The Chord Company has launched ChordOhmic, a revolutionary new silver-plated loudspeaker plug developed from the flagship ChordMusic and Sarum T speaker plug, that offers the proven conductivity and signal-preservation benefits of silver, backed up by the UK leader’s legendary build quality. The Chord Company’s 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 available on all Chord Company cables going forward, as well as being separately available, enabling Chord’s new plug to improve other brands of cable, too.
The introduction of the ChordOhmic plugs follows the successful implementation of silver-plated connectors in the company’s flagship loudspeaker cables. For 2018, the technology has trickled down from ChordMusic and Sarum T into a more efficient and affordable plug which offers a highly cost-effective performance upgrade for any level of cable or system.
The ChordOhmic plug body is constructed from high-quality ABS. The plugs themselves are machined from a high-quality brass alloy sourced from Germany. The metal contact pin (4mm banana) is machined in the UK on precision lathes more commonly employed in machining watch parts and high-tech Formula 1 components.
The silver-plated spade connectors are constructed from pure copper bar which is heavily plated with silver to give the optimum contact. The spades can be supplied in any multiples.
Silver: the new gold
The Wiltshire specialist, which has been designing and hand-building cables in the UK since 1985, has long been an advocate of silver, using the highly conductive material to plate its copper conductors and connectors across its comprehensive range of award-winning interconnects. Now, the superiority of silver as a plating finish has extended into the company’s entire speaker cable range, from the highly affordable entry-level C-series to the flagship ChordMusic cable.
Gold takes third place
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 (which is not normally a domestic issue). Gold is also associated with performance and quality due to its high commercial value.
Gold is, however, 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 The Chord Company’s new speaker plugs.
Crucially, silver-plating not only makes sense from an electrical point of view, The Chord Company found it gave an audibly superior result during when compared with gold-plated connectors in its extensive listening tests.
Price and availability
ChordOhmic speaker plugs are available now priced at just £40 for eight.