap out whatever goodie I was currently listening to for old-fashioned zip cords of various twists and gauges, just o make sure that I was hearing what I thought I was hearing---and not falling for the price tag.  Of course, the losses of bandwith, resolution, transient speed and definition, density of the tone color, and lifelike dimensionality, solidity, and presence were always and inevitably the same.  Which is why, after a decade or so, I stopped AB’ing and just accepted the fact that (to a greater or lesser degree) when it comes to wire you get what you like and what you pay for.  My only proviso when it came to cable-swapping was this: If I found something I enjoyed, I stuck with it rather than moving on (as I have so often done with other kinds of components)to the next “best” (and inevitably more expensive” thing.  After all, as my dear departed friend Ray Andrews used to say: “How good does ice cream get?”

                Which brings me to the product under review, Synergistic Research’s new budget line of cables and interconnects, the Foundation Series.  At $599 for a one-meter pair of interconnects and $649 for an eight foot pair of speaker cable, the Foundations are indeed reasonably priced.  They are also downright plain-looking. Unlike Synergistic’s expensive offerings, they have no in-line filters, no ground wires with associated outboard active grounding stations, no tuning modules with gold and silver “bullet” attachments.  No fat, hefty, gough like twists of wire, either. In their simple black or white coverings, the Goundation look almost anorexically thin, light, and basic, through their looks belie the relative sophistication of what’s inside their plain-Jane wrappers.

                Each Foundation RCA interconnect has four (six for the XLRs) 99.9999% pure monocrystal silver conductors in an air deliectric with a braided-silver, “Quantum-tunneled” shield.  The connectors (silver Teflon SR 20 RCA or Neutrik (NC-3MX-BAG XLR) are coated with graphene to lower noise and are silver-soldered to the conductors by hand.  The speaker cable has foru 99.9999% pure monocrystal silver plus four 99.95% pure “ high-current” copper conductors in an air dielectric with braided-silver, “Quantum-tunneled” shielding.  Once again, the terminations (SR BoFa Banana and SR Silver Spade connectors” are silver-soldered to the conductors by hand.  Both the ICs and the cables are said to be burned-in at the factory for five days, in a two-step process. 

Clearly, you are getting a fairer taste of Synergistic technology and build-quality than you might’ve expected in the affordable Foundations.  But it isn’t the relatively sophisticate way they’re made, but how they reproduce recorded music that comes as the true surprise.

                It’s been my experience with high-end-audio components that they often (though by no means invariably) sound the way they look.  So something that appears to be markedly thin, light and basic-as the Foundations certainly do-tends to sound thin, light and basic.  Though these Synergistics done completely overturn this paradigm-sonically, they are certainly thinner, lighter, and less complexly and fully detailed than the 65-times-as-expensive Crystal Cables (or than Synergistic’s own 27-times-as-expensive Galileos)-they are nothing like the tissue-paper cutouts that I’ve come to expect from budget wires.  Indeed, and in spite of some clear losses in focus an at the frequency extremes, they sound more like Synergistic’s high-priced offerings (Galileo has been one of my references for almost a decade) than anyone could reasonably expect.

                Take, for instance, a recording I’ve been listening to a lot lately-guitarist/vocalist Hans Theessink’s 2011 LP Jadermann Remixed-The Soundtrack, on the Austrian Blue Groove label.  As I said in my Clearaudio Master innovation review (TAS 301), this is a record that will sound more or less great on just about any bonafide high-end system.  The tricky par-and the entire raison d’etre of The Absolute Sound-is the “more or less.”

                Theessink’s mainly acoustic blues and gospel numbers are, as I noted in Issue 301, lit up like a musical Christmas tree with marvelous instrucmental ornaments-from the thrilling bottleneck glissandos of slide guitar to the coffeepot burble of the Hammond organ vamps-but the centerpiece is Theessink’s Johnny Cash-like baritone (backed up by the vocals of Terry Evans and Bobby King).  Via my reference Brystal Cable Ultimate Dreams, Theessink’s voice is smooth, dark, and husky with deep throat and chest tones, wonderfully focused (without any sense of edge enhancements or redction of natural size), and shockingly three-dimensional and realistic-as are the accompanying voices, guitars, and other instrucments, which have the speek, color, and transient detail of life.

                With everything else remaining the same, the Synergistic Foundations reatian a surprising amount of this same sonic realism on voices and guitars, etc.  However, timbre, through quite plausibly lifelike, is not as rich, dark, and vibrant, and images (both at centerstage and at the sides) are not as well-defined as they are via Ultimate Dream.  It’s as if (as is probably the case) a small blur of noise has crept into the presentation, slightly (and I mean slightly) de-focusing images, softening transients, bleaching timbre, damplening down the high-end air that makes studio ambience so audible with the Ultimates, and introducing a bit (though not a particularly annoying bit) of shoutiness on fortes and gortissimos, particularly at very high volume levels.

