Wireworld Chroma 7 USB Cable Review — What Sold Me Was the Musicality

【Audio USB Cable Comparison】
1｜2｜OYAYDE ｜4｜ELECOM｜6 Models｜SUPRA

The Wireworld Chroma series is the entry-level, bottom-of-the-range model in the five-line USB cable lineup from Wireworld, a long-established audio cable manufacturer based in Florida, USA.

Rather than the usual bare transparent blister pack, the outer box is a boxed blister pack — quite smart, actually. British and American accessory makers have a habit of putting audio cables costing several hundred dollars or pounds into bare hanging blister packs, so this is a pleasant surprise. And inside, alongside French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and German, there is Japanese text printed on it too — though the Japanese is, shall we say, a little questionable.

The bright yellow conductors give it a novelty-item feel rather than a luxury one, though the black plastic plugs look and feel solid enough. The USB connector fit is on the loose side. Being a flat ribbon-type cable, it doesn’t bend laterally, but it is not as stiff as some high-end USB cables of this kind, so it flexes fairly easily — which makes routing straightforward even in a desktop PC audio setup where rear clearance is tight.

What drew me to the Wireworld Chroma in the first place — not the most popular cable, it has to be said — was that while I was looking for a decent-quality USB cable at entry-level price, I came across Ippinkan’s sound quality comparison test of Wireworld Series 6/7 USB cables, where it received a strong recommendation. The clincher was this line from the summary: “In the entry price bracket under ¥10,000/1m, the Wireworld Chroma 7 seemed to edge ahead of the AudioQuest Forest and Cinnamon in terms of sound quality.” Among entry-level imported USB cables, the green AudioQuest Forest and its successor the Forest 2 tend to be the most popular, but AudioQuest’s conductors are rather stiff, which makes them awkward to use in a compact desktop setup where rear clearance is around 7cm or so.

And if the Chroma 7 is better overall than the higher-ranking red Cinnamon — well, there’s really no choice but to try it.

Wireworld Chroma 7 Sound Quality Review

Let’s get straight into the sound quality review of the Wireworld Chroma 7. This is a natural, warm tone that sets itself clearly apart from the hi-res-flavoured, hyped-up sound that is so common these days. For a USB cable, it has a strong grip on the sound — bright, warm, and sweet. The music flows smoothly and naturally. The temporal flow of the music has a lively, centripetal quality, and the musicality is genuinely high. Resolution is on the relaxed side for a high-end USB cable. There are no peaky moments anywhere, so even at high volumes you can listen for long stretches without fatigue. The high frequencies roll off softly and smoothly, pleasant on the ear. The full-bodied midrange is pushed forward and brought close. Image size is life-sized to somewhat large. The dynamic range as perceived is wide, though the extension upward falls a little short — a shame. The lower midrange has plenty of resonance, organic warmth, and body, so I think it would suit those who are willing to sacrifice a little in the high frequencies in favour of a solid sense of presence in the mid-to-bass region. This is Wireworld’s distinctive sound — lavishly sculpted — and, for better or worse, it feels like the complete opposite of a flat, neutral presentation.

More than anything, it has a thick, rich atmosphere — an unmistakably, almost laughably traditional American sound, and the soundstage takes on the unmistakeable air of small-town America. To put it less kindly, it’s like a voluptuous but somewhat heavy American girl who’s a bit short on refinement in various departments (whatever that means). If American jazz, country music, or American rock and pop are your main repertoire, you could almost stop looking at anything other than Wireworld — the atmosphere is spot on. For classical music… well, it suits American performers, let’s put it that way.

This next bit is strictly for those of us who see sound as colour — I find myself wanting to replace it with one of the silver-coated upper models, both to push the high frequencies a little further and to strip away the character of the unplated copper conductors that clings to the sound (that is, once you know what silver wire sounds like). It’s a yellow ribbon cable, and the sound is indeed bright, but whether I’d actually call it yellow… hmm… perhaps a Starbucks latte piled high with cream? The chroma — the saturation — is high, or rather rich. It’s musical, but fundamentally it has a leisurely, unhurried quality.

There will of course be a question of cultural taste as to whether this sound suits you or not, but the musicality that is so characteristic of Wireworld is genuinely appealing — the breath of life that a performer puts into their playing comes through intact, without being suppressed. The drawbacks, if I’m being honest, are the limited information retrieval that seems deliberately calibrated to differentiate it from higher models, and the degree of colouration, which from a Hi-Fi standpoint does leave an impression of this being a low-end model. That said, there’s no question that having the Chroma to hand means you can simply enjoy the music without a second thought. It doesn’t come anywhere near the hi-res-like resolution and beauty in the high frequencies of the ELECOM DH-AB10/DH-AB20 I reviewed recently, and it’s not really suited to hi-res sources that reward analytical listening — but for music lovers who want to listen to “music” rather than “sound”, I think a USB cable like this one is the path to greater happiness. However high the resolution, however many notes, there are plenty of landmine cables out there that fail to make music come alive as music — and produce nothing but dull, lifeless sound.

Above the Chroma sit the purple Ultraviolet 7 and the red Starlight 7. The Ultraviolet 5 (two generations back) earned five stars from What Hi-Fi in the UK. According to Ippinkan’s assessment, however, while the Ultraviolet 7 improves on the Chroma 7 in sound quality, it loses something in musicality. The Starlight 7 won an award in the 2014 Audio Accessories Best Products issue and took a gold prize at the 2015 Home Theatre Grand Prix. Personally, I’d love to upgrade to the silver-coated Starlight 7 as soon as possible — though perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.

Further up the range there are the Silver Starlight 7 with its different construction and the Platinum Starlight 7 with its solid silver conductors, but the prices start to feel steep for a modest desktop PC audio system totalling under ¥100,000. That said, if you have a reasonably serious budget for PC audio — a proper living room system with a wide, expansive soundstage, or a dedicated listening room — I for one would unhesitatingly choose the Silver Starlight 7 or above. ※ Once you can read the sonic ceiling of the Chroma’s design through to the same-construction Starlight, to some extent…

What I wanted this time was a single cable to serve as a musicality benchmark for PC audio — the central USB cable — even if sound quality itself was something of a secondary concern. That was the real reason I chose the Chroma. (Among sub-¥10,000 models that score highly on both sound quality and musicality, I already have the short SUPRA USB 2.0, so I went in fully accepting that this would be a step down in quality.) If I can’t enjoy the music while listening through my PC on a daily basis, I lose all motivation to keep pushing my PC audio setup forward.

Finding a USB audio cable that surpasses the Wireworld Chroma in outright sound quality — including from within the Wireworld range itself — shouldn’t be too difficult, but narrow that down to cables that are also musically satisfying, and the options start to thin out. If I splash out on something expensive and it turns out to lack musicality, the sadness would be enough to make my heart seize up entirely — so for now, the Chroma stays close at hand as a safe harbour. If things get confusing mid-experiment, I’ll come back to the Chroma. That’s the kind of role it plays for me: the Wireworld Chroma looks set to become my home sweet home in PC audio.

【Audio USB Cable Comparison】
1｜2｜OYAYDE ｜4｜ELECOM｜6 Models｜SUPRA