WK Audio TheRAY

REVIEW
Alan Sircom
Mar 18, 2026

One of the best-kept secrets in audio, Polish cable brand WK Audio has three cable lines: the top-end TheRED, the entry-level TheONE and TheRAY in the middle. We’ve been big fans of TheRED since trying the power cord back in Issue 221. And our first foray into TheRAY – once again, a power cord – was so well received that we gave it an award in our 250th Issue. Now, it’s the interconnect’s turn.

As with the power cord, TheRAY XLR is half the cost of TheRED, uses the special sauce developed for that high-end design by Witold Kamin´ski (the architect behind WK Audio), and is similarly hand-built. It uses a combination of pure silver, silver-plated copper, and pure copper in its conductor design. The outer sleeve is made of the finest braided blue.

Red Wunz Go Fasta

If this all sounds a little vague, that’s a conscious choice. Like Kubala-Sosna (also featured in this issue) and Tellurium Q, WK Audio prefers not to disclose too much about its cable design. This is not about hiding from the competition or masking a weak design; it’s about countering the ‘Da Red Wunz Go Fasta’ mindset so prevalent in audio. Just as people form fixed ideas about the sound of a DAC based on its processor chip or make sweeping generalisations about an amplifier based on whether it’s Class A or Class D, so in audio cables, silver conductors – for example – do not necessarily sound bright. Judge the cable on its actual performance, not on the perception of its performance based on the choice of conductor.

There is a choice of terminators, however. TheRAY, in standard guise (as tested), comes with Furutech FP-601M R XLRs. The upmarket version replaces these with Furutech’s CF-601 M R XLR plugs, featuring its proprietary NCF (or Nano Crystal Formula) technology. The cables are otherwise identical.

This is a lovely-sounding cable, extremely refined and elegant. It shares many of the properties of TheRED XLR (tested in Issue 237), such as a fine sense of even-handedness. In TheRED line, the key is the balance among the three cables. The power cord brings the dynamics, the speaker cable the excitement, and the XLR acts as a diplomat. Compared with TheRED, TheRAY performs similarly in and out of a WK Audio cable system. It’s a natural-born diplomat.

Midrange out

I’ve often said that a good system works from the midrange out, and if a product gets the combination of fluidity, articulation and dynamics right in this vital section, the rest follows suit. And it’s here that TheRAY shines. That midrange is wonderfully coherent, giving each instrument its own physical and tonal ‘shape’. That’s not simply about the soundstaging but also about pure resolution terms.

If I were to sum up TheRAY in a single term, it would be ‘poise’. With good soundstaging and excellent top-to-bottom coherence, the cable is perfectly balanced and especially good with well-recorded music. However, where TheRAY shines is in not masking lesser tracks. Put on something harsh and angular, and TheRAY won’t smooth over the edginess or forwardness of the recording. But, unlike many intrinsically honest-sounding cables, it neither lays the music bare.

WK Audio’s TheRAY is arguably easier to use than TheRED. The top cable opens the window wider, making it more demanding of the components it sits between. If you want a taste of what WK Audio’s high-end cables can do, look no further than TheRAY. The best-kept secret in audio cables just keeps getting better.