Sound & Vision • Hot Product

USB cables are clearly just as important as any other in a system, a state of affairs that Chord Company demonstrated very clearly. Chord launched a USB cable in their top-flight Sarum range and were demonstrating it between a MacBook and Arcam D33 DAC with the new Kudos Cardea Super 10 speakers. Compared to the company’s entry-level Silver Plus USB, the Sarum USB delivered a considerably more relaxed, finely detailed and remarkably analog-like sound that produced greater image depth as well. Chord’s Nigel Finn also revealed he had discovered that DACs sound better with only one digital source connected, which is a bit of a shocker but possibly (hopefully) not true of all varieties.

The demo also served to convert us to the music of Laura Veirs, whose The Triumphs and Travails of Orphan Mae is a rather well-recorded example of the singer/songwriter craft.