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The Chord Company launches Power Chord (13/10/2005)

The Power Chord from The Chord Company finally launches after two years of development, testing, listening and safety approvals.

The Power Chord is a shielded mains cable suitable for components using IEC mains connectors. It brings a performance improvement that is not subtle: increasing the overall resolving power of a system by reducing the overall perception of noise. Drum sounds and bass parts benefit enormously from the improved dynamics. Owners can expect to hear fine details in their music that has escaped them before and subtle nuances to playing and timing become simple to hear and follow.

Power Chord follows on from the highly successful launches of the award winning Chord Signature loudspeaker cable and Signature interconnect cables. One of the factors critical to the performance of the Signature interconnect and speaker cable is the attention paid to the shielding: to achieve the high level of performance that these cables produce, it is vital that the shielding is effective to extremely high frequencies. Applying this to a mains cable was fairly straightforward, but understanding how to configure the shield in relation to the conductors was an altogether more interesting challenge.

The final shielding system is similar to the one found on the Signature speaker cable. The three sets of stranded conductors are built using high quality copper and insulated to conform to the applicable BS standard. The outer jacket is PVC and designed to minimise mechanical noise. Surrounding this is the shielding system and around the shielding system a translucent orange PVC jacket, again applied to minimise mechanical noise.

Chord listened to a huge number of IEC plugs before settling on the one fitted to the Power Chord. The one chosen is a simple design but with excellent contacts. In fact the contacts within the plug turned out to be vitally important to the overall sound quality; the screw type fittings as found in most IEC plugs were rejected in favour of directly soldered connections. The three pin mains plug was chosen in the same way. Chord has chosen to fit an MK 13 amp plug.

Chord Feel that their Power Chord design deals with one of the real issues with after market mains cables. The geometry of the cable overcomes firstly system dependency and secondly local condition dependency. Both these factors can make the performance of mains cables extremely difficult to pre-judge. The Chord Company are really pleased with the remarkably consistent performance gain the Power Chord brings about, regardless of the system it is fitted to.

The Power Chord is available now in 1 metre, 1.5 metre and 2 metre lengths (custom lengths to order).

Prices are: 1 metre £130.00, 1.5 metre £140.00, 2 metre £150.00

Power Chord is also available fitted with a European Schuko mains plug.

The Chord Power Chord is CE approved.

www.chord.co.uk