QED XT40i Speaker Cable - Custom Length

As befits a company rapidly closing in on its fifth decade at the forefront of speaker cable design, QED’s brand new XT40i speaker cable builds on the formidable reputation of the XT40 cable it replaces and offers a decisive step up in sound quality.

This pure oxygen-free copper cable uses an evolution of QED’s established X-Tube technology to guarantee superb timing and stereo imaging, and adds the brand new and highly innovative Air Gap dielectric to bring unheard-of rhythmic accuracy and musicality to a cable of this modest price. Very low DC resistance adds unrivalled frequency response to XT40i’s already potent audio capability. The result is a cable that advances on the class-leading standards set by its predecessor.

Air Gap Dielectric

By increasing the separation of the conductors inside the cable, and therefore the amount of air between them, QED has created a low-loss Air Gap dielectric. This technology halves the dissipation and capacitance characteristics of the cable, and results in numerous audible improvements - particularly where timing and rhythmic accuracy are concerned. Despite this increased separation, though, XT40i retains the sort of cross-sectional area that makes it ideal for long cable runs.

Large Cross-Sectional Area

The 4mm² cross sectional area means XT40 exhibits very low resistance, allowing amplifiers to exert outstanding control over the speakers they are driving. In addition, its large cross sectional area makes it suitable for long cable runs.

X-Tube™ Technology At low frequencies both X-Tube™ and conventional stranded/solid core speaker cables convey signals in a linear way. However, at high frequencies, X-TubeTM retains a near-linear signal transfer, whereas the conventional cables fail to conduct uniformly across the entire conductor area. In standard speaker cables at high frequencies current flow is highest at the periphery with rapidly deteriorating current density towards the centre of the conductor. The effect of this is to reduce the actual cross sectional area of the cable at 15kHz to less than 75% of that at low frequencies. This results in higher distortion and compromises the performance of the cable. X-TubeTM with polycore technology exhibits much lower self-inductance and is therefore less affected by this problem. The polycore technology reduces loop inductance to levels only achievable using more costly and difficult to terminate cables. The result is more high frequency detail, less distortion and greater performance.

Specification :

• Please note, you need to enter a quantity of 2 for a pair
• Length : Custom
• Wire gauge - 12 AWG
• Jacket Outer Diameter - 14mm x 6mm (W x D)
• Cross-sectional area - 4.00mm²
• Loop resistance - 8.0 mΩ/m
• Capacitance - 35pF/m
• Inductance - 0.57 µH/m
• Dissipation factor @ 10KHz - 0.0295
• Nominal outside diameter 6.0 mm
• Lifetime Guarantee
• Usually pre-burnt-in with Nordost Vidar for 96 Hours

Termination

This cable is custom-made according to customers specific requirements as selected by the various dropdown options above and is professionally terminated by Futureshop's expert engineers using QED's superb 24 Carat gold plated AIRLOC termination plugs.

AIRLOC is QED's specialised loudspeaker termination method and offers the very best termination with QED speaker cables. This is a solder-free, airtight fusion between the cable and plug offering optimum signal transfer, excellent signal quality and perfect long-term performance.

QED’s AIRLOC FORTE metal banana and spade plugs deliver a superior performance over many plugs offered by rival manufacturers for the following reasons. Firstly, the plug is crimped around the conductors under high pressure using a special tool supplied by QED. No soldering is used and as a result the conductors are in contact with the plug 360 degrees which maximises the surface area contact. Furthermore, the banana plug itself is in contact with the binding post again at 360 degrees. The net effect of this is it maximises the signal transfer from the plug into your equipment and hence a superior performance. When bare wire is used not all the conductors are in contact with the binding post and as a result some loss occurs.

Unfortunately the metal barrels for the AIRLOC spades were discontinued in 2012 however we still use genuine QED’s AIRLOC spade plugs with genuine QED heat shrinks over the spade plugs. This ensures every QED speaker cable comes fully terminated with the best of QED's engineering.