Products | Pricing | Reviews | Feedback | Beta-Test | Tech. Notes | Contact Us

ŚAKRA

•  Amorphous conductive media (wire) - which is perfectly homogeneous, grain-less – i.e. identical in all directions, since it has no crystal structure at all;

•  Ultra thin wire: 0.001” (one-thousands of an inch) thick. Very thin wire is important for:

  ·  minimizing skin effect (no harshness in the upper midrange and treble);

  ·  minimizing time-domain errors (necessary for the clean, well defined bass, and perfect imaging);

  ·  in realistic cable dimensions, allows the use of the STEALTH proprietary distributed LITZ geometry**:

•  Proprietary non-resonant cable geometry: STEALTH multicore distributed LITZ**:

  ·  Individually insulated strands (to eliminate direct electrical contact, i.e. galvanic interaction between strands – otherwise the multiple bare strands behave like a single thicker wire)

  ·  Non-inductive bifilar winding  -  the advantage of the STEALTH multicore geometry.

  ·  Electrical resonance control:  the advantage of the STEALTH distributed LITZ geometry.

  ·  Mechanical resonance control: dielectric and jacketing mechanical properties: optimized density and damping. Too much damping usually sterilizes and deadens the sound, while too little damping is even worse because of excessive “ringing” (unwanted uncontrolled resonances). 

   

• Characteristic impedance control: optimized relationships among capacitance, inductance and DC resistance: the ŚAKRA characteristic impedance and its resonant behavior (“Q” at RF frequencies) are different from any machine-made cable. 

•  Ultra low energy storage dielectric: STEALTH para-vacuum*** (Helium gas) + porous - i.e. foam-like Teflon. The Helium dielectric, combined with the multicore geometry, are the MAIN technical advantages of the Śakra, compare to the Indra. Porous Teflon has the lowest dielectric constant of all solid and semi-solid materials. Low dielectric constant = low energy storage = low distortion = fast sound. Helium gas dielectric properties is much better than even porous Teflon, better than air, and better than realistic (commercial) vacuum.

• Proprietary STEALTH connectors: custom and highly advanced; very low overall mass, solid silver contacts, machined ultra-modified PTFE (Teflon®) dielectric, Kevlar composite frame, Carbon Fiber/Titanium shells.

•  Advanced termination technique (high pressure crimping = cold weld) – a direct contact = seamless transition between the wire and the contact – no intermediate agent (solder) involved;  

CONNECTING THE SAKRA CABLES WITH RCA

When connecting the Śakra cables with the STEALTH RCA connectors to equipment, please remember that you need to apply a significant axial force to make sure the Indra connectors go all the way onto the RCA females (on the back of an equipment piece). When you insert these connectors, the feel is like forcing a knife through a cold chunk of butter: it goes slowly and smoothly, but with significant resistance. Please be patient to overcome this resistance and DO insert the connectors all the way (deep) onto the RCA females. This usually requires either approaching your equipment rack from behind, or partially removing a component from a rack - to have a clear access to its back panel to insert the connectors using the axial force (along the connector's axle, along the cable).

 The internal part of the connector is made of Teflon, and the internal diameter of the Teflon cylinder is slightly smaller than the RCA female diameter. When the connector is fist connected, the Teflon cylinder expands to reach the internal part of the titanium housing (the outer titanium ring on the connector). Once connected, the connector sits very tight on the RCA female, and the three solid silver strips, that make the actual contact, are pressed to the RCA female outer part. If the RCA female was cleaned right before inserting the Indra into it (with a contact cleaner or with simply rubbing (isopropyl alcohol), the connection between these trips and the RCA female is very firm, close to air tight, so it doesn't oxidize or deteriorate with time. 

PRICING

Suggested retail price for a 1 meter RCA-terminated Śakra pair is $10,000 ($6,500 for each extra meter).

Suggested retail price for a 1 meter balanced XLR Śakra pair is $13,000 ($8,500 for each extra meter).

* "Śakra, lord of the devas, is used as an epithet of Indra ("powerful") - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakka
In Buddhist texts Śakra is the proper name and not an epithet of this deity; conversely, Indra in Sankrit is sometimes used as an epithet for Śakra as "lord".   

** STEALTH Distributed LITZ geometry: while similar to the bifilar winding, it’s not exactly that: the cable is multi-layered; wires are individually insulated and gently spiraled to run in opposite directions in layers which are next to each other; the spiral diameter and the pitch is different for each layer, i.e. for each individual wire. Thus, the wires inside a cable are separated by the far greater distance compare to their diameter, no wires run in parallel to each other, and no regular pattern is repeated throughout the cable. The distributed LITZ geometry offers significant reduction of electromagnetic interaction between strands of wire;  both capacitive and inductive coupling are greatly reduced. The electrical resonances in distributed LITZ are considerably less pronounced than in any conventional geometry. This dramatically reduces RF resonance-related intermodulation distortion (one of the main distortion types in cables). The Sakra’s multicore Distributed LITZ offers yet improved performance versus the Indra’s single-core Distributed LITZ.

*** STEALTH para-vacuum tube is a hermetically sealed flexible tube filled with Helium. This gas is approximately 15 times lighter than air, and therefore its energy storage properties are extremely good: about equal to that of a 15-fold vacuum. The dielectric properties of Helium are actually better than any realistic vacuum: Helium is inert and has no ozone or other ionized molecules, and therefore there is absolutely no electrical leakage of any kind inside these Helium filled tubes. Being surrounded by the inert Helium, the wires will never oxidize or deteriorate. Any “vacuum” cable would inevitably lose vacuum with time and thus would need periodical servicing to maintain its performance. This is NOT the case with the Sakra: the Helium pressure inside the tubes is exactly the same as the atmospheric air pressure, and thus there is nothing to force our Helium to leak out of the tubes it’s in. The tubes filled with Helium do not have to be rigid, they are flexible, which makes the Sakra cables robust, user-friendly, easy to install and live with.