Upstairs Allnic Audio's ZL8000S speaker cable wants to correct what its designer Kang Su Park considers silver's relative weakness in the bass and on textural weight.

So he combines €5'600/3m worth of pure silver with just a bit of extra copper conductor for a mix that's physically rather heavy so likely of quite low gauge.

At €3'685 in equivalent length, Hendry's weighs even more and is still thicker.

On sartorial splendor, 'twas quite literally black and white outers, with anthracite duraluminum splitters for the Korean, carbon-effect shiny black splitters with polished stainless ends for the Balinese.

In this league of costly wires whose clients expect them to look and smell the money part, the new Vermöuth Reference checks all the boxes. Then it plays up and out its pricing advantage which only those competitors would call unfair who lack resourcefulness and imagination.

Unscrew one of Hendry's banana barrels to peek inside. All you'll see is a long solid metal sleeve which has been hexagonally crimped around his conductor. It shows no solder, screw or for that matter, conductor. This should elude eventual oxidation altogether.

Here is a basic diagram of the upstairs system followed by…

… an actual photo of it before today's speaker cable was installed.