Melodika Brown Sugar BSSC3300 Review: Clean, Neutral Speaker Cables, a Little Too Calm

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Speaker cables are among the most important cables in any stereo setup - they can make the biggest difference in sound, whether positive or negative. They can impact various aspects of sound quality such as tonality, bass tightness, detail retrieval, transient response, dynamics, and more. I know that not everyone believes in this. If you're one of them, you can keep reading to hear my thoughts.

This is a closer look at speaker cables made by a Polish company, Melodika. The model I have here is their Brown Sugar series BSSC3300. Their product naming can be a little confusing, so to make it easier: BSSC means it's made for single wiring, instead of bi-wiring or bi-amping, as they also make cables suited for that. The "33" refers to the conductor diameter, in this case 2 x 3.3mm². The last two numbers mean the length - I have these cables in 2.5m, as it was perfect for my previous speaker placement. I stand by the rule that you should get cables as short as you can, to minimize sound degradation.

A brown-and-white look with a loose jacket

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All of the cables in the Brown Sugar series are available in a light brown and white color combination. It looks very pleasing in person and can aesthetically complement a neutral-colored setup. It can also complement systems that have silver electronics, which are very common, due to the way the white color looks - and systems with wooden-oriented materials, because of the light brown color. My system is a combination of both actually, meaning speakers with a wooden finish and mostly silver electronics. I have to say, I love the way it looks, and I love their naming scheme - it quite literally looks like brown sugar.

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The only visual complaint I have here is the connector-splitting jacket. It's quite loose and is too thick for this specific cable thickness. On the good side, Melodika offers higher-diameter versions of this product, which I'd assume make a better fit with this jacket.

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Spiral LITZ strands in a twisted braid

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Inside this cable, there are some interesting technologies that Melodika developed or implemented.

First of all, it's a LITZ cable, so every single conductor is separately insulated. This is a scientifically proven way to greatly reduce the skin effect, which is especially prominent in solid-core wires. Going to stranded wire, of course, helps, but the electrons can still jump from one strand to another, which leads to the loss of micro-level information buried in the recording. With a LITZ structure, this is a non-issue, as it isolates every single strand from each other.

Melodika builds this model as a spiral LITZ: each of the two conductors is a bundle of sixteen 0.20mm² strands, and the strands are all one gauge.

To minimize EMI and other forms of interference without compromising sound quality, they twisted two conductors to create a dual wire braid, instead of shielding the cable.

For the isolation, they didn't cheap out, as it has a tremendous effect on the cable's performance. The conductors have triple dielectric insulation made of LDPE, which is a low-density material, superior to a lot of higher-density insulators.

Clean and neutral, if a little calm

This cable has been developed with a lot of work and science, but how does it affect the sound of my system?

Surprisingly, it makes it slightly calmer and less dynamic, but I believe that higher gauge models of this series would improve that. In addition, the sound is less harsh. It's a clean, neutral-sounding cable that doesn't overemphasize the treble region but still brings out a lot of details.

The soundstage is quite spacious - not the biggest I've ever heard, but it's wide and deep enough. However, it doesn't seem to get diffused or stretched out, as it doesn't make the imaging any less precise. It's often difficult to achieve a sense of depth in a stereo setup due to factors such as the speakers themselves, electronics, or most importantly, speaker placement.

While no cable can magically turn a terrible system into a perfect one, this one can slightly improve the technical performance of a well-established system and provide a more realistic experience, getting a step closer to how things sound in real life. But with less listening fatigue, especially during long listening sessions.