First founded in 1985, Chord Company enjoys a global reputation for quality products that can enhance the sound of any Hi-Fi or Home Cinema system…

If you cast your mind back to last year, you may recall that we wrote about Chord’s English Electric Ethernet Switch, PowerHAUS P6 mains distribution block and their BurndyX cables for Naim systems in our November blog.

For those of you that read the article, you’ll know that we liked these products a lot! Each of them improving the sound we got out of our reference Naim 300 series.

So we were delighted when the kind people at Chord Company invited the Audio T Portsmouth team to spend a day at their Amesbury headquarters in order to learn more about their products and manufacturing processes.

Organised

The first thing that struck us was the smaller-than-expected Chord set-up. Given the global reputation and reach of Chord Company cables, I suppose we were expecting a football field-sized factory.

Looks can, however, be deceptive, and inside the modern industrial units at Chord HQ it was clear that this was a highly organised, highly efficient operation.

Our guides for the day were Chord’s Southern UK Sales Rep, Ian Kemsley, and Bill Fraser, UK Sales.

Hands-On

After a quick tour of the immaculately organised warehouse and fabrication rooms we were led to some free workbenches and told that our task for the morning was to make some EpicX Aray RCA interconnects and a length of EpicX speaker cable.

Together these cables, at the lengths we were making, retail at close to £1,000. So, no pressure then!

We tackled the EpicX Aray RCAs first. The Aray technology addresses the internal mechanical noises inherent in all cables.

The precision required to solder the RCAs onto the various cores in the cables was a real test of hand-eye coordination, something that Chord’s Production Technician, David Shannon, made look way easier than it was.

Next up were the Epic X speaker cables. These use the ChordOhmic plugs. The plugs are micro-welded to the cable by using the ChordOhmic Hex Gun tool which applies huge amounts of pressure to create the weld. Both the cables and the interconnects are heavily shielded and coated in XLPE (cross-linked polythene).

Chord Epic X speaker cables fitted with chordohmic plugs

Under the guidance of David our cable making results were pretty good, even if we do say so ourselves.

The proof is in the pudding…

After lunch we decamped to the listening room to hear some Chord cables in action, specifically Chord’s top of the range ChordMusic cabling, using tuned aray technology and Taylon insulation. They connected a Moon Mind network player, to a Chord Electronics Dave, and Bonnec Pre and Power amps powering Bowers & Wilkins 803 D4 speakers.

Needless to say they sounded superb, the ChordMusic cables allowing the musical detail to shine.

Sound Advice

Ian was a veritable font of knowledge and useful advice about cabling. Perhaps his most interesting tip was to remove all non-essential cables from your set-up. Ian left one end of an ethernet cable plugged into an English Electric ethernet switch. The other end was left dangling.

We were sceptical that leaving the ethernet cable plugged into the switch would make any appreciable difference to the sound. Ian played part of a test track with the cable in, then removed the cable and replayed the test track. Surprisingly, there was a clearly audible improvement in the sound stage and detail.

Ian explained that all cables can act as aerials and can introduce interference into a system which affects performance, meaning you hear less of the music. So, we should all do our systems a favour by unplugging all unnecessary cables!

Interference and noise is why quality manufacturers like Chord pay so much attention to shielding on their cables.

Having recently introduced a pair of Chord EpicX speaker cables into my own hi-fi system, I can vouch for the positive difference good cabling makes to a set-up.

As Ian said: “Think of your cable loom as another component in your system, like an amp or a streamer.”

“People tend to match components by quality and, by extension, price point. We wouldn’t generally match our mid to high-end source component with a significantly less expensive amplifier.”

“The same holds true for cabling. It allows your system to perform to its full potential.”

Sound advice. So, if you are happy with the system you have currently, but wonder if you can squeeze even more performance out of it then it may be worth upgrading your cabling. You may be surprised at the difference they can make. Check out Audio T’s range of cables here, and get in touch to arrange a home demonstration.

Thanks for reading.

Alan - Audio T Portsmouth

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