This is not the first time I have owned up to having a certain amount of egg on the face, but it has been a while.

We have been dealing with the Chord Company for over ten years. They introduced us to Nordost when they were distributing the brand in the UK and this has haunted our relationship ever since, with Signals becoming one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Nordost cabling and, at times at least, selling substantial amounts of these expensive (and actually rather impressive) cables.

Chord, we felt, were terrific for the affordable stuff but for more sophisticated requirements, Nordost became the default. But Chord have had high end aspirations too and, about three years ago, launched the Signature interconnect and loudspeaker cables. To add insult, we never really 'took' to the first set of Chord Signature cables that we had, finding the equivalent Nordost offerings (Red Dawn or latterly, Heimdall) to be more open, dynamic and rhythmically compelling. And it's not that we didn't run them in either. Certain customers got along with the Signatures very well when using them in, to us, unfamiliar systems, so we had an inkling that with certain combinations of hardware they could work very well indeed. There was always the suspicion too that systems that failed to get along with Nordost were maybe not quite 'up' to this level of transparency being applied.

We have recently taken on the Focal Electra range of speakers. They are excellent, clean and very 'hear through' but the 1007 stand - mounts in particular simply do not gel with the Nordost cables (the Nordost mains ones remain wonderful). Time, we felt, to re-evaluate the high end Chord offerings.

Our new set of Indigo interconnects and Signature speaker cables have certainly been the right stuff for the Focal Electra Be loudspeakers. This is only true, incidentally, if Nordost interconnects are utterly absent from the system, you simply cannot mix them up. The Chord combo sounds wonderfully coherent, open and transparent with detail part of the picture, not some tinselly add-on. Amazingly, the bass is tighter and more tuneful than with either Red Dawn or Heimdall and the overall timing more 'together' and just plain right.

So this stuff is better than Nordost then? Call me 'fence' but yes. And no. Fact is, with Electra 1007 speakers, it is a 'no-brainer'. With the 1027 floor-standers, it takes more time to decide but we think that the Chords ultimately win out decisively. With Neat MF7's the jury is still out (although the Signature is better in the bass) and with some other speakers, namely Neat Motives and Castle Richmond 3i, Harbeth C7 and ATC SCM12, the Nordost pairings offer a more compelling, airy and 'open' performance. Confused? Well we certainly are, and are supposed to know what we are talking about!

The gist is that Chord's 'serious' cables, sidelined by us for years, now have a proper place in the Signals armoury of worthwhile wires. It has to be said that, at the more down to earth level, we have always found Chord cables to be a safe and musical option, avoiding too much analysis but allowing the important parts of music to come through affordable systems. We now have some understanding of what the pricey stuff can do too.

To read about the various Chord cables, have a peek at their web-site.. Their most recent offerings are listed below:

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