The Evidence Audio Forte Guitar Cable Review

On November 10, 2009, I wrote an article — The Evidence Audio Cables Review — in Scientific Aesthetic and, to this day, that review is still one of the most read posts on that Boles Blogs Network blog!  There’s a reason for the popularity.  Tony Farinella at Evidence Audio makes outstanding audio and guitar cables.

When I recently reviewed my new Jimmy Bruno guitar — crafted by expert luthier Roger Sadowsky — I lamented the fact that the guitar pretty much required a right-angle guitar cable and that I didn’t have one, even though I have mounds of really keen Evidence Audio cables I’d purchased in the past.

In the comments stream for my guitar review, Roger Sadowsky offered the following thought:

David,

Tony Farinella at Evidence is a great guy. Why not ask him if you could send him some of your cables and have a right angle plug added to one end? Tell him I sent you!

Roger

Shazam!  Roger was right!

As I reflected on my original Evidence audio review in 2009, I remembered Tony wrote a kind note in email and offered to send me his — at that time — “in development” Forte cable for review, with no strings attached, when the cable actually went public.

I looked up his original offer and wrote Tony a note and pointed him to the commentary thread with Roger and, last week, a beautiful right-angle Evidence Audio Forte cable arrived in the mail!

I am gaga crazy for this Forte cable.  While all Evidence Audio cables are outstanding and high quality in my deep, exclusive, experience using them over the years, the Forte is thinner than the Lyric cable and it’s flurpier and bendier and rubberier, too.  Those are all good things.

Here, in this exclusive image taken moments ago from my basement music room, you can see how the three-year-old green Lyric cable is still stiff and rigid, while my less-than-a-week-old Forte cable is much more relaxed.

That means the Forte cable will stay flat on a floor while the Lyric tends to keep its bends and loops even when you don’t want it to because it’s supposed to be flat on the floor.  A non-flat cable can be a tripping danger if you aren’t careful — guitars go flying and amps tip over.

Now that we know the Forte cable is more cooperative and lazier than the Lyric, the next question is how does the Forte compare with the Lyric in the ear?  Does the Forte stand up to the magnificent sound of the Lyric by lying flat on the floor?

Here are my raw notes taken after 10 minutes of playing my Sadowsky through the Forte cable.  These initial notes have the most authenticity for me as a writer because they are uncensored and were taken while the sound was fresh in the ear.  There’s no dulling of the auditory senses by over-exposure or long-term use:

Crisp. Articulation.

Hear every rattle and hum.

Every bump on your thumb and ridge on your fingerprints voices for plucked fingerstyle.

Bright rich real sound.

Thin, super lightweight, floppy

I don’t know what magic Tony weaves into his Evidence Audio cables, but I can say the proof of the magnificence is evidenced in the listening.  I love the Forte guitar cable.  It is now my permanent default, and I need to figure out a way to use a right-angle plug in my Clapton Custom, my L5 and my beautiful Les Pauls and all my other guitars!

Here are some of the tech specs for the Forte.

Right angle-to-straight.

IGL-ECS™ conductors:
Minimizes the effects of strand interaction, the largest source of distortion in cables, but retains flexibility of a common stranded cable

High Purity Copper:
Open and extended midrange and highs without etching or glare

Semi-Balanced Geometry:
Shield blocks noise instead of carrying your signal to preserve dynamics and dimensionality

Organic Insulation:
Cotton wraps the conductors with a lower dielectric constant than polymers to preserve resolution and prevent smearing

18 awg conductors:
Uncommon cross-sectional area for incredible punch and authority without skin-effect anomalies

A Forte cable is not cheap.  You’ll pay around $135.00USD for the honor of buying one online, but I can tell you the money is worth the memory of the listening.  Your ears will thank you.

Tony Farinella has a massive winner on his hands with the Forte cable and I cannot believe I had to live so long without one!  I am purely delighted and deeply ignited by the Evidence Audio Forte guitar cable — and you can’t ask your gear to inspire you more than that in your want to play forever.