Chord Shawline X - single-wire - banana

Shawline X speaker cable

Shawline X speaker cable is based around Chord Rumour (now known as Rumour X) – a favourite for 20+ years. The conductors are silver-plated, insulated with XLPE and arranged in a twisted pair configuration. To produce Chord Shawline X, we’ve taken the existing conductor layout, added a specially chosen PVC internal jacket to reduce mechanical noise, before applying the same high density, dual-layer foil and braid shield that we use on Chord Epic.

Previous versions of Shawline/Rumour speaker cables used PTFE insulation (often referred to as Teflon™) and until the arrival of Taylon®, this was our “go to” material. Although expensive, PTFE offered the best performance.

Material technology is constantly developing and improving and alternatives to PTFE are now available. While the high cost of Taylon® prevents us from using this in all of our ranges, we found a suitable replacement among the family of insulation materials known as XLPE (Cross-linked Polyethylene). One particular version stood out and following listening tests, proved to be clearly (sonically) better than the PTFE in Shawline/Rumour speaker cables.

Rumour/Rumour X has been part of our range for so long because of its performance. It’s neutral (ie. not biased towards one particular sound) and capable of carrying high levels of detail and dynamic information. Because of this, it will carry music in an extremely coherent manner. In other words, your music sounds more like it should.

Shawline X takes this as a starting point and refines it. The whole reason for using high frequency effective shielding is that by reducing interference, the cable is better able to carry the micro-dynamics and timing slurs that musicians use so much to define rhythm and expression. The Shawline also carries the very fine details that reveal more of the timbre of individual instruments. This allows you to look further into and get more involved in music, with the added benefit of enhancing the image and depth of the system it’s being used in.

Shawline X speaker cable is available off the reel or terminated at our UK factory with ChordOhmic 4mm banana plugs or ChordOhmic spade connectors.

Demonstration sets are available at most retailers.

Specifications:

• Conductor Silver-plated, high purity OFC
  
  
• Insulation XLPE
  
  
• Configuration Twisted pair
  
  
• Shielding High density foil and 93% coverage metal braid. Translucent PVC outer jacket
  
  
• AWG 16  (1.31 mm2)
  
  
• Diameter 9.1mm

Chord Ohmic 4mm Silver Banana Plugs 

Our new ChordOhmic silver-plated loudspeaker plugs are designed to bring both the electrical and sonic benefits of silver to speaker cables everywhere. The new plugs will be fitted to all Chord Company speaker cables, as well as being separately available as a retro-fit upgrade, enabling this revolutionary 4mm connector to improve other brands of cable, too.

For many years we have been using silver-plated copper conductors in our designs. Our silver-plated designs are paired with silver-plated connectors. Using silver in cables can be misunderstood, as many people still associate the use of silver with a bright, overbearing sound characteristic. In our experience, however, this brightness is actually caused by a poor choice of insulation material rather than the silver! The only major exception to this rule has been Chord Company gold-plated (4mm/spade) speaker connectors.

Why not gold?

Although gold is generally perceived to be the best plating material for high-quality connectors, its only major advantage is its total resistance to corrosion (not normally a domestic issue!). In our experience, the customer also associates it with performance and quality due to gold’s high commercial value. Matters are further complicated by the various other plating materials on offer in the hi-fi industry (e.g. rhodium, copper, brass and nickel) with each having wildly differing prices and claimed performance levels.

Science, statistics and misinformation as we see it!

Gold is, in fact, the third most conductive metal available. It is outperformed by both copper (+140% better) and silver (+148% better). Better conductivity means lower resistance and therefore, less signal loss. Less signal loss means increased performance – as expressed by Ohm’s law! Hence the name of our new speaker plugs.

Although pure copper is a good conductor, at room temperature it is susceptible to oxidisation and drastically drops in conductivity when oxidised. Plating the copper can protect it from this process. Plating materials include tin (25% as good as gold), nickel (33% as good as gold) and rhodium (50% as good as gold).

Crucially, silver-plating not only makes sense from an electrical point of view, it gives an audibly superior result during listening tests, when compared with gold plated connectors.

What about tarnish?

It’s a common mistake to think that because silver oxidises it is a poor conductor. The reality is that silver does not oxidise until it reaches 170 C. It does, however, tarnish at room temperature, reacting with sulphur in the air.
Although tarnished silver is not the nicest thing to look at (on ornaments or cutlery), electrically, it is less troublesome.

Tarnish (normally silver sulphide) is a soft and malleable material and can be easily moved aside with very little force. We ensure these forces are present in our speaker plugs and spade connectors. The diagram below illustrates the fact that no matter how smooth a contact looks to the naked eye, it is still quite rough at a microscopic level. There are limited points of actual contact, even under fairly high levels of force. By simply moving a connector in and out of the socket, it is possible to effectively clean the contact points. Ensure all equipment is switched off before doing this simple maintenance procedure.

Plugs will also benefit from a major clean, using a good contact cleaner or enhancer.

Above: Top section shows a low compression connection. Lower section shows the deformation of the plug and socket when compressed together. This compression displaces the soft tarnish as well as increasing the contact area.