Hello Music Lovers! My name is Clint Steyn. I am an audio designer, manufacturer and a passionate music lover too... My background was originally in the field of Professional Audio. At an early age, I gained enormous expertise and knowledge as an apprentice to my father who set up and excelled at achieving the best possible sound for large, live music events. Unfortunately, I could never hear the same level of performance when I played back these recordings at home. This was very disappointing… knowing what it should sound like. So, later on, I decided to use all my knowledge and experience in Professional Audio and apply it to the development of some really serious audio products. The goal was to bridge the sound quality gap between professional audio environments and home listening experiences, ensuring a consistent audio experience across both settings. And so was born Angel Acoustics!
My Journey into Music:
My initial interest began with electronics at a very young age. I was fascinated by all things electrical. I used to dismantle faulty or discarded electrical appliances to see what was inside and what made them tick. I would then attempt to repair and reassemble the appliance with the improvements that I implemented. My father who was observing all this took me on as his assistant in running large, live music events. I was just fifteen at the time and was captivated by all the electronic equipment. There were professional mixers, preamps, graphic equalisers, double tape decks, midi systems, echo systems, cabling, mics, pickups and various types of speaker systems. The curiosity for me was how all this audio equipment magically came together and produced such a magnificent sound, that filled the entire live venue from one end to the other.
I observed my father carefully assembling and critically positioning all the equipment to extract the best performance. Then came the sound checks… This is what grabbed my attention - every new music venue presented unique acoustic challenges that required specific solutions for optimal audio quality. The complexities that audio brought ensured a never-ending source of challenges and innovative solutions. My curiosity was endless and all my spare time was spent on reading books and magazines on sound, audio equipment and related DIY projects. I studied my fathers every move at the live music events and I absorbed all the information. It wasn’t too long before I became as proficient as my father in setting up sound systems at venues for live music events. It felt rewarding to know that I contributed so much in making every live music event such an enjoyable musical experience for the audience. I knew then that I wanted a full-time career in Audio.
After high school, I got a job as an Audio Technician at a professional audio company (specialising in speaker design and manufacture). The first three years were basically an apprenticeship where I learnt everything audio from A to Z - from the theory and design stage, to the prototype testing, actual parts manufacturing, assembly, testing and the final auditioning of the product that would be released into market. After three years of hard work and a massive learning curve, I felt confident that I knew as much as everyone else in the company about designing and building a complete speaker from scratch. Over time, I began to hone my building skills and vastly increase my knowledge and experience in the audio field. I was keen to start my own audio company, but my father advised me that a degree in finance would be very helpful, not only to run a business later on, but would also provide me with an alternative career should my interest in audio wane.
After many years of principally in a finance career (with audio still very much a big part of my life), I decided to start my own audio company. My focus was to put all my knowledge and expertise into building ultra-high performance audio products. So was born Angel Acoustics. I had ambitious ideas, but it made perfect sense for me to start with something simple to get the business going. In an era of downsizing, cost cutting and compromising, I took the exact opposite path - my goal was not to compromise and only have designs of the highest functionality, incorporating the very latest technology, premium materials, most advanced manufacturing & measuring equipment and highly skilled expertise.
Transcendence™ XLR Balanced and RCA Unbalanced analog interconnect cable range:
Our mission was simple; design the most transparent, neutral and detailed interconnect cables available on the market today.
Our design process began from the ground up. We studied what the industry was doing, but more importantly, we listened - carefully - to the feedback and experiences shared by real users who went to live music events, audio shows and the best retail stores. We carefully noted what was said by equipment owners on audio forums and whether this coincided with the audio reviews of these products. Patterns began to emerge. Users consistently highlighted what worked and what did not. Their collective insight became our foundation.
