Cable Reviews

I began the test series I discussed in Colloms on Cables with the first company to respond to our request for review samples: AudioQuest (footnote 1). Their loom comprised a pair of Robin Hood Zero loudspeaker cables; Pegasus I/C interconnects, both unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR; Blizzard AC power cables; and Vodka Ethernet cables. AudioQuest has decades of experience with audio cables, supplying a huge range from high-quality "industrial" cables—some available in bulk for custom-install applications and manufacturing—to more familiar audiophile constructions. Their designs are highly finessed and exquisitely terminated, some executed in exotic materials, particularly solid silver. An established bedrock of engineering underlies AudioQuest's cables. They're based on high-quality, nontwisted conductors, low-loss insulation materials, well-known construction geometries, and a nuanced approach to subtler aspects including conductor purity and cable-draw finish.

Some of their product lines—including all the cables covered by this review except the Ethernet cable—use AudioQuest's 72V DC biasing of the cable dielectric. This technique is well-established for critical radio-frequency applications, where it is used to linearize stray charge polarization for an insulating dielectric. While cables naturally have some electrical capacitance, which will cause them to filter radio frequencies to some degree, the moderate polarization applied to the insulator portion of the cable is said to linearize the charge distribution inherent to the cable conductors, with a potential increase in signal clarity. The polarization is entirely static—no current is drawn, and the electrical field is constant. Each cable has a test button with an LED indicator. The relevant patents jointly cite AudioQuest's Bill Low and Richard Vandersteen (of Vandersteen, of course).

For the Ethernet cable, AudioQuest employed what the company calls "solid 10% silver." These are solid, nonstranded, long-grain copper conductors plated with silver such that the cross-sectional area is 10% silver. AudioQuest says their Vodka cables meet the critical specifications for CAT-7 shielded Ethernet; in CAT-7, each twisted pair is shielded, as is the whole cable. In principle that means that these cables are capable of data-transfer speeds up to 10Gbps over 100m and up to 100Gbps over 15m. Part of the CAT-7 standard is the use of GG45 connectors, a proprietary variant of RJ45; the AudioQuest cables, though, use RJ45 connectors by Telegärtner, which cost $27 each. If there's a downside to CAT-7, it's that it is a proprietary—not IEEE or ANSI—standard. That has lowered support for the standard—one doesn't see many CAT-7 cables—but this should not matter to the end user.

Much of my library is resident on a 4TB HDD feeding the Roon Nucleus+ (supplemented by Qobuz and a CD transport), then fed out to the audio rack via a local wired network which includes several isolating/buffering NetGear switches. This predominantly hard-wired chain is terminated by a final glass optical isolator interface before the data arrives at the DAC via electrical cable. The Ethernet feed is via a glass optical cable from the floor above, sourced from the street-fed fiber source.

Historically, such details as optical isolation have provided incremental (but valued) improvements.

Listening
All listening tests were carried out over time by my usual "panel" of listeners including me and at different times Grammy Award–winning recording engineer Tony Faulkner, professional audio-evaluation workshop founder and computer expert Jon Honeyball, audio enthusiast Charlie Palmer, and reviewer/designer Chris Bryant—plus my musically inclined 16-year-old granddaughter. All were well-familiar with my reference system.

I had thought my carefully tuned system was sounding pretty good when I casually swapped in a 2' length of AQ Vodka network cable—just one link—for my trusted, benchmarked, inexpensive 2' Belden Cat 6e build from Blue Jeans Cable. This final link to the Naim ND 555 streamer/DAC seemed innocent enough, but now there was a difference—in fact, more like a difference and a half. In recent years, I have spent time and money on networks, cables, anti-vibration supports, net switches, and fiberoptic buffers, each effective in its own way. This single cable substitution matched many of these upgrades in aggregate.

