Forever In Electric String

In which Adam Rayner has his grumpy preconceptions shattered by genuinely better wires.
If there’s one thing I really detest in HiFi, it’s the ‘techno superiority complex’ that inspired a brilliant sketch on the Alas Smith and Jones show some years ago. There seems to exist this elitist nonsense about who really knows their stuff. It also happens in camera shops. With assistants desperately competing with customers to show off who knows more. (Oddly enough you know, it doesn’t happen in fishing tackle shops but it does in fish tank shops!) It’s about a poor punter going to buy a gramophone. He gets laughed at, taunted about ‘woofers’ and ‘tweeters’ and ends up with a bag on his head, demoralised.
I don’t know if the attitude created it but there’s also a lunatic fringe in HiFi. Notably one poor mentally ill soul who was once believed, called Peter Belt, who managed to convince a lot of clever people about a lot of piffle but ultimately proved to be slightly bonkers. Now this also informs a certain techno-mysticism as well from certain sectors of the press and manufacturers. I once read the most respected audio reviewer in UK high end HiFi press going on about a speaker having rhythm as a seriously high end quality. To this day I haven’t a sodding clue what he meant. And the biggest purveyors of gently cooked-till rare utter bollocks publicity and ‘tech’ material have been the cable companies.
The sheer levels of techno babble and discussions of capacitance, inductance and how many claggaferrets per metre the wire was had me disgusted. I mean wire’s wire, right? I can understand the physics and logic of fatter wire and purer copper in cable. Even the Ohno-Continuous Oxygen Free Copper story made sense. But ever able to hear a difference? PAH!

I was production manager for Acoustic Energy years back and we used to use this silver plated copper wire with PTFE insulation as it was said to be crucial for making them sound nicer. But I could never try one with bell wire inside instead to compare it.
Likewise, I recall really upsetting someone at Kimber cables at the HiFi show in Heathrow one year. They had a demo room and it had a sexy pile of active loudspeakers, all in their own handmade cabinets. Driven from a stack of amps and cabled up with sausage-wide wires. I dared to ask how I could tell it was their wires making it sound good, as I had already recognised the Precision Devices drivers from their distinctive frames.
They were upset. Frickin’ disgusted, telling me that you could just tell. Implying I was cloth eared. Then I explained I was not just confused but a pressman.
So when the guys at FOUR who sell The Chord Company’s pretty cable products to the in-car cognoscenti organised a day out and asked me along, I could not turn it down. I went off in a funny mood, if I’m honest, determined to wilfully be unable to hear any differences.
I mean, I could accept the time the Nordost guys sent me an S-Video lead for the DVD into the CRT TV. (Dates it!) It was embarrassingly £500 worth and I was scornful as it had been sent unasked-for. When I plugged it in, though, both me and my non-tech wife were amazed. But speaker wires? And all this crepe about RCA signal wires being one-way? Faugh!
But I had my nose ground in it till my head shook with disbelief that day and I literally glowed pink with embarrassed shame and have done since in my own home.
It was simple, you meet both Chord cables’ anal retentive techno and their arty type who talks to musicians and HiFi music fans who don’t like tech. You go sit in their terribly posh demo room and they pull out a set of monster B&W speakers. The ones with the vapour-deposited Diamond tweeter diaphragms for their ability to put a razor between different levels of performance.
I’m going to forget the ‘arty’ approach for although a better resolution may be heard, this chap talked in terms of the performer sounding more involved and emotional each time we upgraded and frankly irritated me for it gave me no answers. But Tech Dude was a star!
We had the Materials Science explained to us and it made sense. And each time they changed from one kind of speaker wire (cheapest) up to the best, you really, truly, undeniably could hear an improvement in speed and detail. From what you thought was brilliant, to better, to breath taking. It’s ineffably tough to put into words but I was squirming with how wrong I had been to be so disdainful. (Incidentally, I had been provided with a collection of ‘Known Good’ wires when I got my last reference amp installed for the Home Cinema Choice Magazine”> reviews, so had never gone deep into this as mine worked well.)
Then, It got worse. We were told about the directional signal cable and I was openly sceptic. Surely it’s an AC signal, no? The top of the range RCA set was hooked into the system and we had a listen. We left the room and one RCA wire was reversed. Then, upon our return we were asked which had been turned. Like a bunch of evil gits, the lads I went with waited for me to point first but it was a doddle! One side sounded all veiled and kakky suddenly. I was thunderstruck as one of my biggest ever career misconceptions crashed down about my very ears.
This RCA set has a special Acrylic case that reduces what’s called ‘contact bounce.’ When a switch is thrown in a power station, it is HUGE. They use switchgear with half inch thick layer of Gold electroplated on to the contacts, made especially at Johnson Matthey gold refiners. And when a zillion amperes connects, there can be a mother of a spark, so it’s all done in a bath of super thick oil! This effect or rather its lack can be heard even at micro voltages in signal wires.
I know, I heard it.
“Didja wanta bag onyer head?”
But now I was bursting. I wanted to know why? No piffle – WHY? And was told that Chord had asked the same question of the US military supplier who had had to vet them before declaring them (slightly insultingly) as ‘harmless’ before permitting them supply of the stuff. There was no big military secret. They were simply being kinda Jar-head empirical. “We don’t know Sir, we cain’t measure it but we draw an arrow on the reel and use it thusly. We suggest you do the same.” No bull, simply no idea. So it’s exactly what they do in the factory here in the UK.
And the end piece is about home HDMI. I have a Harman Kardon DMC 250 DVD deck. It upscales the likes of Finding Nemo and Cars to look fabulous on the 42in Panasonic Viera plasma I have placed here by Panasonic most kindly (I love them!) and it was hooked in with a ‘good’ HDMI lead. I replaced it with the directional £115 Chord HDMI ‘Active’ cable and ended up watching the whole film through again, amazed. I was only meant to check it briefly! It was like looking at another movie versus what had flowed through the other one. I could count scales and see the slime on the fishes’ flanks.
Wires make an absolutely HUGE difference and for the money, an upgrade to speakers, signal (or HDMI leads indoors) will get you more benefit than five time that on new electronics. Get the best you can afford.
With thanks to Fourcars and The Chord Company
FOOTNOTE
As far as we know the only UK ice dealer who is presently set up to actually recreate these demonstrations with a live changeout demo board you can hear the differences upon, is Source Sounds in Sheffield.