AudioQuest: Invest in the best
Don't be fooled by the hype about specially-designed S-Video video cable—either it's a proper video cable or it isn't. And since AudioQuest has perfected audio/video cable technology, trust that they know what "proper" is. You may ask what makes 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.
Performance and looks
AudioQuest's mission is to provide a cable for every audio/video need as well as a price for every pocketbook, without sacrificing one iota of performance quality. SG is an entry-level S-Video cable upgraded with AudioQuest's durable braided jacket. Priced affordably, it's still a superior performer. It utilizes Hard-Cell Foam insulation injected with nitrogen to reduce distortion caused by the insulating material and maintain a stable 75 ohms. The combination foil-and-braid shield provides 100-percent cable protection, and the gold-plated 4-pin, mini-DIN S-Video connectors are professionally attached with superior AudioQuest solder. At the heart of things, the S-G utilizes a solid silver-plated copper conductor (1.25-percent silver). What's the difference between silver-plated copper and pure copper? Well, let's take a step back and explain that pure silver is the very best performing material for audio, video or digital, but it's very expensive. So the engineers came up with a more cost-effective solution—silver-plated copper. Don't make assumptions though: high-quality silver-plated copper, when used in video, RF or digital applications, becomes an extraordinary value, allowing for much higher performance even in small quantities.
Keep your signals clean
CinemaQuest "S" video cables include two identical maximum performance coaxial cables, one for the "Y" (black and white) signal and one for the "C" (color information) signal. In single-channel composite video, the Y and C signals are combined to run on a single cable. Using double-channel S-Video avoids the degradation caused by the process of combining and separating the Y and C signals.
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.
