High-Performance Entry-Level Micro-USB Cable
Don't use a non-audiophile USB cable for digital audio. Treat yourself to high-performance Pearl from AudioQuest's 'Indulgence Series' of Micro-USB cables. Boasting Semi-Solid Concentric Long-Grain Copper (LGC) Conductors, Pearl delivers low jitter, low distortion audio.
Semi-Solid Concentric Long-Grain Copper (LGC) Conductors
In a conventional multi-strand cable, distortion caused by electrical and magnetic strand interaction is compounded as each strand changes position within the bundle. In an AQ Semi-Solid Concentric cable, strands within the bundle maintain their fixed relationships, significantly reducing distortion. Long-Grain Copper (LGC) allows a smoother and clearer sound than cables using regular OFHC (Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity) copper. LGC has fewer oxides within the conducting material, less impurities, less grain boundaries, and definitively better performance.
Hard-Cell Foam Insulation
Hard-Cell Foam (HCF) Insulation ensures critical signal-pair geometry. Any solid material adjacent to a conductor is actually part of an imperfect circuit. Wire insulation and circuit board materials all absorb energy. Some of this energy is stored and then released as distortion.
Hard-Cell Foam Insulation is similar to the Foamed-PE used in AUdioQuest's more affordable Bridges & Falls cables, and is nitrogen-injected to create air pockets. Because nitrogen (like air) does not absorb energy and therefore does not release any energy from or into the conductor, distortion is reduced. In addition, the stiffness of the material allows the cable's conductors to maintain a stable relationship along the cable's full length, producing a stable impedance character and further minimizing distortion.
Terminations
Precision gold-plated plugs are carefully attached with the very best solder. Through choice of flux and metallurgy, AQ solder has been optimized to make a low-distortion connection. The difference you hear between solders is a result of connection quality. AQ 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.
Universal Serial Bus Device Class Definition for Audio Devices
USB (Universal Serial BUS) was established by a stalwart group of companies such as Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft (just to name a few) in order to give the personal computing world a truly universal standard and means to connect devices such as hard drives, printers, cameras, and, more importantly to us, audio components. Included in the original description are protocols for the pristine transfer of audio over USB. Great care and sensitivity went into this. Consequently, a computer connected to a USB-enabled digital-to-analog converter can outperform the best compact disc players available today. AudioQuest is committed to contributing products that honor USBÂ’s ability to deliver state-of-the-art performance on this new and wonderful frontier.