For this test, I had blinded my invited subject Charlie; he had no clue as to which wire was present in which domain—indeed, of whether I had even made any substitutions at all. He found the effect of the Ethernet cable substitution as compelling as I did. The sound quality was significantly improved in all the desired respects: clarity, retrieval of detail, swing, pace, image depth, dynamics, and focus. I was genuinely surprised, having previously observed only smaller differences even from exhaustive substitutions and buffers to this hybrid, wired/optical-isolated network. I then swapped out the optical buffer stage for 3' more of Vodka cable and realized further gains, a good start. This result was obtained with 15' runs of the DBS-augmented Robin Hood loudspeaker cable in place, reinforcing our opinion of the high transparency and neutrality of the Robin Hood derived from earlier trials. We found Robin Hood well-balanced over the audio spectrum, highly neutral, with low coloration and powerful, well-defined basslines.

As with many cables, a few weeks of running in offered incremental improvements, noticeably in image precision, transparency, and low-level detail. Overall, these cables appeared to slightly lower the noisefloor and thus optimize the intrinsic dynamic range. Grand piano was lively and incisive with no hint of added glare or ringing. Both dynamics and dynamic range impressed on a wide variety of tracks, while coloration seemed very well controlled—and it could rock. My system's hypertuned involvement factor was barely diluted.

The Pegasus interconnects, both balanced and unbalanced, complemented the growing loom. We tried the Pegasus balanced interconnect for pre-power connection, and the high-quality sound was maintained. Finally, single-ended Pegasus interconnects were applied to the ND 555 streamer DAC's RCA output leading to my preamp's RCA input, with no observable loss in quality over the carefully selected reference Naim Super Luminas that are customarily in that position, though we heard the resulting timbres as slightly warmer. Transparency and rhythm were almost on a par with the Luminas; perhaps the Naim cable's mechanical decoupling feature gave it an edge.

I saw no reason to replace the AudioQuest cables, so they remained for several weeks, settling in nicely before the panel and I revisited the loom for further comparisons.

I had mistakenly ordered 1m samples of the Blizzard power cable, not anticipating the heroic build and (hence) substantial rigidity of this cable assembly. It was a struggle to bend these cables into forms suitable for connection to racked electronics—my fault for not planning well enough. My advice is to order rather longer lengths than you think you need. That advice also applies to the rather stiff, ribbonlike loudspeaker cable.

With some struggle, we managed some repeatable tests on the Blizzard and were particularly impressed by two aspects. First, the overall reference quality of my system was maintained in its fundamentals. Second, a clear synergy was heard: This set of AudioQuest cables, including the power cables, possessed complementary quality and character. The Blizzards, while not quite as light on their feet as our reference Naim Power-Line cables (which have the advantage of a longitudinal-mode vibration blocker), counterpunched with a touch more low-frequency weight and a stereo image of marginally greater scale and depth.

When the AQ loom test was complete, we were in no hurry to substitute any part and settled back for an extended audition. Over the next few weeks, as the system bedded in, it remained satisfying and convincing while realizing further incremental gains.

Conclusions
It had been some years since I had auditioned AudioQuest, and perhaps I was guilty of not expecting too much. Perhaps for this reason, when improved sounds registered in my aural locus, they generated significant impact. Recognition of their high-quality sound grew as more examples from this AudioQuest cable loom were introduced into my reference system. While the gains heard from those rigid power supply cables were smaller, as they often are, they were reliable and consonant. Both the interconnect and loudspeaker cables showed highly neutral basslines, remaining firmly focused and with spacious stereo imaging, upbeat timing, and little audible limitation on frequency response or image transparency; in fact, all the supplied AQ cables passed this test.

The icing on this AudioQuest cable cake was the introduction of Vodka—the Ethernet cable, not the beverage—into my carefully curated wired music network.

These people clearly understand audio cable (footnote 2).

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Footnote 1: AudioQuest, 2621 White Rd., Irvine, CA 92614. Tel: (949) 790-6000. Web: audioquest.com. The cables reviewed cost: AudioQuest Vodka network cable, $899.95/3m; AudioQuest Pegasus interconnect, $1995/1m XLR pair; AudioQuest Robin Hood loudspeaker cable, $1995/8ft pair; AudioQuest Blizzard power cable, $895/2m.

Footnote 2: Other recent reviews of AudioQuest cables are by Herb Reichert on the Yosemite tonearm cable and Alex Halberstadt on the Thunderbird ZERO + BASS Speaker Cables.—Ed.