Solid conductors prevent both electrical and magnetic interaction strand-to-strand interaction, major sources of distortion. Surface quality is critical because a conductor can be considered as a rail-guide for both the fields within a conductor and for the magnetic fields that extend outside the conductor. The astonishingly smooth and pure surface of all AudioQuest's Perfect-Surface metals nearly eliminates harshness and greatly increases clarity compared to lesser materials. Extremely high-purity Perfect-Surface Copper further minimizes distortion caused by grain boundaries, which exist within any metal conductor, nearly eliminating harshness and greatly increasing clarity compared to OFHC, OCC, 8N, and other coppers.

The relationship between conductors defines a cable's most basic electrical values (capacitance and inductance). However, even when those variables are kept in reasonably neutral balance, the particular geometric relationship between conductors greatly affects the sound. Star-Quad geometry is not only vastly superior to conductors run in parallel, but also to the same conductors as two twisted pairs.

This cable's negative conductors are covered with partially conductive Carbon-Loaded Polyethylene. This remarkable material reduces radio-frequency garbage being fed back into the amplifier. The sonic benefit is exactly the same reduction in "hash" and improved dimensionality that comes whenever RF interference is reduced in an audio circuit. In addition, a carbon layer damps interaction between positive and negative conductors, and an external Carbon-Based Noise-Dissipation System reduces external interference.

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. This cable, however, uses air-filled Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation on both conductors. Because air absorbs next to no energy and Polyethylene is low-loss and has a benign distortion profile, Foamed-PE, with its high air content, causes much less of the out-of-focus effect common to other materials.

All insulation between two or more conductors is also a dielectric whose properties will affect the integrity of the signal. When the dielectric is unbiased, dielectric-involvement (absorption and non-linear release of energy) causes different amounts of time delay (phase shift) for different frequencies and energy levels, which is a real problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio. The inclusion of an RF Trap (developed for AudioQuest’s Niagara Series of power products), ensures that radio-frequency noise will not be inducted into the signal conductors from the DBS field elements. (DBS, US Pat #s 7,126,055 & 7,872,195 B1)