The First ® Ultimate has been designed for high-quality (unbalanced/asymmetric) line-level audio and SPDIF digital audio connections.

With The First ® Ultimate the sonic results are so different and also so much better than found with any metal product we know of, that we think this is a complete breakthrough in cable technology.

Besides the many highly innovative technical aspects of this product, its sonic aspects are even more attractive:
Especially the lack of dynamic compression on higher signal levels, the extended low-level information and the total lack of any harshness make this cable so different from any other product known so far. For critical listeners with high demands on spatial reproduction, this is your final choice; no other product so far renders so much spatial information as The First ® Ultimate.

You will remember the day and hour of your first listening to The First ® Ultimate.

Why is The First ® Ultimate equipped with a heavier shield?
With our classic The First ® connecting to some brands of tube amplifiers in very rare occasions a slight background hum is audible. This weak hum is caused by excessive ground currents flowing through the (unbalanced) cable’s resistive shield, adding up to the audio signal. The First ® Ultimate’s heavier shield exhibits a much reduced electrical series resistance, thus minimizing the risk of experiencing hum problems.

What are these so called “ground currents”?
Due to the fact that most audio equipment in your installation is powered by the mains voltage, an unavoidable hum voltage residual is induced on all cabinets and audio grounds.

At all audio devices these residual voltages are of different magnitude (or phase) and will balance out by means of ground currents flowing through the shields of your interconnecting cables.  Generally, these ground currents are in the same order of magnitude as the audio signal currents being transferred (microAmperes); When using unbalanced interconnects they are likely to interfere, thereby reducing transparency and imaging.

What can be done?
With the Van Den Hul Polarity Checker , you can simply fine-tune your audio system to eliminate, or at least strongly reduce, these residual ground currents and thus improve your system’s performance.
In persistent hum situations one can bypass the shield of The First ® Ultimate with a metal wire, or switch to the Linear Structured Carbon ® cables: The First ® Metal Screen or The Second ® which have a metal shield of their own.

The external diameter of The First ® Ultimate is 7.8 mm., perfectly matching our C – 8.0 RCA type connector.
Available: 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 m., single packed (for digital audio interface applications (SPDIF) and stereo pair packed with our RCA type connectors.

Features

Conductor:

Carbon conductor with 12,000 individually insulated 7 micron strands for clean and refined sound reproduction.

Jacket:

Light yellow coloured Hulliflex jacket for excellent protection and durability of the interconnect.

Shielding:

Quad LSC saturated shielding for minimizing the risk of experiencing hum problems.

Purpose:

The First ® Ultimate has been designed for the highest quality (unbalanced / asymmetric) line level audio and SPDIF digital audio connections.