Datasheet

JANUARY 1, 2014 • RETAIL PRICE BOOK
3
Do No Harm
Great sound and great pictures, music that consumes
you, movies that transport you around the universe …
all come from honoring the original signal. The signal is
at its greatest potential … is least damaged … at the
source. It’s an unavoidable fact that every
component and cable in an audio/
video system causes distortion,
robbing the sound or the picture
of some portion of its ability to
inspire and to entertain. These
aberrations add up like layers of dirty
glass between you and an image you
are trying to see. Better cables and
components cannot improve the
signals they carry … performance can only be improved
by causing less distortion of the original signal.
The goal of high-quality components is to be like
cleaner panes of glass … to minimize alteration or
distortion of the signal. Do No Harm!
The Four Elements
The foundation on which AudioQuest's cables are built
comprises the following four fundamental "elements"
of design and manufacture. Another way to think of
this is that these elements comprise the basic "recipe"
for all cables. The choices the cable designer makes in
selecting and balancing these materials and construc-
tion techniques determine the cable’s ability to reduce
distortion and noise and deliver high performance. An
o-the-shelf cake mix, for example, might produce an
edible product, but that’s unlikely to match the eorts
of an educated pastry chef who handpicks the nest,
freshest local ingredients.
Solid Conductors
Strand interaction is the single greatest cause
of distortion in cable. Semi-Solid Concentric
Packed Conductors avoid many strand-
interaction distortion mechanisms. Solid-core
conductors are the complete solution to this
problem.
Metal
Conductor metal quality is
critical for the best cable perfor m-
ance. The conductor surface is
the only area of the con ductor
with 100% current density at all fre-
quencies. Smoothness of the conductor surface
is paramount because the surface is a guide-rail
for the entire energy envelope. The best copper
and silver conductor metals have fewer grain
boun daries and low oxygen content for low
distortion and high performance.
Geometry
Geometry is the physical relationship of the
conductors to one another within a cable. This
determines the basic electrical characteristics of
the cable. Dierent cable applications have dif-
ferent and specialized geometry require ments.
Better geometry reduces distortion.
Dielectric (Insulation)
Insulation is necessary to keep the positive
and negative conductors separate and to give
stability to cable geometry. Insulation is also a
"dielectric" because it is inside the conductor's
magnetic eld. Dielectrics absorb energy,
which after a delay is then released in the
signal, causing smearing and distortion. Better
insulation reduces distortion by absorbing less
energy.