Chord Clearway - High Performance Analog Audio interconnect 1.0M (Length)

I've been spending too much money on audio equipment for 35 years or more. During those years I have purchased several analog RCA internet cables. Some of them pretty good. Last year, based on a review in the UK publication WHAT Hi-Fi, I purchased the Chord C-Line RCA interconnect. It was well worth the money spent. It produced a nice clean, detailed sound. And I was quite pleased. Well, returning to WHAT Hi-Fi recently I discovered their review of the Chord Clearway RCA interconnect cable. The review was very positive, to say the least. So, I recently purchased the Clearway based on their review. WOW! What a remarkable achievement by Chord Company. This interconnect cable is truly outstanding. But, I must tell you I was not initially impressed and thought that I had made a mistake spending my money. That is until I intentionally ran about 100 hours of varied music through it. Now, not all of that was actually listening to music. I learned that you can actually 'play' music through a cable without your amp on to 'break-in' a new cable. I'm telling you honestly, with this cable, a long break-in period makes a significant difference in the quality of sound. After about 20 hours I began to notice an improvement. Then more hours later, still more improvement. I've run about 100 hours through the cable now and I could not be more pleased. I'm listening to music that I'm very familiar with and have noticed a great improvement in clarity, transparency, richness, separation of instruments and voices in all that I play. It is simply remarkable. Although the C-Line cable is quite good, I highly recommend the Chord Clearway analog RCA interconnect cable if it is something that you can afford.Also, sort of unrelated to this review. As I had previously stated I've been at this audio thing for a long time. And for those of you aren't already isolating your equipment from vibration, you really should consider it. I have Sorbothane products and years ago purchased Black Diamond Racing Cones to isolate my equipment. All of which improved my music experience. But, I must say this Chord Clearway has made some of the most significant improvements. Well done, Chord!

Cables were a nice upgrade right out of the box and sound even better now after approximately fifty hours of break in time.

Very detailed, excellent in every way. A steal at the price. There's no need to spend any more.

Excellent cables great sound improvement

This cable has no audible weaknesses that I can find, and I have many great cables in my system. Response is lightning fast. The midrange is smooth, not grainy. There is no bloat in the low frequencies. The treble frequencies are natural sounding. Cymbals and tambourines sound organic. Individual instruments and voices are pinpoint in the wide and deep soundstage. This cable has won awards for good reason.

This is a Great Sounding Cable. It is a step above the entry level C-line Interconnect which is awesome sounding at its price point and above. Comes highly recommended.

Great interconnect for the money.

I am not someone that writes many reviews but this product resulted in such an improvement I felt compelled to share my thoughts.My hifi equipment is of reasonable quality with a sugden masterclass cd player, audio research reference 5se pre-amp/ reference 75 se power amp into martin logan summit speaker's. I also use a little dot III headphone amplifier feeding beyerdynamic dt1770 pro headphones. Musical taste is mainly classical. I recided to change the rca lead from the preamp to the headphone amp which although not budget it is a number of years old.WOW!! The first few bars of Rachmaninov's first symphony with the Russian national orchestra/ Mikhail Pletnev lifted a huge veil from the sound with a clearer top end (strings, triangles and cymbals could be heard as they should); while at the same time there was more weight and authority to the overall sound. Instrument placement was also much more precise.No. These cables are not cheap but they raise the quality of what reaches your ears far more cheaply than trying to upgrade your hardware.Equally I could have spent many times more on one of the more expensive Chord cables but the law of diminishing returns and how much either improvement I might hear has yet to be proved. Perhaps Chord would like to lend me some of their top end cables so I can check this out!!Meanwhile this is an upgrade over cheaper cables well worth the investment.

