The Silkworm+(pronounced Silkworm Plus) is a project that I've been working on for quite a while now. My goal was to design a cable offering the same level of performance as our Silkworm Special Edition but without the extreme cost of the S.E. We often have customers contacting us asking for the S.E. but once they hear the price they shudder and run(I don't blame them one bit!). With gold prices continually on the rise the S.E. just gets further and further out of reach-for most of us anyway so I've known for a while I really needed to expand on the orginal Silkworm. One important goal was to try to design and build a cable capable of retaining all the great aspects of the standard Silkworm but expand and improve on this-smooth and even more extended highs, more authority, more texture and a deeper tighter bass. I wanted it all but without the extreme cost.
We began working with our wire vendor late last year on this project and after several failures, a whole bunch of "good but not good enough" prototypes, several bloody fingers as well as a few set backs, we finally got it. Success at last-and it's a beauty! It's got more of everything and brings our Silkworm platform to a level of performance that is beyond our expectations. I'd rather not give away any proprietary secrets but I can say this; this newest cable does retain the original pure 24 karat gold Silkworm wire so you're still getting your fair dose of pure gold, BUT, this baby now has double the amount of wire as previous versions. The Silkworm+ also incorporates a new and improved larger, more pure Teflon, an improved and more robust strain relief and to top it off.....some shielding! This is not a full braided type of shield as we found that type of shield sucked the life right out of our cables, but, it is a shield and it works very well. This extra shielding really helps the Silkworm+ offer a deeper/darker back ground making for a very quiet cable.
So, in short you still get the wonderful open/airy, warm and organic signature sound of the original Silkworm, but now you get an improvement across the board; oozing with texture, smooth and extended highs, deep and tight bass, a cable with the authority this baby will make you sit up and take notice. The Silkworm+ is exactly what we were hoping for and it has managed to exceed our expectations. They are much more labor intensive and take me twice as long to build as the standard Silkworm but it's worth every minute of it. I'm tired but I'm also very proud of this cable, it's what I've been striving for for quite some time.
As a side note; if you took note of our last few auctions on Audiogon a few months back you may have seen us selling the Silkworm MK-II, this was the beginning of the Silkworm+ but now we will have the true "Plus" version for sale very soon.
