The Chord Company makes, as part of its Signature line, SignatureXL, a high-end HiFi speaker cable. A product that didn't need press releases or reviews. Chord SignatureXL is the latest version of one of Chord's longest-running (and universally loved) products. An expensive speaker cable needs an interesting history and consistent development. Here's the story. The original Signature was the first high-frequency shielded speaker cable (2004) and marked a huge leap in speaker cable performance . It was also the largest, stiffest, and brightest cable the English company had ever made. The conductors were oxygen-free copper, the insulation was gas-expanded polyethylene, the shielding was a combination of three-layer braid and foil, effective for high frequencies, and the outer jacket was a flexible polyethylene. That cable remained unchanged for years. Then, more refined construction techniques were developed and more efficient shielding materials were added. The conductors were silver-plated and the insulation upgraded to PTFE. This resulted in a more neutral tonal character and, ultimately, a cable better able to convey detail, dynamics and timbre : the famous Signature Reference was born. Signature Reference, like most Chord cables, used PTFE insulation (often called Teflon™) and until the arrival of Taylon® it was the “ gold standard ” of insulation. Although expensive, it offered the best performance. Materials technology is constantly developing and improving: today alternatives to PTFE exist. While the high cost of Taylon® prevented its use in the Signature range, Chord found a suitable family of insulation materials called XLPE (cross-linked polyethylene) .
Epic XL Speaker Cables
One version of this material seemed particularly interesting and, after listening tests, proved to be clearly superior to the Signature Reference PTFE . And so we come to the current Chord SignatureXL. Each set of SignatureXL speaker cables is manufactured and terminated in the historic English factory with ChordOhmic 4mm banana plugs or ChordOhmic spade connectors.
The cable is normally supplied in a red-black finish, with a red wire braided with a black wire. It is also available in all-black upon request.
