Cables are as important a part of a hi-fi or home cinema system as the components and speakers. They transfer audio and visual information between the various components in your system. For your system to perform at its full potential it is critical that the information is transferred as accurately as possible. (read more) [top]

Yes. Whilst there is a good argument that the human ear will adapt very quickly to changes to tonal balance, changes to the dynamics and timing will have a profound effect on your reaction to, involvement with and ultimately your enjoyment of a piece of music. (read more) [top]

The amount of detail (or information) in a recording can be quite astonishing. Take a look at the "read more" section above (Will I be able to hear real differences?), then imagine a twelve string guitar fitted with new strings, recorded and then re-recorded playing the same piece of music another nine times. Actually there is no need to imagine it, The Waterboys did just this on "This is the Sea" from the album "This is the Sea".

It would be wrong to suggest that there is a magic cable that will allow you to hear every one of the one hundred and twenty ringing, jangling and resonating strings that contribute to such an enormous and epic sound, but a properly designed cable fitted to a good system will help to convey the epic nature of the track.

A cable also needs to be able to transmit the very low level ambient detail that lets sound exist in its own space; regardless of how good the system, a poor cable will simply lose or mask a lot of this detail. [top]

The answer always used to be that you should spend about 10% of the cost of the system on cables. These days it is not so simple. We regularly demonstrate our complete range of cables (from entry level to high end) by fitting them to surprisingly inexpensive systems. The improvements are very easy to hear. Again, talk to your retailer and if you can, borrow the cables he recommends and try them out for yourself. One of the most common problems we come across concerns speaker cables. Because of the lengths required a lot of people choose a relatively inexpensive cable. Over 70% of requests for help we receive are solved by recommending a speaker cable upgrade. Be prepared to spend some money on speaker cable, the improvements will more than justify the outlay. [top]

Talk to your local Chord retailer. He will have a lot of experience about which cables work with which components and he may well have demonstration cables that you can take home and try out. The Chord Company has amassed an enormous amount of information about the best choice of cables for use with the many brands of hi-fi and home-cinema equipment available, much from happy and satisfied customers. We will be happy to offer advice on this. [top]

Yes. There is no reason that either interconnects or speaker cables from different companies should not work well together. However, a complete cable loom from one company is a very good way of ensuring the coherent performance that a properly matched set of cables can bring to a system. You can find recommendations for cable matching in the product description section. (read more) [top]

Like claims that speaker cables and interconnects will change as they burn-in, the fact that manufacturers and magazine reviews maintain that a cable will perform differently depending on which direction it is connected in, is guaranteed to confuse and irritate any rational person.

We believe that all cables will produce differences in sound depending on the direction they are connected in, but the effect these differences will have on the sound varies considerably from cable to cable. Despite repeated experimentation, the most reliable method of establishing the direction in which a cable will transmit the best sound quality is by listening to it. In order to do this accurately we will try the cable to be tested with various combinations of components and speakers, using a wide variety of music. Testing is carried out in a strictly controlled manner and all testing takes place in our purpose built facility. (read more) [top]

Probably the most hotly disputed phenomenon in the strange and wonderful world of hi-fi is the fact that the tonal and dynamic characteristics of a cable will change over a period of time. The most common argument is that the perceived changes are simply adaptation (you get used to the way the system sounds with the new cable fitted). Although at present we are not in a position to offer a genuinely coherent explanation, in the course of repeated comparisons and blind testing of new compared to cables that have been used for periods of 100 plus hours, we have been able to establish that small but significant changes do occur. (read more) [top]

By using the right insulation material silver conductors are able to carry micro dynamic information extremely well and have a remarkably wide and neutral bandwidth. Interconnects and speaker cables that use silver or silver-plated conductors in combination with Teflon insulation are particularly subject to changes during the burn-in period. [top]

There isn't an easy answer and the best option is to discuss this with the retailer you bought your system from. The performance of some amplifiers can be adversely affected if bi-wire cable is used, so your retailer's advice will be really useful. We've spent a lot of time experimenting with single and bi-wire speaker cables and came to the following conclusion. If you have a fixed budget, spend it on good quality single wire cable rather than a cheaper bi-wire cable. This can only be a general rule and there will be exceptions so we really do recommend talking to your retailer. [top]

General consensus has it that it is best to use the treble inputs as this should produce the best sound. That said, it is worth experimenting. We find that fitting the positive to the treble input and the negative to the bass can produce a more coherent sound.

Whilst on this subject it is worth mentioning the gold-plated brass links that connect the bass and treble inputs on the back of a bi-wireable speaker. With the odd exception, these flat, gold-plated links will be found on almost every bi-wireable speaker. Removing these and replacing them with either short runs of the speaker cable you are using, or better still, fitting a purpose made set of links (Chord Signature Speaker Links) can dramatically improve the performance of the speakers. [top]

In an ideal world, speaker cables should be kept as short as is practically possible. In terms of our own range of speaker cables, lengths of 15 plus metres have been successfully used. The real problem with long runs of cable is expense. Ideally, if you need to use long runs of speaker cable, you need to use a high quality cable in order to minimise signal loss and the problem of course is that high quality cables are significantly expensive. So we find ourselves in the awkward position of recommending expensive cables for systems that require long runs of cable. It really is worth giving some thought to the position of your components in relation to your speakers in order to keep speaker cable runs to a reasonable (affordable) length. [top]

Different lengths of speaker cable will mean that the amplifier will be driving a different electrical load on each channel. This is extremely unlikely to cause any damage but it would be worth checking with the manufacturer of your amplifier before doing so. Whether or not different lengths of cable will have an audible effect on the sound is much harder to answer. We have carried out listening tests using different lengths of speaker cable and have been unable to notice any difference. The lengths we used were three and five metres and six and ten metres. As long as the lengths are not wildly different there should not be a problem. (Read more) [top]

The connection cables (interconnects) used to connect components together will suffer very little loss of performance over even substantially long runs. Although almost all our interconnecting cables are available in standard lengths of 1 metre and 0.5 metre, we offer a full custom service and can supply almost all our interconnects to the length that you require. Particular attention is paid to the design and construction of our picture transmission cables. We can supply high quality component, HDMI and RGB cables that will transmit picture information with minimal loss over lengths of up to 40 metres! [top]