56. Ultimate Silver Series ~ XLR Balance Interconnect Cable (OCC Silver + Duelund Copper)

Designed and handcrafted with multiple combinations of 5N OCC silver wires mixed with Duelund tinned copper wires, carefully fine-tuned to achieve the highest sound quality.

Audiolund XLR Balance Interconnect Cable ~ Ultimate Silver Series

• Improved version: The construction of XLR cables are revised to improve sound quality
• Use multiple various sizes of solid cores of 1*15GA + 1*18GA + 7 solid cores (24GA+26GA+28GA+29GA+29GA+32GA+32GA) of 5N OCC silver wires in both the positive signal and negative signal of multiple wire combinations
• Use 1*16GA Duelund tinned copper wires mixed with 5N OCC silver cables in both the positive signal and negative signal
• A total of 4m x 9 solid cores of 15GA to 32GA of 5N OCC silver wires and 4m x 16GA Duelund tinned copper wires are used for 1.0 meter pair + 2m x silver plated/copper wires for grounding
• Use various types and multiple layers of shielding materials for shielding to reduce noise and RFI/EMI interference
• With unique damping design, use various types of anti-vibration/damping materials to suppress vibration and isolation
• 1.0m standard length with other length options

2) Duelund Silver Foil version: Duelund Silver Foil V1 + 8 solid cores (18+24+26+28+29+29+32+32)GA of 5N OCC silver wires + 16GA of Duelund tinned copper wires

The option is to use 1) all OCC Silver wires or 2) to replace 15GA of 5N OCC silver wires with Duelund Silver foil V1, while still keeping other OCC silver wires and Duelund tinned copper wires.

With critical listening, if Duelund Silver foil added to the same cable series, the midrange seem to enhance and more apparent slightly, with slightly more focus and pleasant warmer vocals. On the other hand, all OCC silver wires series seem to have a slightly wider/depth soundstage, sounds more organics with slightly more details. However, note that the difference is very minor and not really significant as the midrange and soundstage for both versions are considered equally good to me. 

Both versions are classified as the same series with Pure Silver wires (either OCC Silver or Duelund Silver foil) mixed with Duelund tinned copper wires. Both versions have similar sound characteristics and sound equally good to me with similar pure silver sounds mixed with Duelund Western Electric sound characteristics. The decision factor is only if you like slightly warmer midrange or prefer a slightly wider/depth soundstage.

XLR plugs with Gold plated sound slightly warmer and Rhodium plated sound better for silky high. As for the Pure Silver XLR plug, it adds more air, seem to sound more details to reach another category. Selection of a plug is a personal preference and is a skill of arts with personal taste, selection should be varied with different audiophile system setup. Note that this observation is based on critical listening on a balance system setup. Although the differences are noticeable, but it is not as significant as compared to different series of cables/wires.

Ultimate Silver Series will have the best of Xtreme series and True Silver Series with very comprehensive sound of the Xtreme series mixed with the sound characteristics of Western Electric. Similar to Xtreme Silver series, the sound is very natural and smooth with quiet background, and also very musical. It also has the sweet, delicate, powerful and fast dynamic silver sound of the True Silver series.

Ultimate Silver series XLR Interconnect cable cross sectional area per meter per +/- channel in square millimeters is est. 3.13mm² (OCC Silver) and 1.31mm² (Duelund copper).

A simple term for the selection of top 5 series with different sound characteristics:

1. If you like vintage Duelund Western Electric sound, can select Xtreme series
2. If you like modern 5N pure silver sound, can select True Silver series
3. If you like Duelund Western Electric sound, but would like to add pure silver sound characteristic too, can select Xtreme Silver series
4. If you like 5N pure silver sound, but would like to add Duelund vintage WE sound characteristic too, can select Ultimate Silver series
5. If you like both the Duelund Western Electric sound and the modern pure silver sound equally, can select Flagship series

Both the Ultimate Silver series and Xtreme Silver series, are designed to have both the sound characteristics of WE and modern pure silver sound characteristics. And, although we could notice the difference, both also have the sound characteristics of WE and pure silver. Therefore, both series could likely match well with most of the High-end system.

My humble comments: If you like both the WE sounds and the Pure Silver sounds, confidently, you can select either Xtreme Silver series or Ultimate Silver series. The Ultimate Silver series has very strong modern pure silver sound characteristics, however, with added Duelund tinned copper cables, it adds the musicality of WE, sounds become relatively softer and smoother. It is highly recommended.

Xtreme series has strong WE sound characteristics and its sound balance, natural and neutral. True Silver Series has a sweet, delicate, powerful and fast dynamics sound, a typical modern silver sound. Personally, Duelund/WE Series is always my favorite where sound more relaxed, detail and musical to me. True Silver Series has a stronger tone, slightly warmer with richer full body texture sound. In short, a classic vintage WE sound for Xtreme series and a modern silver sound for True Silver Series. To me, both the sounds are on par and are equally good, it really depending on your preferences and tastes. In another aspect, if your Hi-Fi system is based on tube amplifications, most likely you will prefer the Xtreme series, otherwise maybe you will pick the Silver Series with Solid State system. I like the best part of Xtreme series is the musicality of sound and the best part of True Silver Series is the full body organic sound. Becasue of this reason, we created the mixture series of Xtreme Silver series and Ultimate Silver series.

XLR Plugs Orientations 

Audiolund cables are quite thick and stiff, although it could be bend easily, but could be hard to “twist” if the orientation of the plugs is not aligned properly. The standard orientation for XLR plug is as above, however, it also depends on how you place your equipment, Top to Down, Left to Right or Right to Left ?
Please provide a picture of your equipment, looking from the back, to show the XLR connectors.

Cable Run-In: Audiolund cables are mostly multi-core design with various combinations of wires. Thus, all Audiolund cables will require a long time to run in.  OCC Silver wires are thick solid core wires, will take even longer time to run in than Duelund tinned copper multi-strands of parallel thin core wires. The general guideline for run-in time, estimated 100 – 200 hours.