As a customer of Acoustica, I was given an opportunity, yesterday, to join them in their demo room to listen to a range of Chord speaker cables and interconnects. This was a very enjoyable experience, and, yes, they really do make a difference!

Signature DIN Interconnect
The demonstration was conducted by Pat Mitchell of The Chord Company, and was, of course, socially distanced. We could just sit back and listen to the music.

The demonstration system consisted of the following elements:

Naim NDX2 with Chord Bridge fitted and connected through English Electric 8Switch
Naim NAC 282 preamp with HiCap DR Power Supply
Naim NAP 250 DR Power Amplifier
Focal Sopra No2 Speakers
Music Works Power Block with Chord Shawline Mains Leads

Chord Bridge
The first part of the demonstration was aimed at showing the difference between shielded and non-shielded speaker cables. For this part, a Chord Epic Interconnect was used. The speaker cables were:

Odyssey X
Epic X
Epic XL
These cables all share the same conductors but differ in the shielding used. The Odyssey is, essentially, unshielded, whilst the Epic X has a single shielding for both conductors and the Epic XL has individual shielding on the two conductors.

The sound with the Odyssey was smooth and engaging with plenty of detail apparent, as you would expect from a Naim system. Moving to the Epic X, however, the sound was presented with significantly more openness, depth, and warmth. The Epic XL maintained the openness of the Epic X, but the sound was delivered in a much more natural way with a wider soundstage.

The conclusion, without question, is that cable shielding offers significant benefits!

The second part of the demonstration was what Chord referred to as a “Loom Demonstration”. For this part a combination of interconnects and speaker cables were used, as follows:

Shawline Interconnect with Shawline X Speaker Cable
Epic Interconnect with Epic X Speaker Cable
Epic Interconnect with Epic XL Speaker Cable
Signature Interconnect with Signature Speaker Cable
Sarum T Interconnect with Sarum T Speaker Cable

Signature Speaker Cable
The demonstration was, thus, going up the Chord range and keeping a balance between the quality of Interconnect and Speaker cable.

The Shawline Loom, as expected, gave a detailed and engaging sound with plenty of clarity and emotion to the music. Moving to the Epic X Loom gave more openness and speed to the music whilst the Epic XL Loom, as in the shielding demonstration, widened the soundstage whilst delivering music in a much more natural way. The Signature Loom was really an outstanding improvement on what was already an exceptionally good sound! There was more detail, depth, warmth naturalness and speed. The difference was like upgrading the music source and really demonstrates the importance of cables in the system! And if I thought things could not get any better, I was bowled over by the further improvement that the Sarum T Loom gave! Soundstage, depth, presence, and naturalness were all enhanced. This was really an exceptional improvement!

The demonstration has confirmed that choice of interconnects and speaker cables really do make a difference and allow listeners to hear more of the music and what their investment in HiFi systems can achieve. All the interconnects and speaker cables delivered a good sound and would be great partners at this level of system and beyond. If you are purchasing a new system, or, indeed, upgrading an existing system, Acoustica will be happy to work with you and help you choose the right systems and cables that match your budget.