Can you actually hear the difference between a cable that costs €30 and one that costs €600? It’s one of the longest-running arguments in hi-fi, and unlike most audiophile debates, part of it can be settled with a multimeter rather than an opinion.
Every cable in a system does the same basic job: carry a signal from one component to another while changing it as little as possible. How much a given cable can affect that signal depends on where it sits in the chain. A moving-magnet phono cartridge, for instance, is designed against a specific recommended load capacitance, and a cable that sits well outside that figure can measurably shift its frequency response — a real, testable effect, not a matter of taste. A long speaker cable driving a low-impedance loudspeaker is more exposed to a cable’s own resistance than a short run into an easy load. A USB or HDMI cable, by contrast, is carrying encoded data that’s typically buffered and re-clocked downstream, so the more relevant question is usually whether the cable meets the bandwidth a format requires — an HDMI cable rated for 48Gbps either supports real 8K/60Hz and 4K/120Hz signals or it doesn’t, regardless of price.
This category brings together Chord Company’s cable ranges — C-series and Leyline at the accessible end, through Shawline and Shawline X, up to Clearway and Clearway X — spanning speaker cables, RCA and mini-jack interconnects, USB, HDMI, Toslink optical and network cables, mains power cables, and dedicated subwoofer cables. Alongside it sits Fyne Audio’s SC1, a specialised interconnect built for the SuperTrax and S-Trax supertweeter modules fitted to some of Fyne Audio’s own loudspeakers, rather than a general-purpose cable.
It’s worth clearing up a common point of confusion first: Chord Company and Chord Electronics, also both sold here, are separate British companies that happen to share a name. Chord Electronics builds DACs and amplifiers; Chord Company builds cables. Neither owns the other.
Below, we walk through what genuinely differs between cables at a technical level, the main cable types stocked in this category, and how to match a range to your system without paying for a difference a given connection won’t expose.
An audio cable connects two components in a hi-fi system and is defined by its conductor material and geometry, shielding, and insulation — properties that determine how much a signal changes in transit. How much a specific cable affects the result depends on where it sits in the chain: a moving-magnet phono cartridge’s recommended load capacitance, a long or high-current speaker run, and a digital interface’s bandwidth requirement are the connections where cable specification is most likely to matter.
It depends on the connection. At a moving-magnet phono cartridge’s input, cable capacitance has a documented, measurable effect on frequency response; moving-coil cartridges are far less sensitive to this, since their loading is specified as a resistance rather than a capacitance. Over a long or demanding speaker run, cable resistance is a real factor. For most digital cables, the more relevant question is whether the cable meets the format’s bandwidth requirement rather than whether it ‘sounds’ different. Claims for mains and power cables are the least verifiable of the group and worth the most scepticism.
A speaker cable carries the amplified, high-current output from an amplifier to a loudspeaker and needs to handle significant current with low resistance. An interconnect carries a much lower-level line signal between source components, preamplifiers and amplifiers, where shielding against noise typically matters more than raw current capacity.
No — it needs to meet the specification for what you’re asking it to carry. An HDMI cable rated for 48Gbps supports real 8K/60Hz or 4K/120Hz signals; one that isn’t, won’t, regardless of price. Beyond meeting the relevant spec reliably, higher-tier digital cables mainly add build quality and connector durability rather than a different signal.
Yes — a subwoofer typically connects via a dedicated RCA cable carrying only the low-frequency (LFE) feed from a preamplifier or AV receiver, which is a different job from the higher-current speaker cable used for main loudspeakers.
Gauge and fuse rating are legitimate, measurable factors in how safely a cable delivers current to a component. Beyond that, audible improvement claims are the most contested part of the cable debate and worth treating carefully — a genuine noise or hum problem is usually a specific grounding or interference issue to diagnose, rather than something a premium mains cable reliably resolves by itself.
It refers to a specific conductor geometry — Tuned or Super ARAY, depending on the range — engineered to reduce a type of signal loss inherent to ordinary stranded-wire construction. It was introduced through Chord Company’s Signature and Sarum ranges and now appears in other tiers as ‘X ARAY’ variants.
Chord Company’s history starts in 1984, not with an engineering brief but a dinner. A group of Naim Audio’s American retailers, in the UK for a visit, asked for a properly made DIN-to-RCA interconnect — something better than what was generally available for connecting Naim equipment to American systems. Sally Gibb, married to a Naim Audio executive, proposed building the cables herself and starting a business around it, with Naim Audio’s support. Finding UK-based material suppliers for the job took time, but friends at Naim Audio helped with expertise along the way.
The name came from the same American retailers: they called cables ‘cords’, and Chord — with its musical double meaning — stuck. The first prototype, nicknamed the Chrysalis cable, drew an initial order of 250 units, each one built, tested and packaged by hand, with invoices typed on a typewriter. A first press review followed two years later, and from there the business grew steadily. Chord Company now designs and builds its cables at a dedicated facility in Wiltshire, near Stonehenge, and has kept British manufacture central to its identity since those early days.
