The most striking feature of the new Chord Indigo RCA is the unique machined acrylic plug casing. More than just a beautiful object, the plug casing is made from specially chosen acrylic plastic that has truly outstanding vibration damping properties. Precision machined to an exacting tolerance from bonded solid acrylic block and diamond polished, the plug casing shrouds an ultra low mass, silver-plated earth connection and is toleranced to damp any resonances.
This is an area that has been important to Chord for some time but the tonal and timing improvements that this has brought about surprised even us. The plug has a tapered strain relief profile which allows us to avoid any direct clamping pressure on the cable itself, crucial to obtaining the best possible performance.
The cable has been produced to an extremely high tolerance and optimised for analogue signal transmission. A low capacitance, high velocity design with extremely low high-frequency attenuation making it ideal for accurate wide bandwidth signal transfer. The shielding system is similar to the Signature but all components have been silver-plated. The central conductor is comprised of specially chosen, stranded, silver-plated oxygen-free copper conductors and is surrounded by a Teflon dielectric.
The Indigo cable is a fully balanced configuration and has been assembled in a way that optimises send/return signal transfer. It is constructed using a direct connected return and signal path. All signal path components are silver-plated and all the connections have been made with a high silver content, lead-free solder. Because of the plug, the impedance is completely stable along the length of the cable. The shield, which has been based on the ones used in Signature interconnects and speaker cable, has been left fully floating.
The Indigo RCA is Chord's most advanced interconnect yet. The cable was designed in response to the extended bandwidth speakers that are becoming so common and its ability to transfer a signal completely accurately is going to surprise a lot of people.
What Hifi 5 Stars October 2006: "Sure a grand for a bit of wire is schockingly expensive, but the Indigo mainlined a sonic boost straight into the veins of our £20k reference system - amazing details, dynamics and punch. This is a sensational high-end (£10k minimum) system upgrade. Trust us its worth it!"
We use this interconnect on our high-end evaluation system and we agree 100% with What Hifi's views, the Chord Indigo is a truly amazing cable ..even at nearly £1k!