Datasheet
JANUARY 1, 2014 • RETAIL PRICE BOOK
13
Digital-Audio Cables from HDMI to Computer Audio
Many of the design and material elements that have
proven so eective in AudioQuest’s analog cables are
every bit as meaningful for digital- and computer-audio
cables, including S/PDIF, HDMI, USB, USB iPod 30-pin,
FireWire, and Ethernet. Solid-core conductors, superior
conductor metals and insulation materials, proper
geometry and overall precision of manufacture are no
more or less important at the frontier of digital-audio
cables than they are for analog cables.
AudioQuest’s digital cables start with Long-Grain Copper
(LGC) conductors, which is a low-distortion metal with
fewer grain boundaries and low oxygen content. Each
successive step up in the line adds the cost-eective
performance benets of silver plating (in increasing
amounts), with the top cable in each digital cable
family employing AudioQuest’s best conductor metal,
solid 100% Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS). Geometry is
optimized for each application, with insulation materials
ranging from nitrogen-injected hard-cell foam to solid-
polyethylene. Because all audio cables are directional, all
signal conductors are controlled for directionality and
connectors are labeled to ensure optimal sound quality.
All dielectric (insulation) slows down and smears
the signal traveling inside the conductor, and when
insulation is unbiased it slows down dierent frequencies
at dierent energy levels by varying degrees. This is a
real problem for time-sensitive, multi-octave audio, and
a signicant distortion mechanism for all audio cables,
digital or analog.
On the frontier of computer audio the cabling and
accessories matter every bit as much as in an all-analog
audio system. The analog interconnects that connect
your outboard DAC to your stereo are as important as
the AC power cables that connect the computer audio
components to your home’s AC power. When using a
USB, Ethernet or FireWire DAC, the cables that connect
the computer and DAC have as profound an impact
on the sound you hear as the sonic characteristics
of the DAC itself. It was never really just 1’s and 0’s to
begin with, and that’s still true today. What’s perhaps
more surprising and less intuitive is that the peripheral
cables that connect the computer to external storage
and connect components over networks also make a
signicant qualitative dierence in sound quality. Every
cable in a network-audio system adds distortion to the
signal. Therefore the entire computer-audio experience
will be more fun and more involving if low-distortion
cables are employed throughout the entire computer-
and network-audio system.