| June 15, 2010
XLO Electric Signature 3 Speaker Cables, Interconnects, Digital Cables, and Power Cords
When, in 1991, Roger Skoff founded XLO Electric to make audio cables
using materials and construction methods used by no one else, there
was a problem: He couldn’t find a wire-manufacturing company that
could or would produce his unusual cables, which some would describe
as being diabolical to manufacture. It wasn’t until Skoff discovered
Ultralink Products, Inc., that he found his manufacturing source.
After that, his helix-wound and -woven Field Balanced designs became
widely known and widely praised. Skoff also chose color combinations
for his cables that were unique, to say the least. Once you saw an
XLO cable, it was hard to forget such two-tone styles as gray and
magenta, or lime green and blue.
As time passed and XLO prospered, Ultralink
decided to buy their former client while keeping XLO faithful to the
principles and construction methods pioneered by Roger Skoff. Today,
XLO Electric operates independently in
Ontario,
California,
refining Skoff’s seminal cable designs while keeping to his
underlying goal of making cables that sound like no cables at all.
And, of course, Ultralink still makes the cables.
XLO makes no silly claims,
nor do they create fairytale physics to explain the performance or
design features of their cables. Instead, they focus on refining
products that work, optimizing their designs while trying to make
the cables look cool. XLO’s goal is to remove any sonic character
from the cable, so that it “Sounds like nothing at all.”
Signature 3
The Signature 3 products are not the most
expensive cables XLO sells, but only the UnLimited and Limited
Editions cost more. In XLO’s own quality hierarchy of “Good,”
“Better,” “Superior,” and “World Class,” the performance levels of
the UnLimited and Limited Editions are “World Class,” while the
Signature 3 s are “Superior.” With the 8’ biwire speaker cable going
for $3700 USD and a 2m interconnect terminated with RCAs for $1260,
the Signature 3s are already pricey enough to find their ways into
some fairly serious high-end systems. The Signature 3 digital cables
cost $455/1m, and the power cables cost $1100/6’.
At these prices,
the buyer has a right to expect very high qualities of materials,
design, construction, and performance.
It’s difficult to fault XLO’s choices of
materials and design for the Signature 3s. The conductors are of
99.9999%-pure copper, made with the Ohno Continuous Cast process to
prevent the chaos created in copper’s molecular structure when wire
is drawn through small dies at very high pressure. The OCC process
produces smoother surfaces and a far more continuous crystalline
structure. In XLO cables, conductors are wrapped and braided around
a core, in this case of Teflon, which is also used as the dielectric
(i.e.,
insulation). Each tiny strand has its own thin sheath of Teflon: no
bare wires touch other bare wires. The Teflon dielectric is kept
very thin to minimize the energy storage and release that, XLO says,
normally happens within the insulating material.
Look closely at an XLO cable and it’s not
difficult to see that the conductors spiral around a core; look a
little closer and you’ll see that, as they spiral, the wires are
also woven over and under each other in flat groups. This
has
to be difficult to manufacture; you wouldn’t expect to see such a
thing anywhere but in a fine handwoven basket. I’m guessing the
machines that make these cables are pretty interesting to watch.
 Terminating the XLOs, too,
must be a job and a half. The thin insulation must be removed from a
multitude of fine, delicate wires without damaging them. The RCAs
themselves are internally insulated with Teflon, and their contact
areas are gold-plated. Nickel is not used under the gold plating
because it’s magnetic, and XLO wants no magnetic materials anywhere
in their cables. The speaker cable, digital interconnect, and AC
cords are all wrapped with expanded, untinted translucent netting.
Power cords, interconnects, and digital coax cables have sliding
rings with a holographic XLO logo, a Signature 3 logo, “Made in the
USA,”
and an arrow pointing in the direction of signal flow. These rings
can be positioned anywhere along the cable’s length that you like,
but they move so easily that it might be difficult to keep them
where you want them. XLO says the positions of the rings won’t
affect the Signature 3s’ sound, and my listening bore that out. The
AC cords have impressive-looking jackets of ribbed silver metal over
the plug and IEC sockets, which give them a custom-made appearance
you don’t see in cords that use off-the-shelf plugs or IECs. The
plug prongs are gold-plated, as are the connections inside the IEC
plug. These contact surfaces are
much
smoother than the ones I’ve seen on most other cords.
The Series 3 cables have a
certain heft that comes from their being made with significant
amounts of substantial materials. Their RCA plugs are possibly the
nicest-looking I’ve used: the combination of matte silver and
polished gold gives them a classy appearance. The biwire speaker
cables have cast-metal housings at both the amplifier and speaker
ends. The metal housings are finished in the same polished gold and
matte silver as the RCAs, and the sturdy spades at each end are
XLO’s own. The termination to the spade is perfection, and the
spades themselves aren’t massive or cumbersome, but narrow enough to
fit barrier-strip connections like those on Vandersteen and some
other speakers. Yet the opening in the spade is large enough to
accept the beefy binding posts found on better amplifiers and
speakers, though you may have to use the posts’ flattened area --
most posts have this feature, though some owners aren’t aware of it.
