Chord cables

[Polarbear]

But if anything else is a distraction, why are you hanging around a hifi forum instead of just listening to the music?

You would miss me if I didn’t post

[obsydian]

I have run quite a few Chord cables (power, ethernet and DIN in the past), i found there is not much of a painful burn in like some other products, it’s more of a minor refinement, tightening up.

[JimDog]

it seemed less detailed and much thinner (sonically) than an old Chord cable I bought donkey’s years ago

I’ve been using 2 x 8M Chord Rumour 2 speaker cables for the past 15 years, and they produce a very clear and coherent sound - despite the fact that they are quite thin in diameter.

I wonder whether to get some Chord Odyssey or Epic? There are people who prefer them, but also a few who have been up the range and come right back to Rumour…

[Jonners]

I got into a bit of a debate on a Facebook Linn Forum about cable burn-in. There appears to be no scientific evidence to support it, unlike speakers so I got well and truly hammered! I too had a Shawline on demo and didn’t like it either. I ran it for a couple of weeks before swapping out for a different manufacturer.

[mojo_65]

Hi, I used to think that a little burn-in is usually profitable for most of the hifi devices, may be it’s easier to understand this for cartridges rather than cables but that’s it.
Until, however, I bought a Vertere interconnect cable to use with my turntable to Stageline. From the first seconds it sounded so good that it was obvious it didn’t need burn-in at all. And it did not change afterward.
As to Chord cables I recently tried a Clearway and Shawline interconnect and I firmly preferred the Clearway rather then Shawline. It sounded more musical, signal seemed to flow freely, fluid rather than the self restrained Shawline. And it was ok from the first connection.
Bye
Alessandro

[EazyRyder]

I demoed the shawlines against my old chord chameleon vee3s and IMHO they where no where near as good, even after around 70 hours burn in.

I started a previous thread about my comparisons on the naim forums here–

Chord Shawline Early Disappointment

Received a shiny new pair of Chord Shawline analogue interconnects today to replace my aging chameleon VEE3s. The interconnects are in use between my chord qutest to my naim nait XS2. TBH they have only been run in for a couple of hours. But A/Bing with my old chameleons, and i now its too early to make a real judgement. But the shawlines so far are a little disappointing. The Shawlines sound dull. The overall sound is slightly warmer than the chameleons, but all excitement has been lost. …

I would stick to your older generation chords.
BTW what are your older chord interconnects?

[Alley_Cat]

Hi, I used to think that a little burn-in is usually profitable for most of the hifi devices, may be it’s easier to understand this for cartridges rather than cables but that’s it.
Until, however, I bought a Vertere interconnect cable to use with my turntable to Stageline. From the first seconds it sounded so good that it was obvious it didn’t need burn-in at all. And it did not change afterward.
As to Chord cables I recently tried a Clearway and Shawline interconnect and I firmly preferred the Clearway rather then Shawline. It sounded more musical, signal seemed to flow freely, fluid rather than the self restrained Shawline. And it was ok from the first connection.
Bye
Alessandro

I have a Clearway too so may well be worth an A/B there.

The Shawline does sound good, just not sure if it’s much of an improvement over existing Chord interconnects I have - it also makes things sound a bit too ‘digital’ for me, others may like that.

[Alley_Cat]

I demoed the shawlines against my old chord chameleon vee3s and IMHO they where no where near as good, even after around 70 hours burn in.

I started a previous thread about my comparisons on the naim forums here–
Chord Shawline Early Disappointment
I would stick to your older generation chords.
BTW what are your older chord interconnects?

Cheers - a 15-20 year old phono to DIN Cobra cable. I have a newer Clearway cable too.

[Alley_Cat]

I have to ask why Naim don’t perhaps have a little room at shows demonstrating the difference powerline/powerline lite and varying grades of Naim interconnect make to a given system. This could be a bit of a cash cow at a show surely?

I doubt its worth their while. I can’t see them selling much at shows and their philosophy is that sales should go to their dealers.

Very good point about the dealers though dealers could always sell them at the show - in fact a cable I bought from the manufacturer’s display was paid for at the Audio-T desk.

With regards to black box upgrades I think I’m at the point where these would be £5,000-£10,000 upgrades or more and I’m not ready for that currently, so for more modest costs I could potentially improve interconnects in the short term and take them forwards when black boxes are refreshed.

[EazyRyder]

Cheers - a 15-20 year old phono to DIN Cobra cable. I have a newer Clearway cable too.

