In 1982 Sony gave us "Perfect sound forever," along with the attitude that, "it's just digital, so all CD players sound the same." That was disproved and qualitative differences between players became accepted truth.
Next came separate transport and DAC combos, which brought with it the attitude that "all S/PDIF digital audio cables sound the same..." until that too became disproved. Now the frontier has moved once again. Is digital audio really just ones and zeros?
We don't believe so, and once you've had a chance to listen to Coffee USB, you won't think so either...
The Coffee cables feature the 72V DBS unit, designed to remove harmful RF from interrupting the digital signal between your devices.
The surface is made of high-purity silver, the performance is very close to that of a solid silver cable, but priced much closer to solid copper cable. Our favourite cables when used with DAC's are the Coffee USB.
Available Lengths: 0.75m-5m
The USB series of cables from AudioQuest are:
- Forest
- Cinnamon
- Carbon
- Coffee
- Diamond
- Wild
- WEL Signature
Coffee digital cables feature 10% silver with solid copper conductors. A 0.41mm gauge is supported by a hard-cell foam dielectric, a carbon-based multi-layer noise-dissipation Cold-Welded, Hanging Silver Directly Over Pure Red Copper termination. As you move up through the range to WEL signature, the conductors, noise dissipation and shielding all improve to improve clarity through reduced distortion and cross-talk between other cables.
Features
DIELECTRIC-BIAS SYSTEM WITH RADIO FREQUENCY TRAP
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 induced into the signal conductors from the DBS field elements. (DBS, US Pat #s 7,126,055 & 7,872,195 B1)
ALL CONDUCTORS CONTROLLED FOR RF NOISE DIRECTIONALITY
CARBON-BASED 3-LAYER NOISE-DISSIPATION SYSTEM (NDS)
It's easy to accomplish 100% shield coverage. Preventing captured Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) from modulating the equipment's ground reference requires AQ's Noise-Dissipation System (NDS). Traditional shield systems typically absorb and then drain noise/RF energy to component ground, modulating and distorting the critical "reference" ground plane, which in turn causes a distortion of the signal. NDS's alternating layers of metal and carbon-loaded synthetics "shield the shield," absorbing and reflecting most of this noise/RF energy before it reaches the layer attached to ground.
HARD-CELL FOAM INSULATION
Hard-Cell Foam (HCF) Insulation ensures critical signal-pair geometry. 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. Hard-Cell Foam Insulation is similar to the Foamed-PE used in our more affordable Bridges & Falls cables, and is nitrogen-injected to create air pockets. Because nitrogen (like air) does not absorb energy and therefore does not release any energy from or into the conductor, distortion is reduced. In addition, the stiffness of the material allows the cable's conductors to maintain a stable relationship along the cable's full length, producing a stable impedance character and further minimizing distortion.
SOLID 10% SILVER CONDUCTORS
Solid conductors minimize the harmful effects of both electrical and magnetic strand-to-strand interaction. For digital cables, whose signals are of such high frequency that they travel almost exclusively on the surface of the conductor, increasingly thick layers of silver plating are applied to AudioQuest’s Long-Grain Copper (LGC) conductors to further improve Noise-Dissipation. Placing the superior metal on the outside of the conductor produces the greatest benefit on overall performance—a superbly cost-effective way to maximize a digital cable.
Specification
- Metal: Solid 10% Silver
- Gauge: 21 AWG
- Geometry: 75 Ohm
- Dielectric: Hard Cell Foam
- Noise Dissipation System: Carbon-Based 6-Layer Noise-Dissipation System
- Jacket Colour: Black/Brown Braid
- Termination: Cold-Welded, Hanging-Silver directly over pure Red Copper
- Shield: Foil + Silver-Plated Braid
