Hardware Reviews

William Eikos cables, no plastic, no solder, just signal

William Eikos Terra Nova interconnect and Ultra Litz Field speaker cable review https://the-ear.net

William Eikos Terra Nova interconnect and Ultra Litz Field speaker cable

Bill Funnell-Pilcher was a member of the Trichord triumvirate back in the nineties when it revealed that CD players could be significantly enhanced by upgrading the clocks within them, at the time the notion that clock quality mattered was a new one in digital audio and this impressive tweak made quite an impression on the market and this reviewer in particular (at one stage they sold a heavily modified Pioneer CD player called Eikos, it was very good). Eventually founder members Tom Evans and Graham Fowler went their separate ways, the former creating the Michell Iso phono stage which morphed into the Groove and the latter carrying on the Trichord name with his own range of phono stages. Bill disappeared from the industry at the time but couldn’t keep away, I found him with a distinctive pair of loudspeakers that hang on cables at the UK Audio Show in 2022 and discovered that he had invested an awful lot into the Aurigen speaker as it’s known and some very unusual William Eikos cables.

More cables, what the world needs right now was my thought, but Bill is a charming man who’s not put off by a challenge, two years later he delivered a set of cables that are about as different to the usual run of things as you can get. The inspiration is apparently none other than the loser of the first format war Nikola Tesla who created Litz wire with multiple individually insulated strands because this arrangement is very effective for carrying AC currents, which you will recall he discovered and which ultimately won the day in electrical power distribution.

William Eikos Terra Nova interconnect and Ultra Litz Field speaker cable review https://the-ear.net

Today Litz wire can be found in a small number of audio cables but what differentiates the William Eikos range is the sheer quantity of strands used in each conductor. The Terra Nova interconnect has 750 while the Ultra Litz Field speaker cable has no fewer than 8,000 in each conductor. It is called Ultra Litz Field in reference to the field effect which is where the signal is propagated around the cable as well as within it, an effect which screening negates and which wool felt allows. Bill puts much of his cable’s qualities down to this factor. Wool felt was also chosen because it is very good at damping vibration, we have seen that simple cable raisers have a distinct impact on cable sound and this is likewise to do with reducing vibration, so clearly such things are significant.

This sheer number of individual copper strands is not obvious from the appearance of William Eikos cables however, what strikes you is that they are sheathed in wool felt, in the review samples this was black with red stitching for the right hand channel and black for the left. There is no plastic used in these cables because Funnell-Pilcher and his colleagues are of the opinion that this is the problem with the vast majority of commercial cables; plastics of any form limit performance.

William Eikos Terra Nova interconnect and Ultra Litz Field speaker cable review https://the-ear.net
Ultra Litz Field in basic form with silk binding

Litz cables reduce what’s known as skin effect because of their tight proximity and fine size, they are separated by the thinnest of lacquer which is far finer than any PTFE, and this proximity results in lower DC resistance at audio frequencies. The challenge with such thin conductors is that the lacquer needs to be removed in order to terminate it in a plug, and being so fine it is very easy to damage with heat, as a result the William Eikos speaker terminals are cold welded using a 10 tonne hydraulic crimper. The Ultra Litz Field supplied was terminated in hand made solid silver spade connectors.

The wool felt covers the combined signal and ground conductors of the Ultra Litz Field and smaller sleeves surround the individual red and black elements where they split at either end. There is an aircraft grade aluminium sleeve around both the Terra Nova interconnects and the Ultra Litz Field to indicate direction and this also includes a serial number. The combination of such fine wires with felt insulation results in the most floppy cables I have encountered, they will follow almost any curve without resistance which makes them very easy to install.

The William Eikos Terra Nova interconnects feature WBT RCA plugs (OFC balanced XLR versions are available) with solid silver terminals, these can be clamped onto suitable sockets by twisting the barrel on the exterior. So far so high end, what Bill introduced next was pretty damn wild however, this consists of a felt cover that goes over the plug with the name Sock It 2 Me, a sock for an RCA plug. Sounds crazy but also makes a clear difference, I kid you not. Bill enjoys demonstrating this bizarre tweak just to see the look of slack jawed amazement on enthusiasts faces.

William Eikos Terra Nova interconnect and Ultra Litz Field speaker cable review https://the-ear.net

All of the needlework required for the William Eikos cables is done by Amanda Haslam, a seamstress who makes costumes for the West End stage and the Royal Shakespeare Company, apparently she’s something of a star in that world but like Bill is based on the Isle of Wight. He also sources the leather cases used on the Ultra Litz Field cable terminations locally from a specialist in re-enactment attire called Anders Fortune, so this lavishly specced cable is very much an artisan creation.

Sound quality

I have always been wary of excessively priced cables but when you look into the materials and obsessive construction of the William Eikos range it seems a little less obscene. Bare in mind also that in the context of half a million pound/dollar/euro systems the asking prices here are far from crazy. There are plenty of cables with such prices at the High End show every year but few if any of them are hand built to the degree on show here, and all of them use plastic of some form as an insulation. Of course if these cables didn’t deliver the goods all of this would be for nought, however beautifully crafted a product is if it doesn’t do the job exceptionally well it would be pointless. That is not the case here.

