Chord Odyssey X - single wire - banana

Chord Odyssey X uses the same materials as Rumour X. Odyssey’s heavier gauge conductors bring so much more detail and dynamics to a system, along with a degree of control and definition that can transform the performance of both floor and stand mounted loudspeakers. Odyssey was launched in 1998 and set a new standard of performance. It’s neutrality, its compatibility and consistency of performance from system to system made it very rapidly our most popular speaker cable.

Hi-Fi News magazine liked Chord Odyssey so much because of its performance and price that it won the best speaker cable award for five years in a row.

Over the years, changes have been cosmetic only. The current version has a white PVC outer jacket with a diameter of 8mm, still discrete in speaker cable terms and still good enough to let even the biggest of systems sing like they should.

Previous versions of Odyssey speaker cables used PTFE insulation (often referred to as Teflon™) and until the arrival of Taylon®, this was our “go to” material. Although expensive, PTFE offered the best performance.

Material technology is constantly developing and improving and alternatives to PTFE are now available. While the high cost of Taylon® prevents us from using this in all of our ranges, another insulator – XLPE (Cross-linked Polyethylene) came to our attention. One particular version of this material proved to be clearly better than PTFE, so Odyssey X was born.

The conductors used in Odyssey X are also found in Chord Epic and Epic XL speaker cables.

If you’re considering Odyssey X you should also have a listen to the similarly priced Chord Shawline X.

Technical Specifications

• Conductor Silver-plated OFC
  
  
• Insulation PTFE
  
  
• Configuration Twisted pair
  
  
• Shielding None. PVC outer jacket
  
  
• AWG 12 (3.31 mm2)
  
  
• Diameter 8mm
  
  

Chord Ohmic 4mm Silver Banana Plugs 

Our new ChordOhmic silver-plated loudspeaker plugs are designed to bring both the electrical and sonic benefits of silver to speaker cables everywhere. The new plugs will be fitted to all Chord Company speaker cables, as well as being separately available as a retro-fit upgrade, enabling this revolutionary 4mm connector to improve other brands of cable, too.

For many years we have been using silver-plated copper conductors in our designs. Our silver-plated designs are paired with silver-plated connectors. Using silver in cables can be misunderstood, as many people still associate the use of silver with a bright, overbearing sound characteristic. In our experience, however, this brightness is actually caused by a poor choice of insulation material rather than the silver! The only major exception to this rule has been Chord Company gold-plated (4mm/spade) speaker connectors.

Why not gold?

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 (not normally a domestic issue!). In our experience, the customer also associates it with performance and quality due to gold’s high commercial value. Matters are further complicated by the various other plating materials on offer in the hi-fi industry (e.g. rhodium, copper, brass and nickel) with each having wildly differing prices and claimed performance levels.

Science, statistics and misinformation as we see it!

Gold is, in fact, 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 – as expressed by Ohm’s law! Hence the name of our new speaker plugs.

Although pure copper is a good conductor, at room temperature it is susceptible to oxidisation and drastically drops in conductivity when oxidised. Plating the copper can protect it from this process. Plating materials include tin (25% as good as gold), nickel (33% as good as gold) and rhodium (50% as good as gold).

Crucially, silver-plating not only makes sense from an electrical point of view, it gives an audibly superior result during listening tests, when compared with gold plated connectors.

What about tarnish?

It’s a common mistake to think that because silver oxidises it is a poor conductor. The reality is that silver does not oxidise until it reaches 170 C. It does, however, tarnish at room temperature, reacting with sulphur in the air.
Although tarnished silver is not the nicest thing to look at (on ornaments or cutlery), electrically, it is less troublesome.

Tarnish (normally silver sulphide) is a soft and malleable material and can be easily moved aside with very little force. We ensure these forces are present in our speaker plugs and spade connectors. The diagram below illustrates the fact that no matter how smooth a contact looks to the naked eye, it is still quite rough at a microscopic level. There are limited points of actual contact, even under fairly high levels of force. By simply moving a connector in and out of the socket, it is possible to effectively clean the contact points. Ensure all equipment is switched off before doing this simple maintenance procedure.

Plugs will also benefit from a major clean, using a good contact cleaner or enhancer.

Above: Top section shows a low compression connection. Lower section shows the deformation of the plug and socket when compressed together. This compression displaces the soft tarnish as well as increasing the contact area.