Chord Rumour X Speaker Cable

One pair of cables with Chord Ohmic speaker plugs and trousers. Ohmic plugs are fitted with the factory termination tool.

What Hi-Fi? Awards 2024 Best Buy. The prime choice for any high spec’ sound/vision installation. High performance technology with discreet proportions. Tried, tested and recommended by audio manufacturers, custom installers and end-users. 

What Chord Company says…..

Chord Rumour was Chord's second attempt at producing a speaker cable. The first being a copper and polyethylene flat design in single and bi-wire configuration called Myth/Legend. Chord was also investigating speaker cables that used silver-plated conductors in combination with PTFE insulation. Chord had been experimenting with twisted pair conductor configurations, as at the time, heavy gauge parallel conductors were the standard for speaker cables. By twisting the conductors together, Chord could hear the noise floor of the system improve. Chord reached an ideal twist ratio and designed the cable around this.

When Chord launched Chord Rumour in 1996, it was one of the smallest speaker cables available (16 AWG). Retailers would take it into their demo rooms looking dubious and come out looking surprised and delighted. It sounded a lot bigger than it looked, it carried detail and dynamics really well and it was more coherent than just about any other cable around. As people got over the size and listened, rather than looked, it became a very popular cable. Apart from cosmetic changes it remained unchanged for many years.

The size, the colour and the performance mean it’s still a popular cable. Chord's ShawlineX shielded speaker cable shares the same conductors.

Previous versions of Rumour speaker cables used PTFE insulation (often referred to as Teflon™) and until the arrival of Taylon®, this was Chord's “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 Chord from using this in all of their ranges, they were able to find a suitable family of insulation materials known as XLPE (Cross-linked Polyethylene). One version of this material looked particularly interesting and following listening tests, proved to be clearly better than the PTFE in Rumour speaker cable – now known as Rumour X.

 

Chord Ohmic Silver-Plated Banana Plugs

Chords ChordOhmic silver-plated loudspeaker plugs are designed to bring both the electrical and sonic benefits of silver to speaker cables.
Silver-plating not only makes sense from an electrical point of view, but it can also give an audibly superior result during listening tests, when compared with gold plated connectors. Plugs will also benefit from a major clean, using a good contact cleaner or enhancer.

Termination

This cable is custom-made according to customers specific requirements as selected above. The cable is terminated using Chord Cable’s superb silver-plated ChordOhmic plugs.

ChordOhmic is Chord’s new silver-plated termination option designed to bring both the electrical and sonic benefits of silver to your speaker cable. Sevenoaks terminates Chord speaker cables using Chord’s special HEXGUN. An airtight crimp is applied to the plug creating a secure and protected termination. This is a solder-free, airtight fusion between the cable and plug offering optimum signal transfer, excellent signal quality and perfect long-term performance. Furthermore, the banana plug itself is in contact with the binding post again at 360 degrees. The net effect of this is it maximises the signal transfer from the plug into your equipment and hence a superior performance. When a bare wire is used not all the conductors are in contact with the binding post and as a result, some loss occurs.

Rumour X Speaker Links also available here -  eBay item number:306399925531