Atlas Element achromatic RCA analogue interconnect cable

If you want to polarise the room (assuming it’s a room full of music and/or hi-fi enthusiasts, anyway), tell them analogue interconnects can profoundly affect the way their system sounds. Then retire to a safe distance. The way some people carry on, you’d think they were being forced to spend money on analogue stereo interconnects at gunpoint.

If you can’t hear the difference between cable ‘A’ and cable ‘B’ (and ignore for a moment whether or not you think ‘A’ sounds better or worse than ‘B’ – let’s just aim for establishing whether or not they sound different), in some ways that is good news. You’ve saved yourself a lot of time auditioning cables, a lot of money upgrading cables, and an awful lot of patience listening to hi-fi ‘experts’ bang on about the apparent differences.

If you discern a difference, though, in a few ways, you’re making a rod for your own back. Take this new Atlas Element pair of RCA analogue interconnects – are you satisfied they sound different to the cables you’re currently using in your system? And if you are, do you enjoy the difference they make?

Given that you’ve read this far into an analogue interconnect review in the pages of a venerable hi-fi magazine, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you are, at the very least, open-minded on this subject. And if you’re looking to make a difference to your system’s sound without spending authentically big money on hardware upgrades, something like this Element interconnect could be just the ticket.

£80 may not seem like ‘entry-level’ money, but this is where the Atlas range of analogue interconnects starts. And if you have got a system that justifies this sort of outlay, there’s no denying the Element is capable of affecting its sound in a pretty unambiguous way.

Some science first, though – hi-fi cables seem to be second only to hair-care products in laying on the terminology with a trowel.

The Element features Atlas’ ‘achromatic’ non-magnetic RCA plug. It’s a low-mass, solder-free connector, cold-welded to create a coherent, uncompromised signal path. The signal conductor itself is of fully shielded continuous casting copper, intended to offer maximum radio frequency interference resistance. A foamed polyethene dielectric surrounds the conductor, and this all sits within a circular conducting screen that acts as the signal return path.