Our Product Research Team

At Crutchfield, you'll get detailed, accurate information that's hard to find elsewhere. That's because we have our own in-house Product Research team — they open the box, verify contents, check the owner's manual, and record dimensions, features and specs. We stay on top of new products and technologies to help people make informed choices.

Features

Big Sur Series Stereo RCA Cable: The AudioQuest Big Sur stereo RCA cable is terminated by a gold-plated male stereo RCA connectors on each end. The AudioQuest Big Sur stereo RCA cable is available in the following lengths.

• 0.6 meter (2')
• 1 meter (3' 4")
• 2 meter (6' 7")
• 3 meter (10')
• 5 meter (16' 5")

Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ Conductors (PSC+): 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 PSC+ conductor. PSC+ is manufactured by applying the same exceptional technology to an ultra-pure copper. The resulting sound quality is even more focused and simply less in the way. All of Big Sur's conductors are solid. 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 Big Sur's very clean sound.

Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation: Any solid material adjacent to a conductor is actually part of an imperfect circuit. Wire insulation and circuit board materials all absorb energy (loss). Some of this energy is stored and then released as distortion. Big Sur 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. Thanks to all the air in Foamed-PE, it causes much less of the out-of-focus effect common to other materials.

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.

Double-Balanced Asymmetrical Geometry: Purposely designed for single-ended applications, Double-Balanced Asymmetrical Geometry offers a relatively lower impedance on the ground for a richer, and more dynamic experience. While many single-ended cable designs use a single path for both the ground and the shield, Double-Balanced designs separate the two for cleaner, quieter performance.

Cold-Welded, Gold-Plated Pure "Purple-Copper" 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. Purple-Copper offers a cleaner, clearer sound than the nickel-plated or OFHC metals commonly found in competing manufacturers' plugs.

Directional: Arrows on the connectors indicate the preferred signal path from the source component to the input.