Have you been to Kilmarnock? You should, as it’s steeped in history, with more than a few claims to fame. It’s where Rabbie Burns’ 1st Edition was published, where Johnnie Walker first distilled his famous firewater and where two Nobel prize winners cut their stripes, thanks to the Kilmarnock Academy. It’s also, of course, home to Atlas, which has been developing its cable craft there for over a quarter of a century.
Atlas’s cable offerings now fit into three distinct buckets, grouped as ‘upgrade’, ‘aspire’ and ‘high-end’, with two ranges within each, covering speaker, digital and analogue interconnect cables. Then there’s the Eos mains management models and Zeno wires for headphone users, meaning whatever your needs and budget, you can bet your bell wire that Atlas has a cable for you.
Way to blue – none of your flimsy plastic bags here. Each Atlas cable under review comes nicely packaged in foam lined presentation boxes
Made in Scotland, not from girders
Every Atlas product is built around the brand’s five areas of quality consisting of conductor, dielectric, connector, screening and manufacturing. You can read more about Atlas’s philosophy and approach in our Q&A with Company MD Alan Whyte and see Atlas on The Hifi Map.
Starting with the speaker cable, we went straight to the top, specifying the flagship Arran Transpose Speaker Grun, which is the more highly spec’d of the two ranges in Atlas’s hi-end grouping, sitting above the Mavros line – with both boasting Atlas’s Grun grounding system (more on this later).
Ours are 6m single stereo runs, and there’s a biwire option too, should you be that way inclined. Prices start at a cool £3,964 for two 1m runs, with the 6m pair we specified costing £11,426 – underlining that this is a no compromise loudspeaker cable that’s packed with everything Atlas has to throw at it.
Lifting the lid on the Arran Arran Transpose Speaker Grun reveals a premium product, right down to the supplied cotton gloves and branded cloth accessory bag
For the conductor this means six high purity ‘6N’ (99.99997% purity) elongated solid crystal copper stands, manufactured using Atlas’s OCC (Ohno Continuous Casting) process, with four at 1.2mm² and two at 1mm² – making this a multi solid core. Each strand is shrouded in a cotton weave with a microporous PTFE tape outer layer that’s further optimised by an SSG (super stabilised geometry) layer, to maintain constant cable symmetry over its length.
Screening is via an alloy/mylar film and woven copper braid (underlining Atlas’s fourth area of focus), with two drain wires running through the screen 180° apart, connected to Atlas’s own Grun earthing terminal.
Arran Transpose Speaker cable showing its Grun connector, about to be threaded into its accompanying detachable grounding cable
All of this is sheathed in a high quality ‘Royal Blue’ woven outer cotton jacket, but if you want something even more refined, perhaps to match your sofa or that jacket you’ve had your eye on, then you can pick from a range of locally manufactured luxe leather outers with contrasting stitching at £275 per metre. And if you want to go even more exclusive there’s the 25th anniversary individually numbered models, but you’ll need to get in quick, with only 25 pairs being made.
Down to earth
The Grun grounding cable (or Grun Coherent Ground System to give it its full title) is key to the Arran’s (and Atlas’s) hi-end raison d’etre, being a gleamingly gold Schrader valve type connector that runs from a fixed fly lead at the amp-end of each speaker cable. This then threads into a supplied braided dedicated grounding cable that connects to an earthing point, either on your amplifier or via Atlas’s Grun mains adapter, which we also specified for the full Grun effect. This costs £187.50 with four dedicated spurs to connect on to, and considering at this point you may have already trousered well into four or five figures for the speaker cable, it seems a worthwhile add-on to go all-in Grun.
Atlas’s Grun mains adapter, which can accept up to four connections. Note the mains plug fitted with only an earthing pin, highlighting its sole purpose for grounding each cable’s screening
And this being Atlas, each cable is terminated using the company’s solder-free cold-weld approach with its Transpose Modular Termination System, which translates to threaded ends on each cable end that can be swapped out in seconds for its Z (gold or silver 4mm Z-plug), S (gold or silver OCC spades) or E (expanding plugs that can be individually specified) terminations.
Grun cable showing its removable Transpose spade connector
We opted for Z type plugs at both amp and loudspeaker end. Another feature of note are the large alloy barrels at each end of the cable which step it down into individual left and right strands which, like the rest of the cable construction, feels and looks luxurious while also being super solidly made.
Gold tipped loudpeaker cable’s chunky alloy barrels separate out + and – connections at each end
Meet Ailsa
Keen to see and hear how Atlas’s tech approach is also applied to other cables in its arsenal, we also opted for an interconnect option, this time from the brand’s mid-level ‘aspire’ models. The new Duo Ultra L RCA Grun is plucked from the Ailsa range and also sports a woven outer jacket, this time in ‘titanium’ silver, with matching Grun drain wires and costs £1,650 all in for a 1m length.
