Skuld Series

The Skuld Series benefits in a number of factors. First it gives a level of transparency unachieved with your typical single conductor design. Granted, a large part of this transparency is from utilizing Cryo OCC and Fine Stranded Litz. However with the Skuld it is also due to there being less strand level interaction with our quad and tri multiconductor geometry. The strands that would normally be a part of the same conductor are now in their own separated conductor until joined at the termination point. Besides this primary reason for creation it happens to also result in some other excellent physical benefits for headphone cables. The tri and quad multiconductor geomoetry results in bringing some of the lowest possible microphonics of any polymer based dielectric design while also giving a nice increase to flexibility, something always much desired for polymer based design.

The Skuld Series has a much more complex and longer build than the standard single conductor geometry headphone cables. However, this complexity and longer build time results in a cable that squeezes some of the topmost neutrality possible with Cryo OCC fine stranded Litz based design, or any cable that we have tested for that matter.

Ultimately, the Skuld Series is for the enthusiast that seeks absolutely untouched and uncolored sound from their system. We offer our 30-day money back as well as 60-day trade in policies to help prove our point.

 

In summary the Skuld brings:

- Top level transparency possible for stranded conductor designs.
- Fine Stranded Litz, perfectly annealed and manufactured by the best in the industry.
- Purest Cryo Treated OCC Cu for 103% IACS conductivity and the least impurities possible in any metal on earth.
- Less Strand interaction than your common single conductor geometries resulting in improved neutrality.
- Lowest microphonics possible for a polymer dielectric headphone cable.
- Extremely flexible (benefit of the design) and very light weight.
- Zero oxidizing due to each strand being individually insulated (Fine Stranded Litz).
- Absolutely Zero Skin Effect issues in this cable.

 

The Skuld Series Cryo LITZ OCC headphone cable is available in the following configurations:

(1) Skuld 4 (24awg x 4, 16 total wires)

(2) Skuld 8 (25awg x 8, 24 total wires) - current series flagship

Both are available in Dark Grey, Brown or a Hybrid of the two colors.

 

Both the Skuld 4 and the Skuld 8 utilize our nice and compact smaller wood splitters. Each splitter is handcrafted to precision in the USA and has the option of being laser engraved by one of the top engravers in the country.

Splitters are available with the following options: Caribbean Rosewood, Zebrano (LCD-3 matching), Makassar Ebony or Wenge.

You can have us use the laser engraved or non-engraved splitter for your cable.

 

Norse Audio was the first to bring this unique quad and tri multiconductor braid combined with Cryo treated OCC and fine stranded LITZ design for headphone cables. Anyone offering this unique multiconductor geometry in Audeze, Sennheiser and Hifiman headphone cables has followed our lead. Further, anyone offering OCC Litz in headphone cables in general has also followed our lead. We put all of our R&D and focus on OCC and Litz as we recognized the amazing capabilities of this combination very early on. We will continue to bring the top OCC Litz designs, and what we test as the top design, well into the future.  
 

 

 

What is Litz and why is it the best choice?

Being that the term Litz has been casually wielded over the years for simply braiding of a few large conductors (technically the wrong usage of the term), we will first provide the true definition of the Litz.

Litz Wire is defined as:

"Wire consisting of a number of separately fine insulated strands woven together so each strand successively takes up all possible positions in the cross section of the entire conductor, to reduce skin effect and thereby reduce radio-frequency resistance."

True litz wire will typically have a larger amount of very fine insulated strands twisted in complex and specific patterns. Litz wire was actually invented primarily for use in transformer windings where high frequency resistance greatly increases due to skin effect or proximity effect issues. Skin and proximity effect issues are fundamental problems one must defeat in designing the absolute best conductor.  Complex lay litz wire defeats these issues, and was created to defeat these issues.

There currently is nothing superior to litz when it comes to defeating skin effect and proximity effect in larger gauges along with defeating degredation of conductivity over time. All other non-litz designs will have potential issues for corrosion and reduced conductivity over time in ones system. Due to the ultra thin coating on each of our very fine up-occ strands, conductivity will be stable for the lifetime of the cable. This is something unique to fine stranded litz based cables.

 

Why is Up-occ the best?

Used throughout the high end audio industry in most flagship cable products, up-occ provides the superior quality copper and silver possible today. OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) is the name given to the casting process developed to help defeat annealing issues and virtually eliminate all grain boundaries in copper or silver with a unique patented process. The OCC casting method uses specialized heated moulds in order to draw a single crystal up to 125 meters in length. With only a single crystal in very long lengths, there is an unimpeded free path for the best possible signal transfer. Along with this superior single long crystal structure, OCC provides copper and silver with the least possible oxides and other impurities. UP-OCC is the name given by Neotech for their OCC manufactured wire, with the "UP" standing for Ultra Pure. All of our wire is manufactured by Neotech, absolutely one of top and most experienced manufacturers in the industry.

In high contrast to OCC, there are other lower grade coppers such as ETP and OFC with a multitude of grain boundaries and other impurities. ETP (Electrolytic Tough Pitch), aka. TPC (Tought Pitch) aka. CDA110 actually has around 1400 crystal boundaries per foot with oxygen content at around 235 ppm. ETP is the most common copper available today (known simply as electrical grade). OFC (Oxygen Free Copper) has around 400 crystals per foot and despite its name has an oxygen content of about 10 ppm. Having less oxygen content and less overall impurities compared to ETP, OFC has been popular in more mid level audio cables. Regardless, both ETP and OFC have a plethora of grain boundaries per foot that the signal must route around and pass. OCC delivers the solution that eliminates all of these issues plauging ETP and OFC based coppers.



  The question ultimately comes down to the following: Would you rather have your signal flow in a path with many cracks, bumps and obstacles in the way (OFC/ETP) or flow along a completely unimpeded free path with the lowest possible impurities (OCC). From our view the choice is simple, and the bottom line is most top cable designs utilize OCC as it gives the absolute purest base platform to get that much closer to true neutrality. It is certainly worth the extra cost for our cables as we cannot deny the resulting clear sonic benefit.

 

 

 

OCC vs. ETP


 

Connectors