AudioQuest Forest USB

AudioQuest Forest USB

In 1982 Sony and Philips brought us "Perfect Sound Forever," along with the dogma that "it's all just digital, and therefore all CD players sound the same. That turned out not to be true and qualitative differences between CD players became an accepted fact. Then came the separate transport + DAC combinations that brought with them the dogma that "all digital S/PDIF audio cables sound the same," until that too changed. Now the frontier has shifted once again. Is digital audio really just a matter of zeros and ones? We think not, and once you've had a chance to listen to Forest USB, you won't believe it either...

MASSIVE0.5% SILVERED GUIDERS: Solid conductors prevent mutual interference between the wires in twisted pair cables and reduce jitter. Solid silver-plated conductors are perfect for high-frequency applications, such as USB audio. These signals, because they have such a high frequency, transport themselves almost exclusively over the surface of the conductor. Because this surface is made of a very pure grade of silver, the performance is almost equal to that of a solid silver conductor, but is much closer to solid copper cables in terms of pricing. This is an incredibly cost-effective way to produce high quality USB cables.

MASSIVEPOLYETHYLENE ISOLATION WITH HIGH DENSITY: Any solid adjacent to a conductor is actually part of a non-perfect circuit. Cable insulation and circuit board materials absorb energy (loss). Some of this energy is stored and released again as distortion. Insulation with high-density solid Polyethylene ensures that critical cable geometry remains intact, minimizing insulation-induced phase distortions.

CONNECTIONS: the gold-plated plugs are carefully assembled with the very best solder. The AQ solder has been optimized by making the right choice in flux and metallurgy to create a connection with the least possible distortion. The differences you hear between different types of solder is the result of the quality of the joint made. AQ solder does not have a high silver content because as the silver content in the solder increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to make a good joint.

UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS DEVICE CLASS DEFINITION FOR AUDIO DEVICES: USB (Universal Serial Bus) was developed by a courageous group of companies such as Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft (to name a few) to provide the PC world with a truly universal standard for connecting peripherals such as hard drives, printers, cameras, and, more importantly for us, audio components. Included in the original specification are protocols to ensure the flawless transmission of audio over USB. Much care and attention was given to this. As a result, a computer connected to a USB DAC can outperform today's best CD players. AudioQuest is focused on providing products that honor USB's ability to provide state-of-the-art performance in this new way of listening to music.