Sound
The Signature 3 cables had
an exceptionally neutral sound, with just a hint of sonic character
that I’d never have detected if I didn’t have a system that changes
very infrequently and that I’m intimately familiar with.
Whenever I connected a Signature 3 power cord
to a component, it was as if the component was being powered
wirelessly. This lack of sonic signature meant that the Signature 3
was, basically, perfectly neutral. Bass from my reference amplifier,
a Belles/Power Modules 350A Reference, was tight and powerful, with
fantastic definition and detail. When everything is just right, this
amp is as intransigent as a Soviet bureaucrat in controlling the
potentially wayward bottom end of my Vandersteen 3A Signature
speakers. In the past, I’ve used power cords that slightly loosened
the Belles’ grip on the speakers’ bottom end, resulting in an
unwanted warmth or fullness in the lowest octaves. The Signature 3
AC cord made it possible for my Belles to exert every bit of control
it’s capable of, resulting in the best bass performance I’ve heard
from this amp. The midrange resolution revealed every detail without
over-emphasizing anything. The treble octaves were clean, pure, and
entirely grainless, the characteristics that drew me to the Belles
in the first place. My reference preamplifier, a solid-state
Belles/Power Modules 28A with moving-coil phono stage, became
massless, and unrestricted in its ability to resolve
everything.
In fact, the preamp seemed to “disappear” altogether. It was like
controlling the volume by magic.
I noticed much less
difference when I used the Signature 3 cord with my disc transport,
a highly modified Pioneer DV-525 DVD player with a high-precision
master clock, disabled video circuitry, high-quality RCA and BNC
output connectors, a modified power supply, mechanical resonance
control, internal RFI/EMI shielding, and more. However, changing a
transport’s cord seldom makes much difference in the sound, for
better or for worse. The exception is most molded generic power
cords, which cause a thick congestion that’s definitely undesirable.
Likewise, using a Signature 3 cord for the Monolithic outboard power
supply that feeds my Perpetual Technologies combo of P1-A
(upsamples, interpolates, and de-jitters) and P3-A (a 24-bit/96kHz
DAC) didn’t make much of a difference, even when compared to a
generic freebie cord. The Signature 3 did let my digital components
sound their best, but even the worst-sounding
power cord I have, a generic but
ultra-flexible model that must be at least 30 years old, doesn’t
affect the digital components nearly as much as it does the preamp
and amp.
Each track of Willie Nelson’s
Across the Borderline
(CD, Columbia CK 52752) was recorded in a different studio, and the
Signature 3 is only the second power cord I’ve tried that has
allowed my system to reveal the track-to-track differences in
recording venue, microphones, and noise floor. Best of all, no sonic
signature was being splashed over everything to color or tilt the
sound one way or another. With such a degree of neutrality, each
track presented its own sonic world for me to explore, and I heard
the recording for exactly what it was, no more and no less.
Neutrality is the epitome of truth and beauty, and XLO’s Signature 3
power cord was supremely neutral.
My analog source is a
Roksan Xerxes turntable with rewired SME V tonearm and an
ultra-low-output Cardas Heart MC cartridge (wood-body Benz variant).
It revealed nothing my digital sources hadn’t already told me about
the sound of the XLO cord. Generic cords do impart a somewhat
muffled or softened sound to LPs, but the Roksan sounds virtually
identical through all reasonably well-made power cords. Sure enough,
the Signature 3 had little impact one way or the other when used
with the Roksan’s power supply, as has been the case with other
power cords.
All of the other Signature 3 cables (biwire
speaker cable, interconnects, digital coax) shared just enough of an
identifiable sonic signature that it was consistently audible,
however slightly. The power cord excepted, the Signature 3s had just
an extra hint of richness and a slightly more silent noise floor
than other cables. Like a favorite whiskey or port that demands that
one more sip be taken, that extra dash of richness made me want more
. . . just keep the notes coming,
please. There was no artificial
stretching or shortening of sounds, and echo and reverb were just
right. If you’re trying to achieve system synergy by choosing wires
with strengths your components lack, forget the Signature 3s: All
you’ll hear will be the true sounds of your other components. The
touch of richness in the Signature 3s’ sound was nowhere near enough
to make up for a component that skims even a little cream from the
sound. With the Signature 3s in the system, music emanated
effortlessly from the “blackness” of total silence. The XLOs added
no ambience or ambiance -- if it was in the recording, I got it, no
more and no less. In fact, listening to these cables was a bit of a
dream for me; it was only the second time I’d heard cables I could
just forget about -- and yet, the first
cables in this rarified category don’t sound quite like the XLOs, as
I shall relate.
