Chord C-stream digital streaming cable

One of the two RJ45 plugs carries a small black dot, and The Chord Company ask that this end goes to the source. On a cable moving Ethernet frames — each one checksummed, each one discarded rather than passed on corrupted if the checksum fails, with TCP sitting above it asking again for anything that went missing — a direction marker looks like superstition. Better to say so at the start. The data arriving at your streamer is the data that left the switch, and anyone who tells you otherwise has lost the argument before it began.

What is not identical at both ends is everything travelling alongside the data. Routers and switches run on switch-mode power supplies, and the noise they make has no respect for the boundary between the network and the hi-fi. It arrives as common-mode current on the screen and the conductors, at a streamer whose clock and analogue output stages sit a few centimetres from the socket. That is an analogue problem in digital clothing, and reducing it is the whole job of the C-stream — the entry point to the C-series, alongside the Chord C-Digital and the rest of the range on our Chord Company collection page.

Screened twice, deliberately

The conductors are high-speed oxygen-free copper in twisted pairs, and each pair gets its own shield before an overall shield goes over the bundle. Insulation is low-loss, low-density polyethylene. By the standards of Chord's dearer streaming cables none of that is exotic, but the pair-by-pair screening is the part earning its keep: it is what keeps noise picked up on one pair from coupling into its neighbours, and it is precisely what the unshielded patch lead most systems start life with does not have.

Plugs, contacts and the black dot

Signal contacts are plated in 24ct gold. The plug surround is over-moulded, with what Chord describe as a non-compression strain relief system — the moulding grips the jacket without squeezing the conductors inside it, which matters more on a cable that gets tugged sideways behind a rack than it does on paper.

As for the dot: Chord ask for that plug at the source end. Their reasoning is not published in any detail, so we will not invent one for them. Fitting it their way costs nothing and takes ten seconds, and if you would rather ignore it, the cable will work perfectly well either way.

Technical Specifications

Who Is It For?

Anyone running a wired streamer who has not yet thought about the lead doing the wiring. The run worth spending on is the last one, from the switch or router into the streamer; a C-stream buried in the middle of a chain that ends in a generic patch lead is money spread thin. If the socket on your streamer sits in a recess, tell us before ordering and we will check the plug clears it.

Be clear about the limits. This will not raise the resolution of anything, it will not rescue a dropout-prone wireless connection, and if your streaming is a phone talking to a wireless speaker there is nothing here for you. It is a small, cheap improvement to the noise environment around a component that is unusually sensitive to it. Judged on those terms it is good value; judged as a magic bullet it will disappoint.

Buying from Martins Hi-Fi

Networks vary more than hi-fi systems do — the switch, the power supplies near it, how the house is wired — so a streaming cable is one of the few things genuinely worth trying where it will live. Our home evaluation service covers that if you would like to. Tell us the actual distance from switch to streamer before ordering; coiling three spare metres behind a rack helps nobody.

When you get in touch, you'll be speaking with Dave, Chris and Tim at info@martinshifi.co.uk, call 01603 627010, or WhatsApp on 07554 687137. You can read more about how we work on our Why Martins page. We are at 85–91 Ber Street, Norwich, NR1 3EY.