“I have always recommended long interconnects, as opposed to long speaker cables, since less degradation can happen at line level than when cables are driven by an amplifier. That’s why the Signature 2 2.2 pair was 6 metres long as reviewed. Such a length is a real test for an interconnect, though, ideally, short is better for both. But before I talk about the Signature interconnects, a little background on XLO…”

Stager Sound Systems is basically a PA company who do the sound for some big shows, with these pure silver (99.9995%) braided interconnects (in various lengths that I’ll outline below) an audiophile sideline. They’re also an audiophile sound reinforcement company, according to their web site home page: “Stager Sound Systems is engaged in the rental and operation of high fidelity sound reinforcement systems and audio-visual systems in and around New York City.

Bill Low, AudioQuest’s president and founder, must have a thing for snakes, something not entirely inappropriate for someone who spends most of their time making audio cable. The Viper is fourth from the top in AudioQuest’s interconnect hierarchy behind the Amazon, Anaconda, and Python.

Since I had my turntable put together close to a decade ago, I’ve used the cable that came with it, an old Linn, I think, that plugs directly into the bottom of the SAEC 407/23 arm’s standard 5-pin jack. But a couple of months ago Tri-Cell’s Vince Scalzitti handed me this Cardas cable, and said, “Try this out!.”

“Kimber was one of the early promoters of silver cable with their superb KCAG, which I still use in my system, but such cables have always been expensive. The Silver Streak is a hybrid cable that uses “a #19 AWG silver wire for the positive, or signal-carrying conductor, and two #19 AWG copper conductors as ground and return.” “The balanced Silver Streak has twin #19 AWG silver wires for signal and a single TCSS copper wire as ground,” according to the Kimber web site.”