Celebrating 40 years of Chord Company: from kitchen table creations to What Hi-Fi? Award-winners

It’s been quite a journey…

Cables are the unsung heroes of the AV world. But if you’re serious about sound and picture quality, you need the best cables that your budget will allow. No one understands this better than Chord Company.

It has been serving customers for 40 years, with a range of cables, switches and accessories, all of which harness the company’s burgeoning portfolio of unique technologies. Whatever your budget, system or format, Chord Company’s class-leading products can transform your listening or viewing experience.

Acceptable in the 80s

Based in Amesbury, Wiltshire, just a short ramble from historic Stonehenge, this dedicated team of music and cinema lovers has been designing and hand-building multi-award-winning high-performance audio-visual products since 1985. This talented group is key to maintaining the brand’s famously high standards of quality and service.

The brand was born down the road in Salisbury, and like so many success stories, it started out small. In fact, founder Sally Gibb made her first prototypes and production models on her own kitchen table (health and safety legislation was different back then). She built them for an overseas distributor who wanted high quality interconnects for use with Naim Audio amplifiers. Success soon outgrew the kitchen table, prompting Sally to find larger premises and to grow the team to meet increasing demand.

Once hi-fi retailers realised that the cables improved performance, Chord Company started supplying the UK market. Many of Chord Company’s original customers (both overseas and in the UK) still sell and distribute its products today, which is testament to the strength of relationship the company was able to forge.

Restless innovation

The very first interconnect Chord Company produced was the Chord Chrysalis. Although not an expensive cable, it set standards at its price point and soon gathered good reviews in the hi-fi press. It also set the standard for all future products.

In 1994, Chord Company’s Cobra won What Hi-Fi?’s inaugural Best Cable Award. Such an endorsement produced huge interest and a corresponding increase in sales. Within a year, the company was forced to move yet again. The number of production staff had to be increased in order to meet the demand, particularly from UK retailers. Cobra, albeit the guitar/instrument cable version, is still part of Chord Company’s portfolio today.

1999 saw the creation of Chord Company Rumour. The brand’s first speaker cable has picked up plenty of awards in its time (including What Hi-Fi? Product of the Year 2022) and again, is still a staple of the range today.

The company continued to grow, in size and status, into the new millennium and moved into its current purpose-built home in 2004. That year also witnessed the debut of the Chord Company Signature speaker cable – with its advanced shielding and construction methods, it was part of an acclaimed, new high-end range. This triggered a series of major technological advances and innovations that continue to this day. Recently, Chord Company has broken new ground with a range of high-performance mains distribution blocks, noise reduction devices and the English Electric EE1 Network Noise Isolator. The journey continues...

Keep it unique

Some of Chord Company’s unique technologies…

Advanced, multi-layer screening / shielding

Conductor configuration and layers of all-important shielding become increasingly complex as the ranges ascend. By combining the differing, but highly effective attributes of both lapped foil and woven braid shields, Chord Company developed cables that work particularly well in the noisy environments of modern technology.

Taylon® insulation

Taylon® insulation virtually eliminates the temperature-related phase instability and mechanical variation that mars the sonic and musical performance of PTFE, delivering a remarkably natural, musically communicative and expressive performance – challenging the best and most expensive cables available.

Tuned ARAY conductors

Our unique ARAY, Tuned ARAY and Super ARAY technology emerged from a radical idea and much laborious trial and error. The transforming effect of the ARAY was discovered during development work within the Chord digital cable range. The ARAY consists of a mechanically tuneable configuration incorporated within the cable construction process.

ChordOhmic speaker connectors (& Hex Gun crimp termination system)

ChordOhmic 4mm crimp-on ‘banana’ and spade speaker connectors are ChorAlloyTM plated and designed to bring electrical and sonic benefits to any speaker cable. Fitted as standard to all new Chord Company speaker cable sets as well as being separately available as a retro-fit upgrade. Fitted using Chord Company Hex Gun and optimised to give a superior long-term connection over the soldered equivalent.

ChorAlloyTM plating

A unique performance upgrade over previous silver-plated connectors. The upgraded ChorAlloyTM plating is available on VEE3 and PTFE RCA/phono connectors, ChordOhmic speaker connectors (spade and 4mm banana), BNC and mini-jack connectors, certain USB connectors and the connecting pins of DIN and XLR connectors.