Van den Hul The First ® Ultimate

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.

The basic conductor material is Linear Structured Carbon ® (LSC) The coaxial constructed The First ® Ultimate has a LSC centre conductor with 12,000 individually insulated 7 micron strands with a total diameter of 1 mm. The individual strand insulation prevents electrons to cross from fibre to fibre. The direct result is that electrons exclusively move through the 7 micron strands in one dimension. Side movements are virtually impossible. This prevents a lot of audio problems. Sonic result: a much cleaner sound reproduction.

The center core insulation
The insulation is made of polyethylene foam to achieve a low capacitance between the inner and outer group with minimal dielectric absorption. The First ® Ultimate’s outer braiding, functioning as screen and signal return, is made of 6 layers of braided LSC fibres. Together 114,000 individually insulated fibres.

The jacket The First ® Ultimate’s jacket is made of light yellow coloured Hulliflex ® with black type printing. The Hulliflex ® jacket provides a superb mechanical protection and exhibits a very high chemical stability.

The result of all this innovative work is a product without any defects. Thus far in any combination of equipment, the improvements were very clearly detectable, and this not just for experienced listeners. Also as a digital interlink, The First ® Ultimate performs unsurpassed. The typical interface induced jitter-distortion is definitively finished.

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.

The First ® Ultimate is not available on reels for do-it-yourself purposes. Customizing this cable really needs expertise.