About AudioQuest

Since 1980, AudioQuest, headquartered in Irvine, California, has been a leading developer, manufacturer, and distributor of high-performance audio/video products and custom-install solutions. Although best known for our comprehensive range of analog, digital, and AC power cables, our portfolio has expanded to a diverse assortment of products, including the multi award-winning DragonFly DACs, Niagara and PowerQuest power products.

Our ultimate goal is the same today as was from the start: Do No Harm! By this we mean that all cables and components, to the extent that is technologically feasible, should get out of the music’s way by inducing the least amount of noise and distortion.

audioquest production cable hand assembly

The Evolution Continues: The Four Elements Today

While minimizing noise and damage to the audio signal remains the North-Star constant, the ways in which AudioQuest engages these challenges always evolves. While there are still Four Elements that describe our foundational materials and design philosophies, a growing number of technologies cross and even go beyond our original Four Elements. Many have become crucial enough to demand visibility. Noise-Dissipation is an umbrella Element under which many of these meaningful techniques and technologies will reside. While Geometry is no longer identified as one of The Four Elements, it remains inextricably tied to all other Elements of cable design and manufacture.

Solid Conductors

Strand interaction remains the biggest potential source of distortion in cables. Solid Conductors are the aspirational ideal and most complete solution to this problem. However, thoughtfully arranged multi-conductor geometries such as concentric windings are used to create our Semi-Solid Conductor technologies. These avoid many strand-distortion mechanisms and are in their own right ideal in a growing number of applications.

Directionality

All drawn metal conductors have a non-symmetrical, fish-scale-like grain structure. Because the highest Radio Frequencies (RF) are subject to skin effect, traveling on this deformed outer-surface layer of the conductor, there is a resulting increase in RF impedance in one direction versus the other. Since induced RF noise is parasitic (and doesn’t travel with the primary signal current), it takes the path of least resistance. At AudioQuest, we test every conductor so it is used in the direction that drains the induced noise away from where it will cause the most harm, optimizing the cable and the system’s performance.

Noise-Dissipation

Unwanted Radio-Frequency (RF) noise is and has always been picked up and induced into cable. This contamination ultimately masks and distorts critical portions of the audio/video signal. As this distortion-causing (parasitic) RF signal is more present today than at any previous time in history, we must depend on a wider arsenal of Noise-Dissipation technologies:

  • ZERO-Tech (No Characteristic Impedance) applies Ultra-Linear Noise- Dissipation across the widest range of frequencies possible. It also enables uncompressed transient current transfer for AC power and loudspeaker/power amplifier applications.
  • RF/ND-Tech (Patented Radio-Frequency Ground-Noise Dissipation) minimizes circuit misbehavior by cancelling induced RF noise.
  • Tried-and-true DBS (Dielectric-Bias System) has evolved to include RF-Noise Traps that further reduce dielectric distortion and induced noise.

Metal Quality

Higher-purity conductor metals with smoother surfaces and internal crystal structures greatly reduce noise and distortion. Carefully finessed mixes of metals and conductor sizes can be effectively used to define a cable’s Sonic Signature—a cost-effective technique for high-value, high-performance models.

Doing No Harm Since 1980

  • 1980: AudioQuest is Founded

    In 1978 William (Bill) Low began manufacturing custom audio cables for his new one-man hi-fi shop. Two years later, Bill got serious about making cables for the rest of the world, so in 1980, he founded AudioQuest.

  • 1982: AudioQuest Phono Cartridges

    AudioQuest begins selling phono cartridges and achieves almost instant success with the AQ-404 moving coil cartridge. The AQ analog tradition continues to this day!

  • 1985: Advanced Metallurgy

    AudioQuest becomes the first US high-performance wire company to introduce advanced conductor technology in its cables. From the “Linear Crystal” conductor of 1987 to the Perfect-Surface Metals of today, AQ remains at the forefront of conductor technology.

  • 1988: HyperLitz Conductor Construction

    AudioQuest introduces its patented “HyperLitz” construction, significantly altering the standards for audio interconnect and speaker cable.

  • 1989: High-Performance Video Cables

    AudioQuest introduces high-performance video cables, bringing “low-distortion” sensibility to a world previously only concerned with loss.

  • 1990: AudioQuest Music

    AudioQuest Music was founded to record great music by world-class artists, resulting in a flood of great reviews in the music and audio press.

  • 2004: Dielectric-Bias System

    AudioQuest introduces its patented Dielectric-Bias System, changing forever notions of cable “break in” and dramatically reducing insulation-induced distortion.

  • 2005: HDMI Cables

    AudioQuest introduces its first line of HDMI A/V cables, applying AQ's accumulated knowledge of low-distortion metallurgy, insulation and cable construction to this radically new method of transferring high-speed digital A/V signals.

  • 2012: Enter the DragonFly

    AudioQuest revolutionizes the portable DAC market by introducing the DragonFly DAC, bringing true high-performance sound quality to computer audio based music lovers.

  • 2014: NightHawk Headphone

    AudioQuest enters the headphone market by introducing innovative and well-received NightHawk headphones.

  • 2015: The Niagara Series

    AudioQuest introduces the Niagara 7000, redefining the science of power conditioning.

  • 2016: DragonFly Black & DragonFly Red

    AudioQuest releases the next generation of DragonFly DACs, now firmware-upgradeable and compatible with smartphones and tablets.

  • 2016: NightOwl Carbon Headphone

    AudioQuest introduces the closed-back NightOwl Carbon, providing listeners with exceptional isolation from external noise and even deeper sonic immersion.

  • 2017 - Storm Series AC Cables

    AudioQuest causes a revolution in AC cable technology by introducing the incredibly well received Storm Series of AC cables.

  • 2018 - Mythical Creatures Speaker Cables

    AudioQuest redefines the science of speaker cable technology by introducing the Mythical Creature line of speaker cables.