Innovative cables from Japan

You don’t have to reach for the stars, you can just plug them in and experience music. Sternklang cables offer an extreme calm and a downright atomically condensed image of the instruments. These sensitive and equally sensitive cables are very special in approach and result.

What the developer and founder Koji Teramura says about his innovation

The concept of star sound cables is “maximizing the rate of energy metabolism” or “minimizing the load on the cable conductor (cable wire)”. We believe that the sound quality of an audio cable is determined by the balance between the “vibration characteristics” of the conductor and the “load” acting on the surface of the conductor per unit area. The “load” is generated by the mass of the insulator and the contact pressure of the insulator on the conductor. The insulator has three tasks: it should insulate, stop the resonance of the conductor and not transmit external vibrations to the conductor. The amount of load required to stop the resonance of a conductor is proportional to the multiplication of the “modulus of elasticity” and the “mass” of the conductor. The “modulus of elasticity” is determined by the “material and cross-sectional shape” of the conductor. From our experience, we have drawn the following conclusions. Conductors that require only a “low” load to prevent resonances have a lively sound. And the attenuation of high-frequency signals with low amplitude (rich in spatial information) is reduced. Moreover, the idea of “an insulator that does not transmit external vibrations to a conductor” actually does the opposite. The cable made with this idea actually traps the energy of the external vibration into the cable and attenuates the music. Our cable therefore eliminates the idea of the “insulator that does not transmit external vibration to a conductor”. The conductor of the Ephemera series is a copper foil with a thickness of 0.035 mm and a width of 7 mm. Compared to round wires with the same cross-section, it has eight times the surface area and extremely low elasticity. Therefore, the load per unit area required to stop the conductor’s resonance is 1/8 or less of the round wire. The Sarume series introduced the concept of ephemera into a coaxial geometry that is resistant to noise and challenges the frontier of “energy metabolism” as a cable that uses a round strand. For the conductor, an alloy of silver and gold with low elasticity is used. It seems to us that a strand of an audio cable is not a solid body, but a living organism in which numerous cells breathe. Each cell has its own vibration-damping function and they all work together. The numerous cells should therefore not be suffocated with insulators.

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Experience in our own test system and those of our customers confirms these statements of Koji Teramura in practice. The calm in the sound image is exemplary, which makes a wonderfully tangible, plastic spatial representation possible. If you do not know this peace, the thought immediately overtakes you that something is missing. But this assumption is a self-explanatory mistake if you have heard some recordings with different size representations. Nothing is missing here, except for a previously existing noise carpet, which often makes the sound look artificially “inflated”. Much more important, however, is to be able to experience the emotions and musicality of the pieces of music more intensively than was perhaps possible so far. The silence in the signal – less noise – clears the way for the fine information and allows us to dive much deeper into what is happening. Music is to be experienced emotionally, not through the mind. Sternklang simply opens up new possibilities here.

Both cable series – Sarume and Ephemera – have currently outgrown the status of secret tip. It is safe to say that these cables offer the best value for money on the entire market. Whether they are the possibly valid cables for you, you should try. But be careful… Addictive factor.

The Sarume model is the smaller of the two series. Here, the technology of the Ephemera series is transferred into a coaxial structure. The first choice for a phono connection to protect the fine signal currents from external influences.

These cables are available as: Analog RCA or XLR, Phono RCA and/or miniDIN, Digital SPDIF

No shielding, no contact pressure on the signal conductor. With this cable, the signal is not affected, which you understand immediately when you hear the first bars of music. The complete setup is designed in such a way that there is no reduction of energy in the music. Care was also taken to ensure that the copper conductor does not tend to oscillate, which does not cause disharmonious overtones. Pure music, in all its colourfulness. Full of life, music it in its purest form.

These cables are available as: Speaker cable with banana or bare gold-plated ends, analog RCA or XLR, Digital SPDIF