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PowerQuest Delivers
Alberto Pittaluga dives deep into the benefits of power conditioning, explores the relatively modest PowerQuest 3, and decides it’s staying in his system.
Speaker Cable w/ ZERO-Tech for Full-Range or Treble
Often, the choice between terminating your speaker cables with spade lugs or banana plugs will come down to personal preference. However, the EU-compliant isolated binding posts used on some power amplifiers often makes it difficult if not impossible to tighten spade lugs with high torque or pressure. In these applications, the AudioQuest banana connector is the superior choice, and may be the only choice.
AudioQuest has conducted a fairly extensive survey of contemporary amplifier manufacturers to determine whether spades or bananas will be most appropriate for a given brand and model of amplifier. Please contact us, provide the brand and model of the amplifier, and we’ll respond with the optimal connector type.
Here we typically recommend the U-Spade or banana connector. However, even though there is less weight and pressure on this side of the cable (particularly for BiWire sets), it is nevertheless important to note the binding post’s design. If a banana connector cannot seat all the way into the binding post, we recommend one of our spade connectors.
Solid Perfect-Surface-Silver (PSS) Conductors
Perfect-Surface Technology applied to extreme-purity silver provides unprecedented clarity and dynamic contrast. Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) is AudioQuest's highest-quality metal. Solid conductors prevent strand interaction, a major source of cable distortion. Extremely high-purity PSS minimizes distortion caused by the grain boundaries that exist within any metal conductor, nearly eliminating harshness and greatly increasing clarity compared to OFHC, OCC, 8N and other coppers.
ZERO-Tech (No Defined Characteristic-Impedance)
Carbon & PSS Silver Based Linear Noise-Dissipation
The world is permeated with RF Noise from satellites, cellular towers, Bluetooth, etc. AQ’s comprehensive Linear Noise-Dissipation employs multiple shields, absorptive carbon, direction-controlled metal, and Perfect-Surface Silver (the best possible RF conducting shield-drain) in order to prevent RF Noise from compromising amplifier performance.
ZERO-Tech
The only complete way to eliminate characteristic-impedance mismatches between a cable and the attached source and load is for the cable not to have any fixed characteristic-impedance value. ZERO-Tech accomplishes this by eliminating interaction between the insulation (dielectric) and the cable’s conductors—enabling uncompressed current transfer. All-important transient current is unrestricted, and RF Noise-Dissipation is linearized (consistent octave to octave).
72v Dielectric-Bias System (DBS) with Level-X RF Noise-Trap
Insulation is also a dielectric that acts like a shunt-filter. Properly biasing the dielectric linearizes the filter, significantly improving the cable’s wide-bandwidth ability to dissipate induced noise. The DBS pack’s Level-X Noise-Trap “pulls” RF Noise out of the cable, further reducing attached audio circuit misbehavior.
Terminations
Dragon cables are Cold-Welded to AudioQuest’s extremely pure Red Copper Spades or Bananas. The bare copper is submerged (hung) in a vat of pure silver instead of being tumbled in a lower-grade solution. AudioQuest speaker breakouts and plug casings are not metal in order not to induce RF Noise into the conductors.
Bi-Wiring
When possible, running separate cables to the treble and bass “halves” of a speaker considerably reduces distortion. Bi-Wiring keeps the large magnetic fields associated with bass energy out of the treble cable, allowing the delicate upper frequencies to travel a less magnetically disturbed path, like taking the waves out of the water when you swim.
AudioQuest Bass and GND-Tech (patented Ground-Noise Dissipation) attracts RF energy away from the amplifier’s output. When properly implemented, Bi-Wiring has always been a cost-effective way to get better performance for the same or less money. With GND-Tech, the advantage of Bi-Wiring is much more dramatic.
Dragon BASS cable is ideal for the Bass input of a Bi-Wire-able speaker in combination with a Dragon ZERO on the treble input. A Bi-Wire COMBO with BASS and ZERO cables joined together at the amplifier is usually the most convenient. When Tri-Wiring, use BASS cables on the Midrange and on the Bass inputs.
Caution: Do not Bi-Wire with two ZERO cables. Two or more ZERO cables in-parallel can create a very high-Frequency resonant peak (ringing), and resulting poor sound. On a Bi-Wired speaker, only use ZERO in combination with a BASS cable, otherwise us a single ZERO cable with jumpers.
Metal |
Solid Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) Sonic-Signature Conductors & Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+)
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Noise Dissipation |
Multi-Layer Carbon-Based Noise-Dissipation
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Geometry |
ZERO-Tech (No Characteristic Impedance)
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Gauge |
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Signal Type |
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Cable Length |
8 ft = 2.4 m
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Jacket |
Black on Black Braid
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Sold As |
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Metal |
Solid Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) Sonic-Signature Conductors & Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+)
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ZERO: Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+) / BASS: Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+)
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ZERO: Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+) / BASS: Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+)
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Solid Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) Sonic-Signature Conductors & Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+)
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Noise Dissipation |
Multi-Layer Carbon-Based Noise-Dissipation
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Multi-Layer Carbon-Based Noise Dissipation
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Multi-Layer Carbon-Based Noise-Dissipation
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Multi-Layer Carbon-Based Noise-Dissipation
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Geometry |
ZERO-Tech (No Characteristic Impedance)
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ZERO-Tech (No Characteristic Impedance)
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ZERO-Tech (No Characteristic Impedance)
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ZERO-Tech (No Characteristic Impedance)
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Gauge |
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Signal Type |
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