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2M black/blue analog audio interconnect cable

AudioQuest wasn't messing around when they created the Sky. It's the stereo cable for the audio hedonist—the person who'll drive a '77 Maverick forever just so they can invest in the very best audio components. Bearing AudioQuest's Perfect Surface Silver conductors, dielectric-bias system, 50-percent larger Teflon insulation tubes, and silver-plated connectors, this cable delivers the cleanest signal yet. And as a component, these cables drastically improve the sound quality of every other audio component in your home-theater quiver. Really.

AudioQuest: Invest in the best

You're looking for a speaker cable with superior signal transmission and a smooth, clear sound. But you want a high-quality cable—and there's a plethora to choose from—so what could possibly make AudioQuest cables that much more superior? Well, let me tell you. These cables are babied. They're coddled. Each cable's hand is held from its conception in Bill Low's head until it is carefully swaddled in product packaging and shipped off to your home.

Perfectly, perfect-surface silver

Material quality dramatically affects the performance of cables. By material quality, we mean both the intrinsic quality of the metal, such as gold, nickel, brass, aluminum, copper or silver, and we mean the way the metal has been refined and processed. Pure silver is the very best performing material for audio, video or digital. However, if silver is not carefully processed, even low-grade copper will sound better. Silver has also earned a confused reputation because sometimes the term "silver" is used to describe silver-plated copper. When carrying an analog audio signal, silver-plated copper causes a very irritating sound, sort of a "tweeter in your face" effect. That's why AudioQuest uses the highest quality solid silver in their top-end speaker cables. Their extremely high-purity Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) minimizes distortion caused by grain boundaries which exist within any metal conductor, eliminating harshness and greatly increasing clarity compared to all other conducting materials. For fifteen years AudioQuest has pioneered the use of superior metals, and PSS is their best analog performer.

Upping the amperes: Dielectric-bias system (times two)

In their quest for perfection, AudioQuest found that they could bypass the "run-in" period of a cable component by attaching a standard battery to the outside of the cable. (What is run-in? It's the peak-performance level components reach after 100 hours of continuously being powered.) AudioQuest's Dielectric-Bias System consists of a battery that provides a constant 72-volt charge on the Sky's insulation. The 72 volts is far above the voltage of an audio signal, and the result is more transparency and dynamics than possible even from a cable in continuous use (as with equipment that is never turned off). And because there is no actual drain on the single, standard hardware-store battery, it will last for years. AudioQuest also added a test button and LED to allow for battery performance verification.

AudioQuest's love affair with silver

Sky's plugs are Resistance Welded to the cable in a process which sends 8,000 amperes of current through the junction of conductor and plug for 33 millionths of a second. The heat resulting from the resistance of the metals locally liquefies the conductor and the plug, creating a single material alloy where the two meet—an ideal connection that puts any solder to shame. Sky's silver-plated RCA plugs use a patented design that eliminates the distortion caused by the extra contact inside most plugs. Because the ground shells are stamped instead of machined, the metal can be chosen for low distortion instead of for its machinability.

Distortion just doesn't stick to it

Any solid material adjacent to a conductor is actually part of an imperfect circuit. Wire insulation, circuit board materials—all absorb energy (loss). Some of this energy is stored and then released as distortion. The general cable industry ranks insulating materials by loss, with little regard for distortion. AudioQuest ranks materials by damage to an audio signal. The Sky uses air-filled Teflon insulation (with tubes 50-percent larger than the Niagra) on both conductors because air absorbs next to no energy, and Teflon is very non-reactive and has an extremely low coefficient of friction.

The constancy of superb solder

Just as cable technology relies on minimizing distortion, so does solder. Using the most appropriate flux and precise metallurgy, AudioQuest solder has been optimized to make a low-distortion connection. All solder, including silver, is a poor conductor. The difference you hear between solders is a result of connection quality. AudioQuest Solder does not have a high silver content because the more silver there is in solder, the more difficult it is to make a good connection. (Though quite the opposite is true when it comes to using silver conductors.)

Damage control—let's compare apples. . .

It's important to know that an audio or video signal cannot be improved upon—it's as good as it's going to get once it leaves your amp, DVD player, whatever component you're running. So why bother with a high-end cable? Simple: the signal can't be improved, but it can be damaged. Significantly. A lesser-quality cable leaves your signal wide-open to instabilities. A lesser-quality cable is constructed of bundled, twisted strands of conductive material—up to 200 to 2000 strands per bundle. And as the signal wants to travel the path of least resistance (down the outside of the bundle), all those twisted strands inhibit the signal. They draw the signal from the outside of the bundle to the inside, where it fights to get back to the outside again. What's the result? Distortion. Lost data. Poor sound quality.

. . .to oranges

Audioquest, on the other hand, engineers their cables with the highest quality, perfectly gauged solid-core, copper and silver conductors. And each conductor strand is slowly and precisely loomed, not twisted, into the final cable bundle—and it's important to note that the maximum amount of strands AudioQuest has used in their longest cable, for flexibility requirements, is 32 (that's a few less than 200, and a lot less than 2000). Once they have constructed the conductor, AudioQuest wraps it in the dielectric (a fancy word for the insulating material) to keep the cable at peak performance levels at all times by absorbing as little energy as possible in order to avoid the reintroduction of energy (distortion) back into the conductor.

AudioQuest makes sure you're headed in the right direction

Cables, from hardware store electrical cable to the finest pure silver cables, have a direction—much like wood has a grain. It has to do with molecular structure, which we won't get into. What you should know though is that a cable sounds much better when the signal is traveling in the proper direction. AudioQuest audio cables are marked for direction, so you don't have to figure it out.

The bottom line

What AudioQuest is doing is engineering cables with conductors that have all the proper attributes, for decreased distortion. They've arranged the conductors so the signal travels down a straight path, for decreased distortion. They've wrapped the conductor metal in a non-conductive material, to decrease distortion. The result is an astonishingly pure, very stable signal. Starting to make sense? AudioQuest loathes distortion. You'll love AudioQuest.

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