What is it?

Cobra 3 cable consists of two sets of stranded oxygen free copper conductors with a polyethylene insulator and overall lapped shield around both sets. The two sets of conductors are twisted together. The reason for this is that twisting the two conductors helps to reduce interference. One set of conductors is used to carry the signal and the other set is used to make the return signal path. This means that the Cobra cable is of a balanced design (signal and return conductors are identical). Cobra 3 uses cotton conductor spacers to minimise vibration-generated noise and the outer jacket is chosen because it provides a high degree of mechanical damping. This helps to minimise any handling noise. The colour of the outer jacket is British Racing Green.

Terminations

Cobra 3 is a very versatile cable and can be fitted with RCA plugs, Dins, BNC plugs and XLR 3 pin connectors.
The RCA plugs have gold plated contacts and gold-plated bodies.
The Din plugs have silver plated contact pins.
The BNC plugs have silver plated contacts and bodies.
The XLR plugs have silver plated pins.

Uses

As with Chrysalis, Cobra 3 is a very compatible cable that suits most equipment. It produces a sound that is dynamic, detailed and easy to listen to. Unusually for an interconnect at this price point the Cobra 3 places voices and instruments in a surprisingly solid and believable sound stage. It will work happily in music and audio/video systems, and is particularly good with slightly bright CD players. In fact Cobra 3 will work well in just about every application and is rapidly becoming regarded as something of a bargain.

How does it sound?

Cobra 3 has a wider bandwidth than Chrysalis. This translates as lower bass and higher treble. At the same time, whilst allowing more detail, the geometry and shielding of the cable combined with higher quality copper means that the information is presented in a manner that is obviously more detailed than the Chrysalis but also has a pleasing naturalness. A lot of cables that are described as natural achieve this at the expense of detail, but the Cobra 3 manages quite a rare trick of combining naturalness and detail.