Cable Facts & FAQs

‘Noise’ in an audio system kills performance. Grun kills noise.

By ‘noise’, we mean the Radio Frequency and Electro Magnetic interference which permeates our listening environment. Not audible breakthrough from taxis or audible hum, but the insidious noise typically generated by mobile phones, ‘wall-wart’ chargers, wi-fi networks and components in our home entertainment systems (televisions and streaming components are frequent offenders).

The negative impact of this noise is generally only noticeable when eliminated from music playback – typically improving dynamics and musical timing and bringing an overall sense of ‘ease’ to listening.

The Grun Coherent Ground System is a flexible approach to tackling the problem. Grun is fitted as standard to selected ‘Aspire’ level components and to all ‘High End’ level products where appropriate. (All analogue interconnect and speaker cables but only some types of digital cables all benefit).

It’s easy to test its efficacy; simply listen to, say, a Hyper Ultra RCA Grun interconnect without the Grun connection, then add the supplied Grun adapter and listen again. The good news is that Grun offers cumulative benefits; a system will gain with each additional Grun connection.

We have a technical paper on Grun for a more comprehensive explanation.

Of course. It’s meant as an easy guide, not a rigid hierarchy.

It would be unusual to have a system wired with a mix of Element and Asimi; it would work, but there would be more balanced — and better value — combinations.

Consider (or ask us) where the superior cable will bring most benefit. Use the highest specification power cable (eg. Eos 2.5em) between the wall socket and your distribution block, and Eos 1.5em cables on the components. Or use a higher level interconnect (or tonearm cable for vinyl fans) for your primary source or between pre and power amps where the benefit would be system-wide.

Because we follow the same principles of design, materials and construction throughout our cable families, it’s easy to maintain a consistent, coherent approach. Upgrades combining products from different levels will refine, but not radically alter, the character of your system.

Fitting any Atlas cable will make your hi-fi sound great, moving up the levels will make it sound even better.

The three levels are ‘Upgrade’ (Element & Equator), ‘Aspire’ (Hyper & Ailsa), and ‘High End’’ (Mavros, Arran, and Asimi). Individual products in our Eos and Zeno ranges can fall in each category.

Individual product pages each show the Performance Level of each item, with an overview here.

It’s a matter of perspective. Is it the last link in the chain or the first?

Certainly it’s often/one of the first point/s at which you can easily take steps to address issues of unwanted noise and contact resistance which audibly degrades system performance.

An experiment. Next time you listen to your system, do so in your normal environment. Now disconnect your wi-fi, unplug as many electrical items as you can around the house (especially chargers, wall-wart plugs and anything with a basic switch-mode power supply) and listen again. Obviously we’re not advocating switching off the freezer every time you fancy a listening session, and a lot of noise will be generated by your neighbour’s gadgets, but you might gain an indication of the issues.

Pretty much every Atlas product aims to protect your system from the outside world. We invest a great deal of research time on the screening performance of our cables, but the first and arguably most important barrier is the most stable, cleanest possible power supply.

Our Eos em Series power cables and blocks are designed to offer a very high level of protection against extraneous noise and vibration. Even the neon power indicators on conventional domestic blocks are a source of noise, which is why we don’t fit them in our blocks. Eos cables have a similar focus on minimising such issues. (need to focus on the low contact resistance, screening performance and continuity of materials (exactly the same em cable in the blocks as in the cables).

A comprehensive technical paper on the importance of clean power explains more about our Eos products.