Chord EpicX Speaker Cable Review

The Chord Company keeps on pushing the envelope of performance from its range of speaker cables and interconnects with advances in the materials and the composition of their cables. Having used a wide range of Chord cables over the past 20 to 30 years whether it be for AV usage or my HiFi I have always found benefits with every upgrade and the Chord Epic cables have been in their range for quite some time now but with this latest iteration being the EpicX, derived from the award winning OdysseyX cables the EpicX features the XLPE dielectric insulation with a further PVC outer jacket and with 12 AWG silver plated oxygen free copper wires, the advantages of the EpicX is that it allows for excellent shielding from high frequency noise entering into the cables and affecting your music listening pleasure.

The Chord Company sent me custom 5M lengths for my evaluation and review fitted with the new Ohmic plugs, this is a fairly thick cable compared to my Rumour cables that I have been using in my system but it is still easily manipulated and flexible enough for such a high quality cable. The build quality and fit of plugs is exceptional and at £70 per metre and £120 for the Ohmic banana plugs you can easily see where your money has been spent with the build and quality to such a high standard.

Connected to the AVID HiFi EVO Four’s that I have just reviewed and settling down for some serious listening it is quite apparent that the soundstage has opened up and listening to Robert Lens excellent album Fragile on the 2xHD label Instruments have greater clarity with excellent separation in the soundstage, bass is more defined with excellent texture and solidity, the dynamics on track 1 Amoureuse have improved and imaging seems to be more focused than with Rumour cables. Track 3 Fragile the trumpet is projected centre stage and the timbre of the percussion and instruments sound more natural in their delivery and with track 4 Homage to Q the dynamics and impact is simply stunning, the EpicX cables allows the music to be heard fully and the AVID speakers to perform flawlessly, this is a beautiful album and with the EpicX speakers cables in place they have improved my listening pleasure of this wonderful album.

Keeping with the brilliance of Robert Len my next album is the beautifully composed Hope again on the 2xHD label and a 24bit 96kHz version, track 3 Lover Man (Oh Where can you Be) has a laid back sound yet the resolution and musicality that it is presented in is just wonderful, with the trumpet having a smooth and relaxing sound yet the percussion and guitar having a great ambient sound to this track, the level of detail in the higher frequencies is improved with shimmering cymbals in the background and the snap of the drums at even lower levels with good impact, bass also feels tighter than before. Track 6 Lets Stay Together shows how well my system with more or less a full loom of EpicX cables have upped the levels of performance, as I have Interconnects and a digital Coaxial EpicX and now the speaker cables connected, to provide a more detailed and defined sound stage. Track 11 Hallelujah sounds sublime with beautifully rendered piano notes and powerful trumpet, the EpicX speaker cables have managed to elevate the performance of my system with significant benefits to the sound and musicality of my system.

Conclusions and Final Thoughts

Considering the price point the EpicX speaker cables are better suited to my systems performance elevating the musical pleasure with superb detail retrieval and a more defined and solid bass delivery, ambient sounds can be heard more clearly with layers of detail that can be fully heard, they were not missing but not as clear sounding than they are now with the EpicX speaker cables in place.

The Speaker Shack awards the EpicX speaker cables with an Outstanding 5 stars award.

Price at time of review: £70 per meter and £120 for the Ohmic banana plugs to be factory fitted.

Web - https://chord.co.uk/