With the introduction of the Mythical Creatures series of speaker cables, AudioQuest has pushed significantly beyond even its own very high standards.The same team responsible for the groundbreaking new series of AudioQuest AC power cables—AudioQuest's founder, William Low, and Director of Power Products, Garth Powell—has created what are simply the most transparent, get-out-of-the-way immersive speaker cables ever made. The Mythical Creatures series—ThunderBird, FireBird, and Dragon—are not merely an incremental evolution; their introduction represents a category advance in speaker cable design.Building on a solid base of familiar AQ technologies, Garth and Bill specifically focused on addressing one of the most vexing issues plaguing speaker cable design: the mismatch between the amplifier’s source impedance and the speaker’s load impedance.All previous attempts to address this issue chose to move the speaker cable’s characteristic impedance to a value closer to the nominal impedance of the speakers. All such attempts failed because a speaker’s impedance changes with frequency, and the amplifier’s output impedance is something else altogether.By eliminating the Mythical Creatures speaker cable’s characteristic impedance, current compression and distortion of the signal (current) transient is significantly reduced. The result is dynamic contrast, transient response, and bass slam that are rendered seemingly without effort.These new Mythical Creatures ZERO speaker cables may be used in one of two ways: either as ideal Full-Range cables, or, in combination with a dedicated BASS cable, in a BiWire cable assembly of unparalleled performance. ThunderBird, FireBird, and Dragon BASS cables incorporate our patented common-mode noise-rejection technology, yielding an audibly dramatic additional reason to BiWire when possible.Whether AudioQuest’s new Mythical Creatures speaker cables are used as Full-Range or BiWire, the beautiful sonic result is the sound of your amplifier doing its job unmolested by either current compression or radio-frequency noise.Note: Often, the choice between terminating your speaker cables with spade lugs or banana plugs will come down to personal preference. AudioQuest spades and bananas use the same base metal, the same superior plating, and no metal-to-metal junctions, resulting in parts of equal quality. However, the EU-compliant isolated binding posts used on some power amplifiers often makes it difficult if not impossible to tighten spade lugs with high torque or pressure. In these applications, the AudioQuest banana connector is the superior choice, and may be the only choice. FEATURESDRAGON CONDUCTORS: SOLID PERFECT-SURFACE SILVER (PSS)Perfect-Surface Technology applied to extreme-purity silver provides unprecedented clarity and dynamic contrast. Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) is AudioQuest's highest-quality metal. Solid conductors prevent strand interaction, a major source of cable distortion. Extremely high-purity Perfect-Surface Silver minimizes distortion caused by the grain boundaries that exist within any metal conductor, nearly eliminating harshness and greatly increasing clarity compared to OFHC, OCC, 8N and other coppers.RF/ND-TECH (PATENTED RADIO-FREQUENCY GROUND-NOISE DISSIPATION) MINIMIZES CIRCUIT MISBEHAVIOR BY CANCELLING INDUCED RF NOISEThough a cable’s ground leads are integral to a component’s signal transmission, they also act as an antenna. Thus, they are subject to induced Radio-Frequency (RF) noise. RF noise is a parasitic signal that is typically coupled directly into a system’s most sensitive audio/video circuits. AudioQuest’s RF-on-ground Noise-Dissipation (RF/ND-Tech) greatly reduces resulting distortion and signal masking, yielding unprecedented levels of Noise-Dissipation across the widest bandwidth (range) of radio frequencies possible. Our unique circuit topology uses a common-mode phase-cancelling array, providing linear noise dissipation across the entire length of the cable (US Patent # 8,988,168).ZERO-TECH (NO DEFINED CHARACTERISTIC-IMPEDANCE) FOR UNCOMPRESSED CURRENT TRANSFER AND LINEAR NOISE-DISSIPATIONThe only complete way to eliminate characteristic-impedance mismatches between a cable and the attached source and load is for the cable not to have any fixed characteristic-impedance value. ZERO-Tech accomplishes this by eliminating interaction between the insulation (dielectric) and the cable’s conductors—enabling uncompressed current transfer. All-important transient current is unrestricted, and RF Noise-Dissipation is linearized (consistent octave to octave).72v Dielectric-Bias System (DBS)Insulation is also a dielectric that can act like a shunt-filter. Biasing minimizes dielectric-noise and linearizes the filter, significantly improving wide-bandwidth dissipation of induced RF noise.DRAGON BI-WIRINGWhen possible, running separate cables to the treble and bass “halves” of a speaker significantly reduces distortion. Bi-Wiring keeps the large magnetic fields associated with bass energy out of the treble cable, allowing the delicate upper frequencies to travel a less magnetically disturbed path, like taking the waves out of the water when you swim. AudioQuest’s RF/ND-Tech (patented RF-Canceling Ground-Noise Dissipation) attracts RF energy away from the amplifier’s output. When properly implemented, Bi-Wiring has always been a cost-effective way to get better performance for the same or less money. With RF/ND-Tech, the advantage of Bi-Wiring is much more dramatic. Because RF/ND-Tech is so effective, BASS model cables are only for 10KHz and below; do not use a BASS cable full-range or on treble. Dragon BASS cable is ideal with Dragon ZERO. A Bi-Wire COMBO with BASS and ZERO cables joined together at the amplifier is usually most convenient. When Tri-Wiring, use BASS cables on the Midrange and Bass inputs. Caution: Do not Bi-Wire with two ZERO cables. ZERO cables in-parallel can create a very high-frequency resonant peak (ringing), and resulting poor sound. Only use a ZERO plus a BASS cable (whether or not joined as a COMBO). Second best is a single ZERO with AQ Bi-Wire jumpers.CARBON-BASED LINEARIZED NOISE-DISSIPATION SYSTEM (NDS)Today’s environment is saturated with radio-frequency noise that is extremely difficult to filter or reject. The frequencies of this noise from satellites, cellular towers, and Bluetooth, etc., are so extremely narrow that a conventional shield, or a series or shunt filter, is wholly inadequate. Much of the low-level signal that carries the harmonics and spatial cues that define high-resolution audio is masked by induced radio-frequency noise. AQ’s comprehensive Linearized Noise-Dissipation System combines multiple shields and a carbon-based linearized resistive network that turns most of this noise into heat. By "linearized," we mean that the system is equally effective across extremely wide bandwidth, rather than at selected frequencies only, as is more common. The remaining bad energy is effectively drained away from the sensitive amplifier circuits via directionally controlled signal and shield conductors.MYTHICAL CREATURE COLD-WELDED TERMINATIONSMythical Creature cables are Cold-Welded to AudioQuest’s extremely pure Red Copper Spades or Bananas. The bare copper is submerged (hung) in a vat of pure silver instead of being tumbled in a lower-grade solution. AudioQuest speaker breakouts and plug casings are not metal in order not to induce RF Noise into the conductors.
