“The Project V1 Series represents the pinnacle of Furutech’s engineering efforts in high-end audio cabling and power cords,” writes Neil Gader in US audio magazine The Absolute Sound. It’s a bold claim, but one he backs with detailed listening impressions across genres. Spoiler alert: this “might be the last stop on your cable and power cord journey”!

Based in Tokyo, Japan, Furutech creates a wide range of high-end audio cables and accessories crafted for the discerning listener who longs to hear every last detail of their beloved music collection. The ‘Project’ flagship series of cables has been in the pipeline for some time, but the full rollout of the entire series has only recently been completed.

All of the cables in the series feature Furutech’s proprietary antistatic, anti-resonance Nano Crystal Formula (NCF): a crystalline material that’s combined with nano-sized ceramic particles and carbon powder to yield high electrical and mechanical damping properties.

Gader first encountered the line through the Project V1 power cords, which immediately signalled the company’s intentions and set the bar suitably high.

“Project V1 produced a neutral and forthright tonal balance, top to bottom… Transients registered as lightning quick, and the bass was nicely controlled, extended, and precise in pitch,” he writes, after beginning his auditions with the classical genre. Gader repeatedly returns to the sense of stillness the cables create – “a foundation of dark stillness, a placidity deep beneath the music” – which allows spatial cues and micro‑dynamics to emerge with unusual clarity. Orchestral images “just popped three‑dimensionally,” with no tonal skew towards warmth or coolness.

The cables proved equally revealing with rock and metal. On Metallica’s Black Album, Gader notes that “guitar distortion and feedback have never sounded so carefully balanced and wickedly textural,” with bass response “gates of Hell deep” and cymbal transients that “spit fire and dynamic snap.”

He frames the V1’s contribution not as colouration but as revelation: “The best cabling reveals itself in odd ways… widen the stage, tease out the finest low-level details, refine timbre and textures, and expand the dynamic envelope.”

Equally impressive was what the cables didn’t do. “Neither haze, congestion, nor edginess,” he writes, describing backgrounds “where the sense of hall acoustics, boundaries, and pressurization is always actively alive and present even if only at a subliminal level”. On Sketches of Spain, even the “tiniest musical cues and transients… were hypnotizing.”

A final, peak ”aha” moment came when Gader paired the Project V1 Series with MBL’s compact “but dynamically fearless” 126, the smallest omnidirectional loudspeaker in the German brand’s esteemed Radialstrahler line. “This matchup was synergistic in its musicality. Easy and effortless and smooth to the point of sounding friction-free… the carbon-fiber midrange and tweeter seemed to luxuriate in the signal flow that the VL-S was offering.”

“The sense of realism touched my emotions in ways that rarely occur in the world of critical listening. I began cueing up one reference recording after another…”

Some time later, after extensive listening – both critical and emotional, Gader concludes that the Project V1 Series “is an undeniable accomplishment”.

“Part of me wants to call these the best cables I’ve heard, but I hesitate to take that leap,” he writes – hesitating only because he hasn’t heard every single cable in every single system, so “it’s difficult to make a blanket judgment”.

Still, Gader doesn’t mince his parting words: “For most of us, and I include myself, Project V1 might be the last stop on your cable and power cord journey, the final destination. Yes, it’s a pricey ticket, but perhaps it’s time to throw caution to the wind. This is one helluva ride.”

Read Gader’s review in full in the January 2026 issue of The Absolute Sound.

Discover more about Furutech’s V1 Series at https://furutech.com and locate your nearest specialist retailer via UK distributor www.soundfowndations.co.uk