Cables

From selecting its own copper ore, drawing and refining its strands at a partnering mill and meticulously hand-fashioning its premium products, Germany’s In-akustik has been approaching cable construction with a passion since 1977. The pursuit of an air dielectric, preferable but less practical than PTFE, HDPE, PP or PVC, is a particular mission for this brand and one taken to its next level in the Referenz LS-4005 AIR.

If Kimber Kable could be said to have a core philosophy then the sage advice ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ would come very near the top. Of course, Kimber does have its own longstanding USP in the form of its ‘VariStrand’ conductors, braided geometry and use of both PE and PTFE dielectrics, depending on a cable’s position in the range. Copper is still the material of choice in this Carbon interconnect, each conductor comprising seven strands of four different diameters. These strands are clamped within a ‘carbon-infused polymer’ that forms an electrostatic screen, while a Teflon sleeve provides a final insulating layer with superior dielectric properties. Four of these conductors, for left and right channels, are woven into Kimber’s familiar braid.

Only one issue ago we reviewed an interconnect cable whose core thesis focused on achieving a low capacitance and dielectric loss by utilising an 'air' insulation. That was Kimber's new flagship 'Naked' interconnect – a cool £12,700 per terminated metre [HFN Mar '22]. Somewhat more affordable, but also leveraging the 'air dielectric' theme, is the NF-204 Micro Air interconnect from Germany's most prolific cable manufacturer, In-akustik, based in Ballrechten-Dottingen.

In a game of audiophile word association, 'mains regenerator' will elicit the response 'PS Audio' just as surely as 'electrostatic headphones' does 'Stax'. PS Audio can't claim to have introduced mains regeneration to high-quality sound reproduction – that distinction belongs to Linn Products and the Valhalla board for the LP12, introduced in 1982. But nobody generalised on that specific, realising that a regenerated mains waveform might bring improvements to audio components other than a turntable's synchronous AC motor, until PS Audio introduced its original Power Plant, to a somewhat bemused hi-fi industry, in 1998.

What began with its 42-strand and 79-strand speaker cables has seen QED on a journey of discovery culminating 40 years later in this flagship Supremus offering. Closer in physical bulk and generally unwieldiness to a hawser than a speaker cable, QED's new top-of-the range wire has almost nothing in common with the figure-of-eight-shaped 79-strand cable that was in the vanguard of that early subjective revolution.

Co-founder, Bob Abraham, would surely never have guessed his classic figure-of-eight 79-strand speaker cable (now circa £2/m) would still be going strong some 50 years after its launch in 1976. The QED brand was formed in 1973 and despite dalliances with hi-fi separates and accessories has remained most firmly associated with cables. QED’s design theories were outlined in its 1995 ‘Genesis Report’, this informing the X-Tube (XT) cable range, and refined in the 2007 ‘Genesis Report II’ from which this latest Supremus Zr flagship is derived.

With its blue-tinged foil screen positively glowing through a tight, translucent PVC jacket, Supra's flagship speaker cable, priced at £1700 for a 3m terminated set (£300 per additional stereo metre), makes for a vivid statement. It's a world away from the speaker cables that helped Tommy Jenving launch his Swedish Supra brand in 1976. Its Supra Cable 4 and 2.5 used bunches of very fine copper strands in a standard figure-of-eight geometry. Its later 10mm2 Supra Cable 10, with 2562x0.07mm 4N copper strands, still has the lowest series resistance that I've measured (3.1mohm/m) when tested nearly 30 years ago [Hi-Fi Choice Aug '94].