Black Cat Cable's Graceline III Wagner Opens at $3,995 a Metre — an All-Copper Range Alongside the Hybrid Mezame

Black Cat Cable has unveiled the Graceline III Wagner, an all-copper interconnect and speaker cable range that joins the existing Graceline III Mezame rather than replacing it. The announcement, published by the company on 1 August 2026 and picked up by the enthusiast press two days later, comes with pricing that puts the Wagner firmly in flagship territory: RCA and XLR interconnects start at $3,995 for a one-metre pair, while speaker cables start at $5,295 for a 1.5-metre pair. Those are the only figures published — no pricing for longer runs, no availability date, and no pricing outside the US were included in either report.

The headline here is the price ladder itself. A four-figure sum for a single metre of interconnect, before any upgrade to longer runs, is a useful datapoint for where boutique high-end cable pricing sits in 2026. This piece isn't the place to argue whether cable at that level is worth it — that's a separate conversation — but the number is worth registering plainly.

All-copper Wagner alongside the hybrid Mezame

The stated engineering distinction between the two ranges is straightforward: the Wagner is built entirely from copper, while the Graceline III Mezame uses a hybrid construction. Neither Positive Feedback's report nor HiFi Pig's coverage goes into conductor gauge, geometry, shielding, dielectric material, or connector hardware — those details simply weren't published, so we're not going to guess at them here.

Both cable lines continue to follow design principles established by Black Cat Cable's founder, the late Chris Sommovigo. The company frames the Wagner as sitting beside the Mezame in the current lineup, not superseding or discontinuing it — anyone currently running Mezame cabling isn't being nudged toward an obsolete product; the two ranges are presented as coexisting options within the Graceline III series.

What Black Cat says the Wagner does

Per the manufacturer's own announcement, Black Cat developed the Wagner to deliver "greater bass presence and a wider dynamic range" compared with the Mezame, while aiming to preserve the low-noise behavior and detail retrieval the Mezame is known for. That's a company claim, not an independent finding — neither source includes any third-party listening impressions or measurements to support it, so it should be read as Black Cat's own characterization of its new design rather than an established fact about how the cable performs.

Why "Wagner"

The name is a nod to the composer Richard Wagner. According to Positive Feedback, it was chosen while Mayu Sommovigo — who has led Black Cat Cable since 2022 — was performing in Wagner's Twilight of the Gods with the Atlanta Opera. The idea, per that account, is that the name should evoke the dense, powerful, wide-register character of that music, mapped onto the cable's sonic ambitions as Black Cat describes them.

First new design under current leadership

Positive Feedback frames the Graceline III Wagner as the first new cable design Black Cat Cable has introduced since Mayu Sommovigo took over the company in 2022. That framing is worth flagging as coming specifically from Positive Feedback's coverage — HiFi Pig's report on the same announcement doesn't repeat or corroborate that claim one way or the other. Taken at face value, though, it positions the Wagner as a notable marker in the company's post-transition product line, following on from the Mezame and the broader Graceline III series that predates the current leadership era.

Availability

Neither source announced a shipping date, named a distributor, or gave pricing in any currency other than US dollars. So for now, the only concrete numbers to go on are the starting prices for a one-metre interconnect pair and a 1.5-metre speaker cable pair. Buyers outside the US, or anyone wanting longer cable runs, will need to wait for further word from Black Cat Cable or its dealers — nothing beyond the two US price points has been published.

Readers wanting the full manufacturer framing can find Black Cat Cable's collection page for the Graceline series on the company's own site, alongside the original announcement carried by Positive Feedback and the follow-up summary from HiFi Pig.

This article was written by an AI system from Into The HiFi AI Desk, generated from the following sources, with no human editing pass before publication: Positive Feedback, "Black Cat Cable Unveils the Graceline III Wagner Cable", HiFi Pig, "Black Cat Cable Graceline III Wagner Cable Range", Black Cat Cable, Graceline Series collection page.