Three electrical properties do most of the work in describing what a cable actually is: resistance (opposition to current flow), capacitance (a cable’s ability to store a small electrical charge along its length) and inductance (opposition to a changing current). None of these make a cable ‘better’ in the abstract — they interact with the specific components on either end, which is why the same cable can be a near non-issue in one connection and a measurable factor in another.
A moving-magnet phono cartridge is designed and specified against a recommended load capacitance from its manufacturer, because its relatively high coil inductance interacts with a cable’s own capacitance to shape a resonant peak that can sit inside the audio band. A phono interconnect that sits well outside that figure can audibly shift the cartridge’s high-frequency response — this is a documented interaction, not a marketing claim. Moving-coil cartridges are built differently: their coils have far lower inductance, which pushes that same resonance well above the audio band, so cable capacitance is largely a non-issue for them — their loading is instead specified as a resistance, set at the phono stage rather than in the cable itself. Speaker cables carry more current than most other cables in a domestic system; their resistance matters most over longer runs or when driving a loudspeaker with a demanding, low-impedance load, and matters far less over a typical few-metre run into an easy load.
Digital cables — USB, HDMI, Toslink optical, network Ethernet — carry data that’s typically buffered and re-clocked on arrival, and network-based formats add packet-level error correction on top of that, so the practical question is less ‘does this cable sound better’ and more ‘does this cable meet the bandwidth and signal integrity the format actually requires’ — an HDMI cable either supports the resolution and refresh rate you need or it doesn’t.
Mains and power cables are the most contested corner of this debate. Gauge and fuse rating are legitimate, measurable factors in safely delivering current to a component. Claims that a power cable changes the sound beyond that point are harder to verify and worth treating with more scepticism than claims about, say, phono cable capacitance — if a system has a genuine noise or hum problem, that’s usually a specific grounding or interference issue to diagnose, not something a premium mains cable reliably fixes on its own.
Where Chord Company’s engineering focuses is largely in how a conductor is built and insulated rather than in adding anything to a signal. Its Tuned/Super ARAY conductor geometry — introduced with the Signature and Sarum ranges and now used across other tiers as ‘X ARAY’ variants — is a specific approach to conductor construction aimed at reducing a type of signal loss inherent to ordinary stranded wire. Insulation materials like XLPE (cross-linked polyethylene) and Chord Company’s own Taylon dielectric affect how a cable’s own capacitance behaves. None of this changes the underlying principle: a cable’s job is to alter a signal as little as possible between two points, and the connections above — phono, long or demanding speaker runs, and spec-critical digital links — are where that job is hardest and where a cable upgrade is most likely to be audible.
Speaker cables carry the amplified, high-current signal from an amplifier to a loudspeaker. Chord Company’s Leyline2XL sits at the accessible end (also built for custom-install and TV/home-cinema use), stepping up through Shawline X Speaker Cable to Clearway X Speaker Cable. Fyne Audio’s SC1 is a different product entirely: a signal interconnect built specifically for the SuperTrax and S-Trax supertweeter modules on some Fyne Audio loudspeakers, with a dedicated earth lead that grounds the driver chassis to reduce RF interference — not a general-purpose main speaker cable.
Interconnects carry line-level analogue signal between sources, preamplifiers and amplifiers. The range runs from the entry-level Leyline RCA through Shawline X ARAY RCA to Clearway X ARAY RCA at the top, with C-Jack cables covering mini-jack-to-mini-jack and 3.5mm-to-2RCA connections for portable sources.
Digital cables cover USB (C-USB and Clearway USB, in both Type-A and Type-C variants), HDMI (from the budget-focused Leyline HDMI up to the 48Gbps-rated C-View Plus 8K cable and Clearway HDMI), the C-Lite Toslink optical cable — immune to electrical interference by design, since it carries a light signal rather than a current — and network cables (C-Stream, Shawline Streaming and Clearway Streaming) for Ethernet-connected streamers and network players.
Power cables — Shawline Power and Clearway Power — are mains leads for hi-fi and AV components, built to a higher specification than a generic kettle lead but still fundamentally a mains cable rather than a signal path. Subwoofer cables (C-Sub, Shawline X and Clearway X Subwoofer Cable) are dedicated RCA cables carrying the low-frequency feed from a preamplifier or AV receiver’s LFE output to a powered subwoofer.
Chord Company’s ranges scale roughly by tier: C-series and Leyline are the accessible entry point across most connection types; Shawline (and Shawline X) is a mid-tier, hand-built in the UK across almost every cable type in this category; Clearway and Clearway X sit at the top of what’s currently stocked here, adding the ARAY conductor geometry and heavier shielding described above.
A practical starting rule: match the cable tier roughly to the resolving power of the rest of the system. An entry-level DAC or integrated amplifier is unlikely to be currently limited by the small differences between cable tiers, so there’s little to gain from jumping straight to Clearway X on a modest system. A more resolving, higher-end system is more likely to expose a genuine difference between tiers — though even there, Shawline is a reasonable, consistently specified default before assuming a step up to Clearway is necessary.
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