Ecosse The NeoLegend SE Ultima Interconnect
The Ecosse research and development team, realising the need for an interconnect offering conductor materials with even faster transmission speeds than grain-free Monocrystal™ Copper – whilst absolutely maintaining its purity, clarity and sheer brilliance – introduce...
Legend Diagram...‘The Legend SE Mk II’ Ultra-Pure Monocrystal™ Silver Interconnect. ‘The Legend’ is their ‘statement interconnect, yet imposes no statement of its own. Its a HIFI News Magazine, Best of the Best, Interconnect of the year!
Monocrystal™ Pure Silver is Ecosse's pioneering commitment to conductor material development ensuring, uniquely, a complete lack of 'grain-boundaries' in the signal transmission direction - impurities which would normally impede the delicate audio or video signals and result in attenuation and distortion.
Here, a unique casting process (extrusion and annealing in an inert gas environment) is employed to produce a 'mono' or single crystal ultra-pure wire with significant advantages over other cables currently available. These other cables use ordinary silver, which, no matter how few grains the manufacturer claims, have a grain barrier of oxygen and hydrogen and in some cases, a high level of metallic impurities.
Monocrystal™ patented silver cables are technically unsurpassed for their quality and their ability to transmit audio and video of the highest quality with minimal distortion and attenuation from grain boundaries - because there are virtually no boundaries!
Utilising Monocrystal™ silver solidcore conductors of 7N purity, probably the best conductor available at room temperature, this interconnect undoubtedly defines the ‘state-of-the-art’ at its price.
Superior Performance:-
The performance of the latest, Mk II version of ‘The Legend Interconnect’ has been even further improved by the use of high grade Teflon™ (PTFE) as the dielectric. This precision extrusion over the pure Monocrystal™ Silver conductors affords even less energy storage/loss compared to our already stunning Mk 1 version.
The really clever bit is the incorporation of the layer of Vibrakill™ Neoprene™ jacket sandwiched between the outer screen and the soft PVC jacket. This is a constrained layer that effectively absorbs vibration rendering any microphonic effects insignificant. This results in a perfectly clean signal transmission devoid of any ‘smearing’
Together with improved internal damping, revised termination methodology and quality control, this cable’s performance sets new standards in analog signal transmission.
This interconnect, due to its construction, is directional and an arrow on the sheath indicates appropriate direction. ‘The Legend’ is equally suited to both single-ended and balanced equipment. When wired ‘pseudo-balanced’ or single-ended, we use Ecosse’s patented Mach 3 Ultima, non-compressing, constant impedance RCA plugs. The screen is connected at source end only to drain unwanted noise (RFI). This state-of-the-art RCA plug has direct silver-plated Monocrystal™ copper contacts, where both the signal centre pin and the return terminals (shells) are, uniquely, deep silver-plated Monocrystal™ Copper. The massive, tarnish-resistant silver-plated copper alloy body, with twin gold-plated high tensile fixing screws, clamps this – now double shielded – assembly uniformly and without stress.
Where there is a requirement for balanced equipment, ‘The Legend’ is fitted with our state-of-the-art Mach3 Ultima Monocrystal™ XLR plugs. These aluminium alloy bodied plugs, with silver-plated Monocrystal™ copper pins and solder pads, are quite simply the finest XLR plugs on the world market and make a significant contribution to sound quality.
The Ultimate Termination Technology:-
The terminations at the ends of cables are part of the transmission path and therefore vital to it. They must not impede the delicate audio signal as inappropriate termination on a digital cable changes the so called characteristic impudence (and other electrical attributes) of the cable. The can be severely compromised by poor, compressing RCA plugs that grip the cable with a grub screw or a collett action. The cable loses its integrity and the impedance can drop to somewhere in the region of 35 Ohms resulting in reflections and a deletions.
To maintain the quality of the all-important interface between interconnect and component, and compatibility between wire material and plug, Ecosse has developed our unique and ULTIMATE non-compressing constant impedance MACH3Ag ULTIMA RCA plug.
This high quality RCA plug consists of a centre pin and conjugate bracket shield* which together offer going and return paths for the audio signal. To maintain continuity and optimum conductivity, these contact points are made from Monocrystal™ copper - same as the conductor wire itself- which are then direct hard silver plated. (others use 'flash-gold' OFC plating which is a very thin coating that wears away very quickly and soon looks tarnished!).
The plug casing is precision machined from highest quality copper alloy and is deep-plated. This thick casing offers further shielding - effectively a second 'Faraday Cage' - and reduces the ingress and radiation of EMI, ESI and RFI 'noise' even further, to virtually zero. The interface of shield* and casing is one of high mechanical impedance, dissipating energy and rendering microphonic effects negligible.
The full assembly represents Ecosse's Audiophile Grade RCA termination for smaller diameter cables and we believe the Ecosse MACH3Ag ULTIMA RCA to be the best available price wise, electrically, mechanically and aesthetically - anywhere!