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.
Upping the amperes: Dielectric-Bias System
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 48-volt charge on the CV4's insulation. The 48 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.
Romancing the cable: PSC and PSC+
CV4 uses a carefully finessed combination of Perfect-Surface Copper (PSC) and extremely high purity Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+) conductors. All the conductors are solid, which prevents strand interaction — a major source of distortion. Both conductors are constructed of high-quality copper metal to obtain a smooth surface. Surface quality is critical because a conductor can be considered as a rail-guide for both the electric fields within a conductor, and for the magnetic fields outside the conductor — so the smoother, the better. The astonishingly smooth and pure Perfect-Surface eliminates harshness and greatly increases clarity compared to OFHC, OCC, 8N, and other coppers. Extremely high-purity PSC+ further minimizes distortion caused by grain boundaries, which exist within any metal conductor.
Solid sound through solid conductors
Solid PSC and PSC+ conductors are the most important ingredients enabling CV4's very clear sound. Electrical and magnetic interaction between strands in a conventional cable is the single greatest source of distortion, often causing a somewhat harsh, dirty and confused sound. And whether a conductor is solid or stranded, skin-effect (how the signal wants to travel down the outside of the cable conductors) is a prime distortion mechanism in speaker cables. The CV4 very simply keeps this effect out of the audio range by using conductor sizes that are below the threshold for audible distortion. And the specific four-cross geometry, spiral construction of the CV4 allows for significantly better dynamic contrast and information intelligibility than if the same conductors were run in parallel.
Shed the skin-effect with Spread Spectrum Technology (SST)
Any single size or shape of conductor has a specific distortion profile. Even though radially symmetrical conductors (solid round or tubular) have the fewest discontinuities, they still have a sonic signature. Audioquest's SST significantly reduces the awareness of these character flaws by using a precise combination of different gauged conductors.
Smooth sound from soft insulation
In speaker cable, the electrical effect of insulation is almost only heard as a dry, irritating sound prior to a cable being fully "run-in." (What is run-in? It's the peak-performance level components reach after 100 hours of continuously being powered.) The insulation's mechanical (hard vs. soft) properties make an important difference in stranded cables: the harder the better, because hard properties minimize strand movement. Since solid conductors don't need hard insulation, they can take advantage of the vibration damping advantage of a softer insulation.
The quest for quality continues with the connectors
AudioQuest is unabashedly obsessed with quality. For them, the proof of quality is found in the low-distortion sound, not the eye-candy effect of flashy connectors. AudioQuest's connector ends are either a dull-looking gold or silver because these metals are plated directly over them for the best connection. There is no shiny, harsh-sounding nickel layer underneath.
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.