We then brought in two expert consultants; an Electronics Engineer and a Radio Frequency Engineer, to help us design a shielding system far superior to most current designs and that also considered the complexities around AES48 (Audio Engineering Society - industry standards on interconnection terminations), addressing grounding and shielding compatibility in audio equipment (including the dreaded ground loop). There were also many other challenges to overcome, for example, when we consider a turntable and the very tiny signal that the cartridge and stylus produce and how fragile it is, our goal is to protect this tiny signal from being corrupted and contaminated. This also applies to other equipment outputting small electrical audio signals (CD players, streamers, reel-to-reel, preamplifiers, interfaces, DACs, etc). What people generally don’t understand is that this tiny signal must manoeuvre down a path which is fraught with danger. A perfect cable must protect this signal from all interference, so that it reaches the next audio component pure and intact. Some designers underestimate the extent to which internal and external aberrations can impact sound quality. These include; EMI (electromagnetic interference), RFI (radio frequency interference), impurities within the conductor (wire), crystal grain boundaries, deficient conductors, inferior cable architectures, non-optimal dielectrics & insulation, microphonics, resonance and poor pin/socket connector designs and materials - all being examples of issues which cause degradation of the original pristine signal.
Our cable design maximised shielding, but we didn't stop there. We explored optimised blends of OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) 6N Copper, pure Silver, Gold, Nanostructures and other Precious Metals (some undergoing thermal & cryogenic treatments) for the conductors, specialised insulation (dielectric properties) and various wire architectures to ensure signal purity (signal propagation speed, signal reflections, audio phasing, frequency response, time domain, transient response, capacitance, inductance and resistance). The connector design was treated with equal importance - mechanical integrity, cable anchoring, shielding, metallurgy composition, pin contact design, dielectric constant and aesthetics were all carefully considered to ensure synergy with the cable. Prototype after prototype - scores in total - were designed, built, tested, and refined. Listening sessions with musicians, concert goers and audiophiles played a vital role in our development process. Their honest feedback pushed us to new heights and helped us produce the most neutral sounding cable.
The result? Cables that perform beyond our expectations - technically precise, ultra-detailed, emotionally engaging and with the most natural timbre on voices and instruments.
Achieving all of this would not have been possible without a substantial Research & Development investment and as such, various measures have been taken to protect our investment and Intellectual Property.
At Angel Acoustics, we believe in Quality, Technology, and Science. Rediscover your music with Transcendence™ Cables.
Warm regards,
Clint Steyn
Founder and Owner - Angel Acoustics
PS. We're thrilled to announce that after five years of dedicated development, production has officially begun for our new super high-performing foil speaker cables! These cables will be going to market very soon.
Our new speaker cables represent the pinnacle of high-end audio performance, incorporating state-of-the-art technology, exotic materials, and ultimate pure copper and pure silver foil conductors. These conductors are heat-treated in the USA using our proprietary cryogenic and annealing profiles, all designed to allow your high-end system to perform to its fullest capability.
The overall design is highly flexible and future-proof. These cables can be used with standard (non-bi-wired) speakers (one pair of terminal posts per speaker) or with speakers designed for bi-wired cables (two pairs of terminal posts per speaker). In a bi-wired setup, the copper foil cable is used for the woofer and the silver foil cable for the mid and tweeter for optimal performance!
Furthermore, they can be custom configured and built to accommodate various amplifier setups, including:
Standard stereo amplifier setups (‘Y’ configuration amp side)
Monoblock amplifiers with only a mono mode (‘Y’ configuration amp side)
Monoblock amplifiers with a bi-amping mode (individual terminals for dual mode amp side) - our recommended option for optimal performance!
We will offer a range of customizable options, including:
Custom lengths and configurations
Various terminal types (spades and/or banana plugs) - spades are superior to banana plugs, although not as convenient to use.
Aesthetic finish otions for terminal tubes; heavy duty heat-shrink (standard) or machined Delrin tubes
Upgradeable cable stands machined from Delrin which is extremely tough and has an aesthetically superior finish (our standard offering is 3D printed)
The cables come standard with our custom-designed and 3D-printed modular speaker cable stands, which are engineered to elevate our cables to the absolute highest performance level. These new speaker cables will work in perfect synergy with our current Transcendence™ interconnect cable range, as they incorporate very similar technologies.
In addition, our innovative new open baffle 3-way speaker for which I have recently secured Design Right Certificates has also just gone into production and will be released in the next few months. They will be called 'Oblivion'.