Attention anyone who loves great quality sound – you have to hear Sarum. Chord’s premium range of hi-fi cables just arrived with us and while they aren’t exactly cheap, its clear the countless hours of development time put into these cables have resulted in some of the best sounding (read transparent) cables available today.
We have a pair of speaker cables, speaker jumpers, RCA interconnects, digital cable and mains cable all on demonstration and we’ve been using them both with our flagship Primare system (A32, PRE32, R30 with Pro-Ject Xtension 10 vinyl source) as well as our flaghsip Naim system (NAP300-DR, NAC272, etc) and the improvements over Signature are significant.
Before reading any further, if you want to read a bit more about Chord Company, we’ve also written a longer history of the brand in this blog.
Chord Company are widely regarded for making some of the best audio visual cables that money can buy. Each cable is lovingly and painstakingly crafted, and by Chords approximation, its very simple how to define what “the best” is:
“Right from the start, The Chord Company understood the need to ensure that the manufacture and termination process of its products needed to be extremely consistent. This near-obsession with manufacture is a critical factor in maintaining the remarkably coherent performance and quality that Chord products are known for.” ~ Chord
… Chord put an incredible amount of attention into their Signature cable range, so you you can only imagine the amount of attention they’ve put into Chord Sarum (which, until the recent arrival of the very high end flagship “Chord Music” was Chord’s flagship speaker cable range – and for most, Chord Sarum will be enough – and only Chord Music could make Sarum look like incredibly good value).
“Sarum Tuned Aray” and “Sarum Super Aray” are two technologies that Sarum combines to great effect, both of which are proprietary to Chord Company. The unique Super ARAY conductor configuration was created following Chord’s earlier development of “Tuned ARAY”. This complex design is capable of carrying extraordinary levels of critical musical detail, all while remaining beautifully transparent – and the entire range benefits from this technology. Sarum is designed so carefully to do one thing and do it very well – allow music to be heard exactly as it should be – true to the original recording as the artist intended.
Let’s take a closer look at the full Sarum range. Before we do though, remember that we offer generous part exchanges on the entire Sarum range, and we can accept pretty much ANYTHING from your hi-fi or AV system in part exchange against Sarum – so if you have anything you no longer need (whether its your existing cables, some hi-fi separates or even an old pair of speakers), call or e-mail us so if you have any reasonable quality speaker cable currently, call or e-mail us with a list of your equipment and we’ll offer the very best prices that we can. In addition, you have the option of several 0% finance options when you spend over £500 (and again we can tailor these packages to your specific preferences in terms of deposit to pay upfront and monthly payment amounts), so if you read this and hanker after an upgrade to Sarum – you know we’ll take good care of you in making it as affordable as possible.
Chord Sarum speaker cable uses several very high quality silver-plated copper conductors and features a very low resistance measurement. As suggested, its design allows it to disappear into any system without a trace. In some other cable ranges there is a “sweet spot” on length where one particular length of cable sounds better than the others, but we understand the benefits of Sarum speaker cable are equal at all lengths (within reason) and we offer the cable in the most popular lengths which are a 2m pair, 3m pair, 4m pair or 5m pair (although we can offer longer lengths to order).
Chord Super RCA Interconnects and Chord Super XLR Interconnects
We’d always recommend using an XLR cable if your system does offer true balanced output/input options, and otherwise RCA – although in many cases Chord have found RCA are the most popular choice as it offers you the versatility XLR may not if you end up upgrading your amps or source to something without XLRs in future (e.g. high end valve kit that doesnt offer balanced connections). Either way (and if you’re interested we wrote a blog on the differences between RCA and XLR connections here), these interconnects are understandably a perfect match with Sarum speaker cable in your system – and together these can arguable offer the greatest improvements in sound quality. They are carefully designed and beautifully tuned interconnects that remove what could be described as “yet another layer of noise, revealing a startling new level of musical detail”.
Of course, we make sure we have these interconnects (as well as the rest of the range) available to demo at all times – whether that’s in our showroom or available for you to listen to as a home trial – which we offer to existing and new VIP customers as a way to try before you buy (call or e-mail us to discuss with our sales manager).
Chord Sarum Mains Power Cable
While most customers are expressing interest in the Sarum speaker cables and Sarum interconnects (and our first sales since taking the range in have exclusively been on these cables), the mains cable is worth serious consideration. Ideally you would run this directly into a dedicated spur (if you are fortunate enough to have one for your hi-fi system) and/or a dedicated mains filter – obviously to ensure that the mains signal is as “pure” as possible, and this cable can then be used to run this from socket to hi-fi, although even where you don’t have a dedicated spur, there are benefits in using a high quality shielded mains cable that doesnt pick up interference and noise in your room from other cables and radio frequency interference (RFI). Either way, the Sarum mains cable is worth serious consideration – and at the very least, a demo alongside the speaker cable and interconnects (again, which we can offer you in store or at home), during which you can swap out the mains cable and other Sarum cables to your hearts content to discover which yield the greatest benefits in your system.
Sarum Digital Cables
Last by not least – but perhaps most controversial, are the Ethernet and digital cable options in the Sarum range. More and more people are coming around to the realisation that while digital cables offer less of an upgrade benefit than analog and speaker cable upgrades, there are impressive improvements in sound quality possible from better digital cables. Yes, it is 1s and 0s, but its the delivery and timing of these along a cable that can be better improved with higher quality cables.
The outer jacket is extruded PTFE, and is quite unusual in that separate signal and return conductors are used. Most digital cables use a single run of coaxial cable with the return being made by the shield. While all things Sarum digital use two runs of cable: one carrying the signal and the other the return. Digitally, this range includes a Super Tuned Aray Digital XLR Cable, a Super Tuned Aray USB Cable and even a Super Tuned Aray Ethernet Cable.
So why upgrade to Sarum?
Once you hear them (or more importantly, fail to hear them, which is the point) you’ll understand what an achievement these cables are for Chord. They are obviously best suited to high end hi-fi systems – and we’ve used them with incredible results with Primare and Naim – although as summarised, the main litmus test is to try them with your system. We just warn you though to have a good idea of what you want to part exchange first, as once you hear them and swap back in your existing cables (and even in the case of where we’ve done this with Chord Signature) its like putting a veil back onto your speakers that you’ll want to take back off. Greater detail and dynamics along with incredible soundstaging – a beautifully open sound with huge depth, width (and even height) – all of which, at the end of the day, is greater transparency – as they sound far closer to a live recording than any cables we’ve EVER heard.
Fancy a listen? Get in touch now and we can make the necessary arrangements – whether this means you travelling to us, or Sarum travelling to you.