Description

Audioquest Red River XLR Interconnect Cable

AudioQuest spent the last several years designing new replacements for its high-performance and high-value interconnects. Introducing Red River. This cable is a magnificent performer and worthy of recommendation. New connectors and pins, all big improvements. A triple-balanced design, Red River has a separate ground conductor to keep noise at bay. Polyethylene foam or air tubes insulate the conductors. And a new triple-layer noise dissipation system further protects the delicate signal from RF interference. Red River uses Long Grain Copper (LGC), one of the finest grades in production.

SOLID LONG-GRAIN COPPER (LGC) CONDUCTORS

Solid conductors eliminate strand-interaction distortion. Red River’s solid Long-Grain Copper allows a smoother and clearer sound than cables using regular OFHC (Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity) copper. OFHC is a general metal industry specification regarding “loss” without any concern for distortion. LGC has fewer oxides within the conducting material, less impurities, less grain boundaries, and definitively better performance.

NITROGEN-INJECTED HARD-CELL FOAM INSULATION

Nitrogen-Injected Hard-Cell Foam insulation is used exclusively in most of AudioQuest’s video and digital audio cables. Similar to Foamed-PE, it is nitrogen-injected to create air pockets. ‘Hard’ foam is used because the stiffness of the material allows the conductors in the cable to maintain the same relationship with each other along the full length of the cable, thus ensuring that the characteristic impedance of the cable is consistent.

METAL-LAYER NOISE-DISSIPATION SYSTEM (NDS)

100% shield coverage is easy. Preventing captured RF Interference from modulating the equipment’s ground reference requires AQ’s Noise-Dissipation System. Noise-Dissipation System prevents a significant amount of RFI from reaching the equipment’s ground plane.

TRIPLE-BALANCED GEOMETRY

The three conductors in “Triple-Balanced” Red River cables ensure that whether prepared with RCA or XLR plugs, the positive and negative signals have equally low-distortion conducting paths. The 100% coverage shield is never used as an inferior conductor.

COLD-WELDED GOLD-PLATED PLUGS

This plug design allows for a connection devoid of solder, which is a common source of distortion. Because the ground shells are stamped instead of machined, the metal can be chosen for low distortion instead of machinability.