                Still and all, the noise that is being added by the Foundations does not keep Theessink from sounding like himself.  (Indeed, one could argue that the Foundation is slightly more neutral in midrange balance, albeit less detailed and extended at the frequency extremes, than the much richer, darker, quieter Ultimate.) Nor does the Foundation’s mild de-focusing of images and slight shoutiness on fortes keep Theessink’s voice (and the accompaniment and backup vocals) from sounding “there.”  Yes, vocal and instrumental are a bit outsized, desaturated in color, thinner in substance, and less well-controlled on hard transients, but they haven’t lost their inherent character and with it their tast of realism=as has so often been the case with budget wire in the past.

                What is true of the Theessink recording is true across the board.

Now, I have to remind you that the comparison I’ve been making-between Synergistic Foundation and Crystal Cable Ultimate Dream-amounts to a difference in dollars that would allow you to buy the rest of the system I’m currently using, with money left over. Is Crystal Cable’s Ultimate worth that much dough-and is Synergistic’s Goundation that much lower in fidelity?  To those questions, I’d have to answer:”Yes” and “No” If I could afford Ultimate Dream, I would but it, but then I’m crazy.  If I weren’t crazy, I could happily live with the Foundation with give you approximately 35%-40% of what the Ultimate Dreams offer, for sixty-five times less dough!  If that isn’t a bargain, I don’t know what is.  One of the highest-fidelity budge wires I’ve hear, Foundation obviously comes enthusiastically recommended.

Jonathan Valin - The Absolute Sound - April 2020

Review

Foundation has the added bonus that for more attainably priced systems, it covers its tracks well and could stay in a system for the long haul; in fact, it’s only when you insert them in a monumentally high-end wide bandwidth system do you begin to crave even more detail and extension… which points you further up the Synergistic range. And best of all, it makes systems sound coherent and entertaining and both of those qualities seem to evaporate at Synergistic’s removal. 

Synergistic Research has taken the technologies used in its top cables and trickled down to an affordable level without sacrifice. Foundation is an excellent, er, bedrock in audio that can make a potentially good system into a really great one. 

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Alan Sircom - HiFi+ -  July 2020

Review

Foundation has the added bonus that for more attainably priced systems, it covers its tracks well and could stay in a system for the long haul; in fact, it’s only when you insert them in a monumentally high-end wide bandwidth system do you begin to crave even more detail and extension… which points you further up the Synergistic range. And best of all, it makes systems sound coherent and entertaining and both of those qualities seem to evaporate at Synergistic’s removal. 

Synergistic Research has taken the technologies used in its top cables and trickled down to an affordable level without sacrifice. Foundation is an excellent, er, bedrock in audio that can make a potentially good system into a really great one. 

Read full review>

Alan Sircom - HiFi+ -  July 2020

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Atmosphere acoustic field generator

Supercharge your cables.

Imagine listening to Charlie Parker at Birdland, then walk into Carnegie Hall to be seated at the best place in the house. This is can all be possible in your listening room by adding Atmosphere. No other product allows you to tailor the size and depth of your soundstage with stunning realism to accurately match the type of music you are listening to. Atmosphere is a multi-wave RF generator that has the ability to change your listening environment. Simply place it your room, turn it on, and let yourself be amazed.

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Carbon Performance Elevators

Elevate your system.

UEF Carbon Elevators lift your cables from the floor as they uplift fundamental aspects of system performance, including low-frequency weight and control, mid-range clarity, and high-frequency extension. Perhaps most dramatic is the effect on your system’s ability to portray soundstage scale with improvements in front to back, side to side, and verticle image placement, all with a greater sense of the sound field wrapping around your listening position. Our first cable elevators were made from aluminum after extensive double-blind listening tests, where aluminum exhibited superior sound quality compared to materials like plexiglass, wood, and ceramic. The one material we did not test was Carbon Fiber due to its difficulty to cut and fabricate. Fast forward two years, and we have perfected the use of carbon fiber in SR products, including our state-of-the-art SRX cable loom, Galileo Active Ground Block, Active Ethernet Switch, and MiG SX footers. So we built a set of carbon fiber elevators and compared them to our Aluminum cable risers. We found the same improvements as all SR products using carbon fiber, namely, increased resolution, inner detail, and clarity. The included HFT’s (Red Dot visible in photographs) use a new UEF compound first developed for SRX speaker cables and Purple fuses enteract with your cables EM fields for life like soundstage scale with enhanced dynamics and high-frequency extension. Of course, cable elevators are a controversial upgrade for many, so we make it easy to try a set in your system risk-free. Audition in your system, and if you disagree, return them to your dealer for a full refund.

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Integrated Frequency Transmission (IFT)

A Better Way to Bi-Wire

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