QED XT25 Bi-Wire Speaker Cable - Custom Length

QED XT25 Bi-Wire Speaker Cable - Custom Length

XT25 Bi-Wire was designed as the natural complement to XT25, the 5-star-award winning*, entry-level X-Tube™ cable from QED. It incorporates four separate conductor bundles into a single, convenient X-Quad™ type geometry and is intended to present a much more enjoyable rendition of the musical performance when used in a bi-wire or bi-amped configuration.

In common with all of QED's cables, XT25 Bi-Wire’s design was informed by the lessons learned during their exhaustive research into loudspeaker cable design, which began in 1995 and detailed in the recently updated Genesis Report. This report sets out the design principles to which QED have adhered ever since and which resulted in the development of QED Supremus speaker cable – the ultimate expression of sound through science without compromise. Each QED cable in the range is based on this unique concept and although their designs may be variously influenced by price, size or ease of use, each retains the basic original features of the flagship model. This gives even the base-model cables a sonic advantage over their similarly priced competitors. XT25 Bi-Wire, for example, is essentially a scaled down version of the top-of-the-range Genesis Bi-Wire cable sharing many of its geometrical features but having a smaller cross-sectional area and using 99.999% oxygen-free copper conductors in place of the more expensive silver-plated variety.

Features:

• Very Low DC Resistence
• Very Low Inductance
• Low-Loss Dielectric
• 2.5mm² Oxygen Free Copper
• X-TUBE™ Technology
• QED AirLoc™ Forté Plugs

Very Low DC Resistence

At QED, they recognise that low DC resistance of the loudspeaker cable is of paramount importance for high fidelity signal transfer. This is because the speaker presents a frequency dependent load to the amplifier of which the cable forms a variable proportion. If resistance is allowed to be too large, then audible changes to the frequency response characteristics of the loudspeaker will be introduced which cannot be corrected by the amplifier’s negative feedback loop.

Very Low Inductance

Cable inductance is a prime cause of high-frequency attenuation and phase shift in loudspeaker cables. High inductance causes cable impedance to rise with frequency, reducing output in the very upper frequency range, sometimes preceded by response peaking.

X-Tube™ Technology

As frequency increases, electrons flow more and more towards the periphery of a conductor so that if the frequency is high enough only a very thin layer (or skin) on the outside of the conductor is used. This skin depth varies for different materials at a fixed frequency and in copper it means that if a conductor has larger than 0.66 mm 2 cross-sectional area, not all of that area is available for an analogue music signal to use.

Low-Loss Dielectric

It is not generally appreciated that electrical signals, moving at or near the speed of light in a circuit, do so via the medium of electromagnetic (EM) waveforms, which exist not only within the copper conductors themselves but also within the dielectric which insulates one from another. The movement of electrons around the circuit merely facilitates generation of the EM waveform, as their drift velocity, measuring only a few centimetres per second, is much slower than the speed of light.

99.999% Oxygen-Free Copper

Speaker cables need to have a large current carrying capacity. If the electrical resistance of the cable is too large, part of the music signal will be lost, causing a detrimental effect on the fidelity of the sound you hear. To stop this from happening QED make the resistance of their speaker cables as small as possible. Qed do this by using the largest practical cross-sectional area of copper within the size constraints of each cable. In order to squeeze the last drop of performance from the conductors they make sure that there are no impurities in the copper which would defeat the object of making them so large. That’s why QED use 99.999% oxygen-free copper exclusively.

Specification:

• Please note, you need to enter a quantity of 2 for a pair
• Length : Custom
• Outside diameter: 13.1 mm
• Conductor area: 5.0 mm2
• Conductor chemistry: 99.999% oxygen-free copper
• Dielectric properties: Air Gap (εr = 1.69)
• Loop resistance: 7.0 mΩ/m
• Parallel capacitance: 69 pF/m
• Dissipation factor @ 10 kHz: 0.0001
• Self-inductance: 0.36 μH/m
• Plugs and spades: QED Airloc™ Forte banana plugs
• Lifetime Guarantee
• Note for customers purchasing stripped bare wire: red & yellow conductors are used for positive connections, black & blue conductors are used for negative connections.

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.

How to Order

From the dropdown menus' above, simply select the length of cable, the type of plugs required at the ‘Amplifier end’ and ‘Speaker end’, the amount of burn-in time required and click on the 'Add to Basket' button to add the item to your basket. Your cable will be dispatched as soon as it has been made by Future Shop's or the manufacturer’s engineers and has completed the specified burn-in process (if any), subject to Future Shop’s Terms & Conditions and stock availability. Please note, this cable is pre-bunrt in for 96 hours.

About QED Cables 

QED is an award winning British company with over 40 years of experience in the audio-visual connectivity industry.

In 1973 Bob Abraham and Ian Vine founded QED Audio Products and changed the way people think about hi-fi cables. By the time QED 79 strand speaker cable was launched in 1978, it wasn’t looked upon as ‘just another speaker cable’ but was instead regarded as a serious hi-fi component, making a fundamental change in the way people thought about cables.

QED's reputation for innovation and technical excellence is known throughout the world. The latest computer-aided design techniques allow their research and development team to keep pace with technological advances and deliver products that achieve the highest levels of performance and reliability. This is why QED products are recommended by so many of the world’s leading hi-fi and home theatre equipment manufacturers.

QED offer a range of connectivity products spanning from both consumer and installation cables, wireless products and switching devices to satisfy every audio visual need.

QED is Europe's number one award winning connectivity brand and has won more prestigious cable awards from ‘What Hi-Fi? Sound & Vision’ magazine than any other brand (Awards 1981–2013).