Foundation XL Headphone Cable

Benefitting from learnings upon the development of Synergistic Research's flagship SRX XL cable line, their new Foundation XL headphone cables deliver notably improved performance above the Foundation SX series and continue to be offered at attractive price points. While the line as a whole can be thought of as an evolution from the Foundation SX, the cable has been rethought holistically, applying the same improvements Synergistic has made to their new flagship SRX XL cable series.

For each cable type, they've doubled the 6N pure silver Air Strings to portray music with more immediacy and resolution, improving upon dynamics and transient response in a completely non-fatiguing way. They apply the same SRX XL UEF compound as described above to improve shielding. And finally, the cables are run through the same SRX XL High Voltage Conditioning treatment that are used for their flagship SRX XL cables.

With Foundation XL headphone cables, you’ll notice improved dynamics and a more natural timbre, all with a reduction in noise floor that reveals inner detail and holographic realism through your headphones that you simply have to hear to believe.

UEF Matrix Shield with Graphene - SRX XL Matrix Shielding
In Synergistic's journey to design their latest flagship SRX XL series, they developed an entirely new UEF compound to elevate the performance of their previous Matrix Shielding, which further lowers each cable’s noise floor while lessening restraints a shield may have on signal transmission. Synergistic applies this highest level of SRX XL Matrix Shielding to their new Foundation XL cables for a significant jump in performance over the previous generation Foundation SX. For headphone listening, where the drivers sit mere millimeters from your ears, this dramatically lower noise floor is immediately apparent — revealing micro-dynamics, ambient detail, and spatial cues that lesser cables simply obscure. Carbon Fiber UEF Tuning Discs developed for the Foundation SX and Foundation XL series cables further refines and enhances the cable’s ability to cancel noise that would otherwise cause high frequencies to sound harsh or fatiguing.

Enhanced Cable Geometries - 6N Pure Silver Airstrings, Multiplied
While voicing the Foundation XL, Synergistic found that doubling the 99.9995% Pure Silver Airstrings resulted in cables that are faster and more resolving, adding texture and body while improving dynamics and transient response without adding fatigue. Applied to their headphone cable, these doubled geometries deliver an immediacy and presence to vocals, acoustic instruments, and complex passages that brings your headphone listening closer to the experience of sitting in front of a world-class loudspeaker system.

Quantum Tunneling - SRX XL High Voltage Conditioning
The new SRX XL High Voltage Conditioning is Synergistic's most advanced process for treating cables with 1,000,000 volts of electricity at specific frequencies and pulse modulations for long durations, creating a canal in the conductor material and contact points at the molecular level that allows electrons to flow more freely. This new process improves upon the SRX High Voltage Conditioning process by employing new extended duration sweeping frequency plots and advancements to their Tesla Coil, resulting in SRX XL cables to sound even more open and accurate than the cables before them. For Foundation XL, they utilize this exact conditioning process, which they found to contribute to the large performance improvement in this series, bringing the voicing of the Foundation XL closer to that of the SRX XL.

Included Carbon Tuning Discs - Tune to Perfection
Included with Foundation XL cables, Carbon Tuning Discs are a spinoff of Synergistic's new Atmosphere SX Loom where they are placed inside cables at key locations and are instrumental in creating the SX sound. Based on their patented UEF technology, each disc gets treated with a unique UEF compound that interacts with EM fields wherever you place them in your system or on cables to improve sound quality. The conductive carbon fiber material of the disc enhances the interaction between the UEF compound and the surrounding EM fields where it is placed.  

• Gold - Carbon Tuning Discs flesh out rich harmonics combined with a clarifying effect in the sound field for a more lifelike and holographic presentation. 
• Purple - Carbon Tuning Discs get treated with a UEF compound that enhances clarity and extension in the soundstage even beyond Gold.

• 8 each Silver Air String:
• Silver Air Strings: 99.9999% pure monocrystalline silver conductor
• 8 separate conductors
• Air sealed / Teflon Dielectric
• Shielding: Silver Braid -Quantum Tunneled
• SRX XL UEF Matrix Shield with Graphene

Source Connectors:

• Neutrik 4 PIN XLR
• 3.5mm with 6.35mm (1/4″) adapter
• Dual 3 PIN XLR

Destination Connectors:

• 2 Pin Lemo (Focal Utopia)
• 3 Pin Lemo
• MMCX (Pioneer SR-Master1; Shure SRH1540 and SRH1840)
• Sennheiser Push-Pull (Sennheiser HD820, HD800S, and HD800)
• Sennheiser 2 Pin (Sennheiser HD650, HD600, HDXX)
• Mr. Speakers 4 Pin Hirose (MrSpeakers: Aeon, Ether 2, Ether 2 Closed, Flow, Flow Closed)
• 4 Pin Mini XLR (Audeze LCD4, 3, 2, X, XC; Meze Empyrean; ZMF Atticus, ZMF Eikon)
• 3 Pin Mini XLR
• 2.5mm Mono (Hifiman Old Styles)
• 3.5mm Mono
• 3.5mm Stereo (Hifiman current: Ananda, Susvara, HE1000, HE400i, HE500, HE6 and HE650)
• 8 Contact
• SMC
• TRRS (2.5mm and 3.5mm)

Always confirm your connections with your headphone manufacturer. Additional connections may be available upon request.

• 8 point-to-point hand soldered connections
• SRX XL Matrix Shielding: UEF coating with Graphene is applied directly to connectors significantly reducing the noise floor and allowing a purer signal to transfer with less grain providing more warmth and detail
• Silver Solder: 4%
• Hand build time: 2 hours
• SRX XL Quantum Tunneling: After the cable is completely assembled all connections and cabling are treated with 1,000,000 volts of electricity at specific frequencies and pulse modulations, creating a canal in the conductor material and contact points at the molecular level that allows electrons to flow more freely. This allows the maximum amount of low level information through the conductors and provides for the highest amount of realism in your music
• Secondary UEF Blue Treatment originally developed for SR Blue Fuses
• 5 day Burn-in: 2 step process
• Hand crafted in Synergistic Research's California factory