“Everything we make should preserve and deliver the musical purity of the signals they are transmitting”

In business for 40 years,Chord Company enjoys a reputation for audiophile interconnects, cables and accessories

Based in Amesbury, Wiltshire, and a short ramble from historic Stonehenge, the dedicated team of music and cinema lovers that work at Chord Company have been designing and hand-building multi-award-winning high-performance audio-visual products since 1985. This talented group is essential in maintaining Chord Company’s famously high standards of quality and service.

Chord Company was originally founded by Sally Gibb, working from her then home in Salisbury, in response to demand from an overseas distributor wanting high-quality interconnects for use with Naim Audio amplifiers. Sally drew a logo, designed the packaging and started testing prototypes. The first prototype was named Chrysalis Cable and the Americans swiftly returned with an initial order of 250. These were built on a kitchen table (health and safety legislation was different back then), before being tested, packed and taken along to the Post Office. Invoices were typed on a typewriter. After two steady years, Chord Company got its first positive press review by one-time HFC reviewer Malcolm Steward. Demand quickly outgrew this improvised workshop, so new and larger premises were found, along with new staff members, drafted in to cope with increasing sales. It was at this early stage that the company principle that everything it makes, whatever its level, should preserve and deliver as much as possible of the musical purity of the signals that they are transmitting was hit upon.

Hi-Fi retailers soon found that these cables improved performance, so Chord Company started supplying the UK market. Such was the good relationship that the company built with its overseas and UK customers, that many of them still sell and distribute Chord Company products to this day.

Although the Chord Chrysalis is not a particularly expensive cable, it set standards at its price point and soon gathered good reviews in the hi-fi press. It also set the standard for all future products.

In 1994 the Cobra cable won a Best Cable award, which saw a significant rise in interest and a corresponding increase in business. Within a year, the company was forced to move yet again.

The number of production staff had to be increased in order to meet the demand, particularly from UK retailers. Cobra, albeit the guitar/instrument cable version, is still part of the Chord Company range today. 1999 saw the creation of Chord Company Rumour, its first speaker cable and still a staple of the range today.

The company continued to grow, in size and status, into the new millennium and moved into its current purpose-built home in 2004. That year also witnessed the debut of Chord Company Signature speaker cable, with its advanced shielding and construction methods, and part of an acclaimed, new high-end range. This triggered a series of major advances and innovations, that continue to this day and have recently incorporated a range of high-performance mains distribution blocks, noise-reduction devices and the English Electric EE1 Network Noise Isolator.

CHORD COMPANY UNIQUE TECHNOLOGY

Advanced, multi-layer screening/shielding
Conductor configuration and layers of all-important shielding become increasingly complex as the ranges ascend. Foil shields provide excellent protection against high-frequency noise, while woven braid shields are particularly effective at blocking low-frequency interference. By combining these two types of shields, Chord Company developed cables that could effectively mitigate both high and low-frequency noise, making them ideal for the noisy environments of modern technology.

Taylon insulation
Taylon insulation virtually eliminates the temperature-related phase instability and mechanical variation that mars the sonic and musical performance of PTFE, delivering a remarkably natural, musically communicative and expressive performance – challenging the best and most expensive cables available.

Tuned ARAY conductors
The unique ARAY, Tuned ARAY and Super ARAY technology emerged from a radical idea and much laborious trial and error. The transforming effects of the ARAY was discovered during development work within the Chord Company digital cable range. The ARAY consists of a mechanically tuneable configuration incorporated within the cable construction process.

ChordOhmic speaker connectors (& Hex Gun crimp termination system)
ChordOhmic 4mm crimp-on ‘banana’ and spade speaker connectors are ChorAlloy plated and designed to bring electrical and sonic benefits to any speaker cable. They are fitted as standard to all new Chord Company speaker cable sets as well as being separately available as a retro-fit upgrade and are attached using the Chord Company Hex Gun, which provides a superior long-term connection over the soldered equivalent.

ChorAlloy plating
A unique performance upgrade over previous silver-plated connectors. The upgraded ChorAlloy plating is available on VEE3 and PTFE RCA/phono connectors, ChordOhmic speaker connectors (spade and 4mm banana), BNC and mini-jack connectors, certain USB connectors and the connecting pins of DIN and XLR connectors.