I use pretty decent cables in my system, they are less than a quarter the price of the William Eikos but not inexpensive, so when the Terra Nova interconnects were installed expectations were not terribly high but maybe that meant the impact was greater as a result. What happened was that more musical detail appeared, a lot more musical detail, it was almost as if a grainy photograph suddenly became clear and replete with graduations of light and colour. It sounds like the cable fills in the gaps that others leave unpopulated, a bit like uncompressed digital recovers the low level signals that remain in the noise floor on MP3s. The density of information is uncanny.

William Eikos Terra Nova interconnect and Ultra Litz Field speaker cable review https://the-ear.net

Tonally the William Eikos cables are smoother than the best cables I have heard, they are not inclined to liven up leading edges or add grain in the way that so many are, but rather to let high frequencies flow in the most natural fashion. I particularly enjoyed the way that they reduce the aggression that comes from distortion on some recordings, one being Van Morrison’s voice on Astral Weeks. This retains the passion and intensity of the performance but doesn’t emphasise the limitations of the recording, you still wonder how the artist came up with the work but are not distracted by what usually sounds like compression from the mic and tape.

Sticking with the classic rock tip I dug out ZZ Top’s Tres Hombres and enjoyed the combination of high detail with natural balance on Waitin’ for the Bus, and was surprised that the follow up track Jesus Just Left Chicago came through at a higher volume level (this is on vinyl) and got thoroughly engrossed in album highlight La Grange which has rarely sounded so locked down. With a streaming source via the Auralic Altair G2.2 I heard the same filling in of the gaps effect that had been evident with vinyl but here there was also a notable improvement in timing. The sound opened up and revealed high frequency detail that other cables seem to ignore, you can hear the way that cymbals are played so much more easily and appreciate more colour and tone in instruments and voices. I loved the way that they put flesh on the bones of favourite Wesseltoft/Schwarze track Leave My Head Alone Brain (Duo), which also really chugged with great texture on the bass line and air in the cymbals.

William Eikos Terra Nova interconnect and Ultra Litz Field speaker cable review https://the-ear.net

One visitor who enjoyed the sound of the William Eikos cables called them ‘supple’ which seems very apt, they allow all manner of information to get through without sounding as if it is being restricted be that tonally, dynamically or in timing terms. We were trying to find the best cable to go with the tube amp and speaker pairing that was being set up and these felt covered ones trod a well balanced middle line between thickness in my usual speaker cable and forwardness in the one brought for the job. You get a sense of daylight with the William Eikos that is not undermined by brightness when aggressive sounds come along, there is no loss of attack but the highs remain clean and smooth, seemingly untroubled by the graininess found with so many cables.

I also had a quick listen to the Terra Nova interconnects without and then with the Sock It 2 Me covers. Quite how the small amount of damping they provide manages to open up the sound so effectively is hard to understand but it is not subtle, anyone with a sewing machine should give this one a go.

These cables also deliver phenomenal imaging with the right recording, the one I found was Tord Gustavsen’s latest release Seeing. I have never heard fingers on a piano keyboard so well defined before, this ECM recording is very good (most of them are), yet it felt like the instrument and its player were there in the room in a precise three dimensional location. Then came the natural airiness of the cymbals and the body and volume of the double bass, it was quite an uncanny experience that the William Eikos cables made a marked contribution towards. It probably wouldn’t have happened without the Icon 5 preamplifier in the system but I had played this album via that component a few times using my regular and generally superb cables and not had a revelation of this kind.

William Eikos Terra Nova interconnect and Ultra Litz Field speaker cable review https://the-ear.net

A Viva Solista Mk2 integrated valve amplifier turned up whilst I was listening to these cables and initially I reverted to my reference interconnects and speaker cables in order to get a better idea of what it could do. Which is speed and attack of an intensity rarely found, but which also could be a little too much with some music, so I dropped the William Eikos into the system and was able to relax and be carried away by a magical realism brought about by harmonic, tonal and acoustic detail levels that were through the roof. I was using the big B&W 802 D2s which are not the most forgiving of speakers but when everything is singing they can produce detail levels that are pretty damn phenomenal, and these cables certainly helped to make the system sing.

Conclusion

I take my hat off to Bill Funnell-Pilcher for persevering with these cables, it can’t be easy to market something that is so dramatically different from the majority, but by doing so he has come up with cables that really do move the goal posts, that do less harm to the signal than usual and as a result deliver more of the music. The price is going to be a barrier to the market at large but for those looking to make the finishing touches to seriously high end systems I can highly recommend the William Eikos cables, they really let you hear so much more than most.

Specifications:

Terra Nova
Type: analogue interconnects
Topology: Litz
Termination: WBT Nextgen RCA solderless plugs
Conductor: copper, 750 x 30 micron strands
Dielectric: wool felt
Diameter: 15mm
Length: 1.5m
Warranty: 5 years

Ultra Litz Field
Type: speaker cable
Topology: Litz
Terminations: solderless solid silver spades
Conductor: copper, 8,000 x 30 micron strands
Dielectric: wool felt
Diameter: 20mm
Length: 4m
Warranty: 5 years

Price when tested:
Terra Nova 1m/pair $9,000
Ultra Litz Field 4m/pair $25,250
Manufacturer Details:

William Eikos
williameikos.com

Type:

interconnect and loudspeaker cables

Author:

Jason Kennedy

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