Unboxing the Ailsa interconnect – I’ve bought fancy watches that don’t come as well presented as this
Inside its sleek woven livery are twin independently screened solid-core OCC copper conductors for each channel, wrapped in a foil/OFC braid and woven in a precision-twisted assembly. Its connectors are Atlas’s low-mass Ultra L (Latik) RCA plugs sporting pins using the same grade OCC copper as the conductors.
Atlas’s Grun grounding system is at play here too, with connectors at the amp end of each left/right channel, which connect together within a combined woven grounding cable, meaning a single Grun mains adapter can accommodate a pair of speaker cables and two interconnect cables.
Ailsa Duo Ultra L RCA with its accompanying Grun cable attached
Tailor made
Unboxing this lot leaves you feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the extra cables, but laying it all out helps distinguish what’s what.
With everything unpackaged, what strikes you from the off is how premium quality it all feels. From the braided speaker cable jackets, to the connectors, to the earth fly leads, not a single corner has been cut and nothing feels in any way compromised.
The speaker cable is reasonably compliant given its solid core internals, but don’t expect to be bending it through 90° straight out of the back of your amp (which is also hindered by those beefy alloy barrels), so be prepared to allow it some breathing space, and to accommodate all the extra Grun cabling.
You’ll also need to take extra care when plugging in the speaker cables, as their +/- markers aren’t that easy to see, bring printed small and all in white on polished metal. Other than that everything is straight forward, with each connection making a firm and reassuringly sturdy contact.
Full Atlas cable house, unboxed and ready to be put to the test
Performance
Every now and again – maybe every few years – you come across a product that manages to balance the best of everything, and this cable bundle is exactly this.
Tested with equally refined audio gear included Rotel Michi X5 and Musical Fidelity NuVista 600.2 integrated amps, MoFi SourcePoint V10 Master Edition loudspeakers and source components from Primare (CD15 Prisma and R35 phono stage, fed from an SME 20/2 turntable), this cable slots in like the ideal guest you’ve been waiting for to get the party started.
Paying tribute to Chris Rea by spinning original vinyl pressings of his career defining The Road To Hell and Auberge albums lets their layers of high fidelity production do the talking. Everything from his trademark riffs and slide guitar to the backing band’s water tight percussion and wholesome bass notes shines through with aplomb. Nothing overly dominates the mix while nothing is overshadowed, instead you’re left to revel in each element of his musical mix as you wish. What a talent, and what a loss – but what a way to experience some of the legacy he’s left.
Spin Daytona for example from the former album and it’s all there to appreciate, with the MoFi’s seeming to relish the opportunity of being fed such a clean, rich and balanced signal.
I’ve bought fine Italian suits with fabrics less well finished than Atlas’s cable sheathing
To Sweden now, via the a cappella vocal harmonies of Kraja which really lets you appreciate all that the Atlas cables offer. Their 2015 CD Hur långt som helst (Westpark Music 87294) is such a good test for any system, thanks to the purity of the recording, the simplicity of the four vocalists working together and the silences between them.
Track 4, Polska Till Rut, sounds just divine with the clarity and separation that the Atlas wires bring to my system, and the air and space it affords each performer within the soundstage that the MoFi’s lay before me. I’ve heard this CD many times and the real test of how well a system is gelling lies in how the vocals are allowed to overlap without smearing into each other at the extremes, a test which the Atlas cables pass with flying colours.
Twin and individually sheathed cables feed each of the Ailsa’s L/R channels, terminating in Atlas’s own high-quality Latik RCA connector, with balanced (XLR) and DIN options also available
Getting bang up to date via Suede’s latest Antidepressants album (24-bit/48kHz via Qobuz) allows the Atlas cables to present layers of rich production (and occasionally over-production) with a sense of transparent honesty. Recorded across three studios, perhaps some of them could have benefitted from some Atlas wires feeding those monitors as quality across the album is less consistent than others in the band’s back catalogue. But take the standout closing track, Life Is Endless, Life Is a Moment with its brooding bassline, rumbling percussion and wide-span guitars and vocals let’s you hear it at it’s best.
What this underlines is how neutral this cable is, and while it may seem like and oxymoron to know you’ve paid all that cash for a cable to not hear it, this is exactly why the Atlas cables are such great performers, as they simply allow an uncoloured or compromised window into hi-end system.
Z type speaker connectors fitted within Atlas’s Tranpose terminals. My only crit is that the +/- channel markers aren’t that easy to read at a glance. Classic red/black colour coding would help consummate cable swappers like me
It should also be noted how well the speaker cables in particular excel over longer cable runs, which my listening room demands, as they are as silent when needed as they are neutral, notably so. Having heard how they allow the best of my system to shine, my only reservation is giving them back!
Atlas cables rubbing outer jackets with Nordost’s finest at Audiograde HQ
In summary
If you want extremely high performance cables for equally high performing systems then Atlas’s finest should be at the top of your audition list, as they sound as good as they look.
Well engineered with well thought out tech, what I also like about these cables i how practical they are to live with day to day. While many no-compromise cables demand floor rises and levels of kid-glove treatment, these feel like they’ll last decades of practical use while still giving their best. Outstanding.