I switched from the cobra many years ago to the chameleon vee3 on the advise from my dealer and was and still am really impressed with them.
Compared to the cobra the chameleon has bags more detail and is faster sounding with greater stereo imaging, bass is tighter

[Alley_Cat]

Cheers - a 15-20 year old phono to DIN Cobra cable. I have a newer Clearway cable too.

I switched from the cobra many years ago to the chameleon vee3 on the advise from my dealer and was and still am really impressed with them.
Compared to the cobra the chameleon has bags more detail and is faster sounding with greater stereo imaging, bass is tighter

Just done a bit of A/B listening now - the Shawline sounds utterly anaemic by comparison to the older Cobra. It’s more forward, ‘pleasant’ in a background music kind of way and I’d like to say it has a more controlled low end but the bass is simply lacking. The Cobra brings emotion, timbre to instruments, depth and width of soundstage, and simply a more sonorous low end with authority and scale. It’s really night and day.

[EazyRyder]

Just done a bit of A/B listening now - the Shawline sounds utterly anaemic by comparison to the older Cobra. It’s more forward, ‘pleasant’ in a background music kind of way and I’d like to say it has a more controlled low end but the bass is simply lacking. The Cobra brings emotion, timbre to instruments, depth and width of soundstage, and simply a more sonorous low end with authority and scale. It’s really night and day.

Maybe you should stick with the cobra or maybe look to a S/H pair of chameleons?.
Its a tough call really.
How do the clearways sound compared to the cobras?

[Alley_Cat]

Just done a bit of A/B listening now - the Shawline sounds utterly anaemic by comparison to the older Cobra. It’s more forward, ‘pleasant’ in a background music kind of way and I’d like to say it has a more controlled low end but the bass is simply lacking. The Cobra brings emotion, timbre to instruments, depth and width of soundstage, and simply a more sonorous low end with authority and scale. It’s really night and day.

Maybe you should stick with the cobra or maybe look to a S/H pair of chameleons?.
Its a tough call really.

Sadly it’s not a tough call at all. Certainly makes me realise how good the Cobra was - wish I’d bought more at the time!

With 3 sources currently I need something at least as good as the Cobra for the others I feel.

[EazyRyder]

Certainly makes me realise how good the Cobra was - wish I’d bought more at the time!

I feel exactly the same way about my chameleons after listening to both chord shawline and tellurium q blacks.
Look to fleabay for S/H cobras

[Polarbear]

Just coming back from the Bristol Show which is run by Audio-t, they do have cables available at show rates where available. From memory, I don’t believe they discount any Naim equipment t the show, but I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

I know companies like Chord sell cables at shows.

I take your point about the cost of the next black box upgrade and look at cables now would be a more cost effective solution.

Kind regards

PB

[JimDog]

Just done a bit of A/B listening now - the Shawline sounds utterly anaemic by comparison to the older Cobra.

Do Chord publish the OFC oxygen ratings of the copper and the purity of the silver that they use?
I can’t see any on their site.
I can’t recall whether they previously published this data.
But I always wonder why a cable manufacturer doesn’t publish this information, if they use high purity metals.
One reason why might be that they don’t believe that those stats are as important as how the cable sounds (and how the sound ages over the decades it may be used for).
Nevertheless, I like to see those data - and I like to know what the surface area of a cross section of the conductor is in mm2.

[Jonners]

The Anthem is a decent interconnect too. I went from a Cobra on my CDX2 and was very pleased. However, with the aforementioned Shawline which I got to connect my Aria phono stage to LP12 I was not convinced. I bought a WitchHat at nearly half the price which really impressed me. They produce what I would class as “neutral” cables, no bass and vocal bias which I think is a Chord characteristic. Horses for courses and all that…

[catswhiskers]

The website gives specification of the speaker cables, showing both AWG and cross sectional area. I think it is an update since the X series was introduced.

[JimDog]

The website gives specification of the speaker cables, showing both AWG and cross sectional area.

The page for Chord Epic says:
Silver-plated OFC - But it doesn’t state what level of oxygen remains in the cable - the N rating. By contrast Atlas, e.g., say “Atlas’ Ohno Continuous Cast (OCC) 7N 99.99999% pure copper”.
But, yes, they do give the Chord Epic sizes:

AWG	12
mm2	3.31
Diameter	11mm

[timmo1341]

I use Epic Reference on main system (upgrade from Epic Twin, prefer to SuperLumina), and Odyssey on bedroom system (upgrade from Rumour, prefer both to NACA5). Both improved over a 2 to 3 month period, but sounded terrific from the off.