Great thanks

I changed all my cables in one go to Chord Clearway - this type from preamp to power amp and from my DAC to my pre-amp. I also got the digital Clearway from CD Transport to DAC. This review is after changing all three cables. This seems like a hefty price tag - but it depends what you are after. Do not underestimate the difference cables can make. All my stuff is separate which gives flexibility but it needs good connections. Moving from a £2.99 cable to a £35 cable gives a massive audible difference (I have been using Chord C-line cables before this one). If you are serious about getting a clear and uncluttered sound the C-line will be OK most of the time. This cable however is 3 x the price of the C-line, so what do you get for extra £60? We are moving onto the realms of diminishing returns here - this is the most expensive cable I will ever buy. Will you hear things in songs you never heard before? No. Will bass be deeper? No. Will it be clearer? Perhaps slightly. What it does in my system is this: it created even better separation of instruments and gives those instruments a deeper texture. I was worried that it would give a bright sound because of the use of the silver in the connectors but it did not - yes, treble is there, cymbals are crisp but not bright. It livened things up without becoming fatiguing. It allows my system to produce more emotion (noticible on headphones) and it makes me much more engaged with the music. If you have a system which is worth £500 then forget this cable - get down to Richer Sounds and buy some Cambridge Audio £19 cable. But, if have you have spent 3 grand and up on HiFi then this is definitely worth a try - I heard the difference immediately over the Chord C-line cables I was using before - and they are nice cables.

I've always thought that as long as you use any decent quality cables, you would be fine just the same. They are all insulated copper after all, but there seems to be more variables than I thought.Comparing to a half-decent QED Qunex this connector replaces, the sound signature alters quite remarkably. Side by side the QED is punchy and brash - the Chord sounds much cleaner, neutral with no colourations and music is presented more spaciously. It sounds quieter because of that. Even my rather uninterested girlfriend noticed the difference and to me that's really telling.The tidiness and lack of bias is especially appreciated in symphonic works with a lot going on on stage, but all music benefits from better resolution and detail. I'm so surprised and impressed, that I've ordered cable replacements from Chord and took time to write this review.All in all, I'm glad to have been proven wrong and that I've upgraded my system's sound signature significantly and, comparing to other components, rather cheaply. To me it was worth it, but if you like your music with boomy bass and punch, then probably you won't need this connector. If you like your music well defined and neutral, then treat yourself.To summarise - when the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid it quickly turned out unusable. The interference was so great they couldn't decipher any messages and had to replace it... So yes, cables matter.

For some spending this much on a RCA cable is madness, others are happy to spend considerably more.My new Yamaha CDS1000, NPS303 & Technics 1210 all came with their own RCA/Phono cable in the box. All were about 6ft long which would mean a lot of excess cable behind the rack. I have a shopping bag full of old QED and Kimber cables of various lengths but I decided to get a complete new bunch of these Chords which come highly rated. All were ordred to the shortest suitable length to keep everything neat and tidy.To be 100% honest with one exception there is no sonic difference between the Chord and the included cables I temporarily used while waiting for them to arrive. There was no improvement to audio quality or any change in the "colour" of the audio. Theres also been no noticeable "burn-in" difference over these past couple of months. I tried swapping a couple with the old QED, Kimber ect, they all sound exactly the same! CD, SACD, stream, classical, rock, EDM, jazz no improvement no deeper bass no clearer vocals nothing.The one exception being my Technics 1210 with MP-500 MM cartridge. The Chord is slightly louder over the one that came in the box. Again can't really say there's any other improvment just the VU meter peaking a couple of mm further. So I guess maybe if you were using a moving coil cartridge into a tube phono stage that needed to be a meter or two away from the power amp it would be more noticeable. Maybe even then a higher grade cable would yield greater results.So why my five stars?They look good, sorry I am a bit of a sucker for something that looks the part. The cables are not stiff very easy to manage, bit of a non issue for my short lengths but for those requiring longer lengths may find this a plus. The plugs grip just the right amount of pressure to make a great connection without grinding at the sockets. The plugs are also fully insulated and completely cover the socket protecting them from dust and so on. Yes they didnt add anything to audio quality but they didn't take anything away either. No negative colouring no added "brightness" I've seen others mention.Forgot to mention the amp is a Yamaha AS-1200 running Kef R7 speakers and REL subwoofer. Also using the AS1200's built in phono stage. Probably too cheap a setup to be using £100 cables.