 When I listened to the strings in Leonard
Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony’s recordings of Mussorgsky’s
Pictures at an Exhibition
and Night on Bald Mountain and Walter Susskind and the
SLSO’s recording of Holst’s
The Planets
(Vox Turnabout/Classic 24/96 DAD-1027), the
excellent master tapes produced an identifiable change in character
between the two different recordings, though both have the same span
of sound, from lush to joyful to playful to ominous. The body,
string, and bow sounds were separate but united with the XLOs, like
teammates playing in perfect sync. There was no stridency or edge
from the strings unless the score called for it -- and a few times
in each work, the strings are
asked to get edgy. Horns through the XLOs had that unmistakable
rightness that can be appreciated only if you’ve heard live horns
often enough to have their sound indelibly imprinted on your ears: a
perfect combination of body, note, and air. When horns are wrong,
it’s like hearing a baseball hit with an aluminum bat -- it may be
effective, but it just doesn’t sound right.
Elton John’s
Tumbleweed Connection (SACD/CD, Island
B0003611-36) is poorly recorded; the Signature 3s delivered the good
without emphasizing the bad. The piano tone is particularly neutral
compared to other versions of this album, but it’s far from what you
hear from a great piano recording. Here, the piano lacks the
immediacy you hear in person, but the tone and articulation are
excellent. One of the problems with what we might think are
better-performing products is that they tend to make recordings like
Tumbleweed Connection
difficult to enjoy; the recording’s faults become too distracting.
That wasn’t a problem with the XLOs. Even CDs made from transferred
78rpm discs acoustically recorded from the 1900s to the 1920s could
be enjoyed as much as the originals, without wear and tear on the
precious originals. “Ruthlessly revealing” doesn’t describe the
Signature 3s; “completely revealing” is more appropriate.
Comparison
For the last year or so
I’ve been using Audience’s Au24e interconnects ($1246/2m pair with
RCAs), biwire speaker cables ($2850/8’ pair with spades), digital
coax ($506/1m), and powerChord e AC cord ($674/6’), and for good
reason: they were the most neutral-sounding cables I’d heard.
The Audience powerChord
e
and XLO Signature 3 power cords were completely indistinguishable
from one another. I can’t remember the last time that happened with
cables of any kind. I tried everything to see if I could hear
anything at all that sounded like a difference between them, and
came up with nothing.
The rest of the Audience cables, however, have
a slight but identifiable signature that’s different from the XLO
Signature 3s’ equally slight but equally identifiable sound. The
Audiences sounded slightly “lighter” in character. By this I don’t
mean “lightweight,” or “lacking bass power and definition.” Instead,
the Audiences’ sound seemed to have less mass, less inertia; the
sound was fast, playful, airy, and slightly more spacious, with
slightly more echo/reverb/decay. It wasn’t that the music came
through at a higher volume level, but simply that it seemed to be
audible slightly longer as it faded to nothing. This shouldn’t be
taken to mean that one of these families of cables was better or
worse than the other. Both were amazingly neutral, with these slight
differences. I’m tempted to describe the XLOs as “regal” and the
Audiences as “athletic,” but both characterizations overstate the
difference, and may carry negative associations I don’t intend. I
can say that both were neutral
in the best possible sense of that word, yet with slight differences
in character that created a paradox: they were neutral with
personality. I can’t recommend one over the other. Both families of
cable sounded fantastically satisfying in my system.
Conclusion
XLO’s Signature 3 cables
are one of the two holy grails of neutrality I’ve found so far. I
have the highest regard for the Signature 3s, for their honesty and
for their complete refusal to play games with the sound of my
reference system. And I have great respect for XLO: they’ve chosen
not to engage in pseudo-science or outright silliness to describe
how or why their products are special. Even their advertising
slogan, “Sounds like nothing at all,” is appropriate, and lacks any
of the audio nonsense that some people seem to need to persuade them
to even consider a purchase.
If you’re looking for neutrality, XLO
Electric’s
Signature 3s get my highest recommendation.
. . . Doug Blackburn
dougb@soundstagenetwork.com
XLO Electric Signature 3 Digital
Cable
Price: $455 USD per 1m cord ($705 USD
per 2m cord)
XLO Electric Signature 3 Interconnect
Price: $840 USD per 1m pair
with RCAs ($1260 USD per 2m pair)
XLO Electric Signature 3
Speaker Cable
Price: $3700 USD per 8’ biwire pair.
XLO Electric Signature 3 Power
Cord
Price: $1100 USD per 6’ cord with 15A
NEMA plug and 15A IEC connector
Warranty (all four): Lifetime
against manufacturing defects.
XLO Electric
1951 S. Lynx Avenue
Ontario, CA 91761
Phone: (909) 947-6960
Fax: (909) 947-6970
E-mail:
inquiries@xloelectric.com
Website:
www.xloelectric.com
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