AudioQuest Red River, 1m CL3/FT4 In-Wall Rated Bulk Audio Interconnect Cable

Audioquest Red River 2 RCA to 2 RCA Audio Cable

North America has two Red Rivers, North and South. Red River South has been home to many peoples; it once was the border between the US and colonial Spain, and today forms part of the border between the rival states of Texas and Oklahoma. Red River North forms in a confluence of rivers in North Dakota and Minnesota, but its history is Canada’s. The Red River North’s early settlers were the Métis, whose ancestry was French and aboriginal Canadian. The Métis in 1869 began an uprising known as the Red River Rebellion, which challenged the Canadian government, eventually leading to the formation of the province of Manitoba.

Solid Perfect-Surface Copper Conductors (PSC) :

Strand interaction is the single greatest cause of distortion in a cable. Semi-Solid Concentric Packed Conductors avoid many strand-interaction distortion mechanisms. Solid-core conductors offer a complete and compelling solution to this problem.

Conductor metal quality is critical for the best cable performance. The conductor surface is the only area of the conductor with 100% current density at all frequencies. The smoothness of the conductor surface is imperative because the surface is a guide rail for the entire energy envelope. The best copper and silver conductor metals have fewer grain boundaries and low oxygen content for low distortion and high performance.

Perfect-Surface Copper has an astonishingly smooth and pure surface. Proprietary metal-processing technology protects the wire’s surface at every stage of drawing and fabrication. When high-purity low-oxide copper is kept as soft, pure and smooth as possible, it becomes a wonderfully low-distortion conductor. For over 30 years AudioQuest has pioneered the use of superior metals; yet even we were surprised by this huge leap in performance. PSC clearly outperforms previous AQ metals that cost over ten times as much. Electrical and magnetic interaction between strands in a conventional cable is the greatest source of distortion, often causing a somewhat dirty, harsh sound. Solid conductors are fundamental toward achieving Red River's's very clean sound.

Nitrogen-Injected Hard-Cell Foam Insulation :

Insulation is necessary to keep the positive and negative conductors separate and to give stability to cable geometry. Insulation is also a "dielectric" because it is inside the conductor's magnetic field. Dielectrics absorb energy, which after a delay is then released in the signal, causing smearing and distortion. Better insulation reduces distortion by absorbing less energy.

Red River utilises Nitrogen-Injected Hard-Cell Foam insulation and is also 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.

AudioQuest’s Noise-Dissipation System (NDS) offers a compelling solution to this challenge by using metal-only or alternating layers of metal and carbon-loaded synthetics to effectively “shield the shield,” absorbing and reflecting the Radio Frequency (RF) energy before it reaches the layer attached to the ground.

Red River ultilises the Metal-Layer Noise-Dissipation System (NDS) to prevent most RFI from reaching the equipment’s ground plane.

Triple-Balanced Geometry :

Geometry is the physical relationship of the conductors to one another within a cable and determines a cable’s most basic electrical values (capacitance and inductance). Different cable applications have different/specialized geometry requirements, and so these applications do not merely follow a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Better geometry leads to lower levels of distortion.

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.

Directionality 

AudioQuest’s understanding of conductor directionality and its effect on audio performance has steadily evolved, growing stronger and more complete. All audio cables are directional. The correct direction is determined by the arrows on the plugs or cable parts.

Cold-Welded Gold-Plated Plugs :

AudioQuest specifies materials and designs each of its own connectors from the ground up, resulting in the long-lasting quality and exceptional performance you deserve. These components are crucial to the overall performance of a cable. 

To provide the best possible performance for each application, AudioQuest designs each of its connectors from the ground up. These components are crucial to the overall performance of the cable. Painstaking care is taken to evaluate the highest quality materials and design for every application.

AudioQuest pays special attention to the plating it uses over its connectors’ carefully crafted base metals. Wherever possible, gold connectors are plated directly over the copper, with no destructive intermediate layer of nickel or alloy, while all silver-plated connectors are Direct-Silver plated.

AudioQuest has incorporated Cold-Weld connection technology into most of their interconnects and all prepared speaker cables..

Joining conductors to plugs requires every bit as much care and precision as any other aspect of cable manufacture. AudioQuest's Cold-Weld System uses several tons of pressure to make a near-perfect connection that ensures that the structural integrity of the conductor and plug is kept completely intact, all without the damaging effect of heat. Cold-Welding avoids the introduction of heat and extra materials like solder, which change the character of the wire at the point of termination.

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.

Specification :

• Metal: Solid Long-Grain Copper
• Geometry: Triple Balanced (Separate Ground-Reference Conductor)
• Dielectric: Nitrogen-Injected Hard-Cell Foam
• Noise-Dissipation System: Metal-Layer NDS
• Jacket Colour: Black/Red Braid
• Termination: Cold-Welded, Gold-Plated

About AudioQuest

AudioQuest aims to deliver the most beautiful, durable, and reliable audio/video cables and accessories on the planet, products that don’t only represent the absolute highest value but also exceed any expectations regarding performance. AudioQuest is a premier provider of high-performance audio video cables and accessories sold in hundreds of outlets in the USA, Europe and in over sixty countries. AudioQuest’s products represent both extraordinary value and exceptional performance.