Toxic Cables Black Widow XL Review

In this article we review the Black Widow XL ear- and headphone cable by the British Toxic Cables. The Black Widow XL for IEMs starts at £325.

Disclaimer: Toxic Cables supplied the Black Widow XL free of charge for this review. No incentive was given for a positive evaluation.

Toxic Cables

Not much can be found on Toxic Cables’ website about their history. But from what I could gather, they have been around since at least 2011. Soon after the Head-Fi impressions thread was started. A place where people have been raving about the quality of Toxic’s products.

Toxic Cables is a British one-man manufacturer of high quality earphone and headphone cables. They produce a wide range of cables that go from £ 115 all the way up to a whopping £ 2,695. In between are a lot of options for discerned audiophiles looking to squeeze out the last drops of audio performance.

Here is what Toxic Cables say about their products:

Be warned these cables have a high audio toxicity and people are known to suffer from loss of productivity due to the increased enjoyment of their audio from my cables.

The manufacturers (me, myself and I) take no responsibility for staring off into the distance for prolonged periods of time or the missing of public transport. My cables will poison your very soul with the need to have better audio I should probably apologize for this, but since I am likewise afflicted, tough.

I have made a selection of cables using the best components to bring your music to your ears. I love good audio and hope you too will join me in audio nirvana with Toxic Cables.

Toxic Cables has a selection of 15 different cables. And in today’s review we will be taking a close-up look at their all new Black Widow XL, which can be bought as headphone or earphone cable.

Black Widow XL (BWXL)

The Black Widow XL is a full copper cable and the XL iteration of their highly popular Black Widow. Within their range of cables, the BWXL sits comfortably in the middle section.
The BWXL is a 17 AWG sized coaxial cable. So yeah, it is a big boy and among my selection of cables, definitely the heftiest of all. None other cable that I have at my disposal is coming close to the size and thickness of the BWXL.

When you order a Black Widow XL from Toxic Cables you can pick between an array of different earphone or headphone connectors and a very wide range of terminations. You can customize your order completely to your needs and that’s what it is all about. A product that is 100% suited to what you desire.

Toxic Cables also offers an option to change earphone connectors – they call that “Multi”. These are multi connectors, where you can switch from 2-pin to MMCX or other connectors by simply unplugging the connector from the housing and fixing a screw. We have seen a similar interchangeable connector from other manufacturers in the past and I am glad Toxic also offers this choice of flexibility.

I received two sets of Black Widow XL cables. One for my C/IEMs using a standard 2-pin connector with a termination to 4.4mm. The other is for my Hifiman HE-1000se headphone, using 3.5mm plugs at the headphone’s end as well as a 4.4mm balanced termination.

The headphone cable comes as a four-wire version and doubles down in size compared to the earphone version. This of course adds weight, but with headphones you don’t feel it that much luckily.

The IEM Black Widow XL retails for £ 325 while the headphone version costs £ 645 and can be bought through Toxic’s webshop or one of their local dealers around the globe.

According to Toxic’s website, the current build time is 14 weeks from the time of order. Remember, it is a one-man operation.

The review continues on page two!