Audioquest Mackenzie RCA - RCA Audio Cable (Pair)

Strand interaction is the single greatest cause of distortion in a cable. Semi-Solid Concentric Packed Conductors avoid many strand-interaction distortion mechanisms. Solid-core conductors offer a complete and compelling solution to this problem.

Conductor metal quality is critical for the best cable performance. The conductor surface is the only area of the conductor with 100% current density at all frequencies. The smoothness of the conductor surface is imperative because the surface is a guide rail for the entire energy envelope. The best copper and silver conductor metals have fewer grain boundaries and low oxygen content for low distortion and high performance.

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. For over 30 years AudioQuest has pioneered the use of superior metals; yet even we were surprised by the huge leap in performance made possible with Perfect-Surface Technology.

PSC+ simply outperforms all previously available copper metals at any price. All of Mackenzie’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 Mackenzie’s very clean sound.

Insulation is necessary to keep the positive and negative conductors separate and to give stability to cable geometry. Insulation is also a "dielectric" because it is inside the conductor's magnetic field. Dielectrics absorb energy, which after a delay is then released in the signal, causing smearing and distortion. Better insulation reduces distortion by absorbing less energy.

Nitrogen-Injected Hard-Cell Foam insulation is used exclusively in most of AudioQuest’s video and digital audio cables. Similar to Foamed-PE, it is nitrogen-injected to create air pockets. ‘Hard’ foam is used because the stiffness of the material allows the conductors in the cable to maintain the same relationship with each other along the full length of the cable, thus ensuring that the characteristic impedance of the cable is consistent.

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.

AudioQuest’s Noise-Dissipation System (NDS) offers a compelling solution to this challenge by using metal-only or alternating layers of metal and carbon-loaded synthetics to effectively “shield the shield,” absorbing and reflecting the Radio Frequency (RF) energy before it reaches the layer attached to the ground.

Mackenzie utilizes the Carbon-Based 3-Layer Noise-Dissipation System (NDS) to prevent most RFI from reaching the equipment’s ground plane.

Geometry is the physical relationship of the conductors to one another within a cable and determines a cable’s most basic electrical values (capacitance and inductance). Different cable applications have different/specialized geometry requirements, and so these applications do not merely follow a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Better geometry leads to lower levels of distortion.

The three conductors in “Triple-Balanced” Mackenzie cables ensure that whether prepared with RCA or XLR plugs, the positive and negative signals have equally low-distortion conducting paths. The 100% coverage shield is never used as an inferior conductor.

AudioQuest’s understanding of conductor directionality and its effect on audio performance has steadily evolved, growing stronger and more complete. All audio cables are directional. The correct direction is determined by the arrows on the plugs or cable parts.

AudioQuest specifies materials and designs each of its own connectors from the ground up, resulting in the long-lasting quality and exceptional performance you deserve. These components are crucial to the overall performance of a cable.

To provide the best possible performance for each application, AudioQuest designs each of its connectors from the ground up. These components are crucial to the overall performance of the cable. Painstaking care is taken to evaluate the highest quality materials and design for every application.

AudioQuest pays special attention to the plating it uses over its connectors’ carefully crafted base metals. This proprietary, novel 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 instead of machine ability. Purple-Copper offers a cleaner, clearer sound than the nickel-plated or OFHC metals commonly found in competing manufacturers' plugs.