ChordOhmic speaker plugs launched at The Bristol Show

The Chord Company has launched ChordOhmic, a revolutionary new silver-plated loudspeaker plug developed from the flagship ChordMusic and Sarum T speaker plug.

On the first day of The Bristol Show, I was at the introductory presentation of what must be one of The Chord Company’s smallest releases.

The ChordOhmic promises to offer the proven conductivity and signal-preservation benefits of silver. Furthermore, it is backed up by the UK leader’s legendary build quality.

Chord Company ChordOhmic

The Chord Company’s new ChordOhmic silver-plated loudspeaker plugs were revealed to an eager audience at Sound and Vision – The Bristol Show on Friday.

The new plugs are designed to bring both the electrical and sonic benefits of silver to speaker cables everywhere.

They will be available on all Chord Company cables going forward. Furthermore, they will be available to buy separately. This means that Chord’s new plug can improve other brands of cable, too.

Trickle down tech

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. Now, it is an affordable plug that offers a highly cost-effective performance upgrade for any level of cable or system.

ChordOhmic build

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 has long been an advocate of silver. Moreover, it has been 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. This could be an important factor, however, it is not normally an issue in domestic settings.

Gold is also associated with performance and quality due to its high commercial value.

However, Gold is 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. This is actually 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 when compared with gold-plated connectors in its extensive listening tests.

I might just have to give these a try in my own rig.

Price and availability

ChordOhmic speaker plugs are available now priced at just £8 per plug, so £64 for eight.

Check out the Chord Company’s website for more details.