June 2025: 6N silver interconnects
The development hve built the first pair of the final solution (the design have had submitted) for a 3ft single-ended all-solid 6N-silver air-helix interconnects. The build solution is based on a 0.35 optimised-cast 6N-silver strand. The conductor build solution packs 3 strands into a 0.1 PTFE tube coat. This results with 0.6-ish equivalent conductor diameter, while keeping the individual strands well below 0.5.
The conductors are threaded through the (somewhat slimmer than in our air-helix speaker cable) support "spine". Helixing slope is at 120 degrees per one "vertebra" member (1 inch-ish distance). The RCA plugs used are solid-silver type. This results with all-silver air-helix cable build, with all the best materials and geometry sifted over from our speaker cable build solutions. As far as we know, this is the first all-silver air-helix interconnect on the market.
We have spent just a few hours auditioning this build, but the results are (as expected) superb. The cables sit in between a mid-range ESS-based DAC, and an mid-range AR tube preamplifier, in our check-out set-up. The DAC plays hi-res DSD "One-Mic", or "Pure-DSD" recordings almost all-the-time. The build replaced a pair of very good non-air-helix copper interconnects. Imaging, depth, and focus step-up were beyond the slightest doubt, from the first note played on. At first one notices substantially firmer and cleaner low-mid, and high-low ranges, being the most obvious, but then other qualities make themselves aware-of. The sonic background in-between the performers is so extremely silent and black: The first time the performers on one side of the stage (in and around one of the channel mics) stopped playing, the very first thought was the system balance went haywire, or the channel went dead. And then, out of the deep-black, the instruments and voices resurged, clearer than ever before.
These are the highest-echelon contenders, beyond any doubt. And not only performance-wise: following in the steps of our Gen.2 AIReference speaker cables, these aim to be accessible to all, regardless of the bankroll. They will sell at a fraction of the competing products prices.
April 2025: Ballanced interconnect
The development have built the 3ft balanced interconnect cable pair prototype. We will check the sonic performance with several high resolution systems we have access to. Regretfully that takes weeks. Some high end interconnect designers have suggested to burn-in the new cables for 200-ish hours.
There are some other-than-sonic issues with the interconnect prototypes. The glass-fibre braided sleeve the development use (to avoid inferior PET one), is a bit stiff when applied to smaller diameters (than speaker cables). We have to change the sleeve we use here, for a thinner and softer one. The thin/soft of-the-shelf glass-fibre sleeves do not come in black at this time. We will try to build a new all-white-livery prototype instead.
The current connector-design state-of-the-art philosophy is go-as-light-as-you-can. As Mr Colin Chapman (founder of Lotus Cars) used to say years ago: "Just add some lightness", and the performance will follow. That regretfully does not go well with the crop of XLR connectors availlable today. Good looking ones tend to be massive, and more to-the-point - metallic. That is a no-go sonically, of course.
The design are solving this hurdle with alternate XLR connector sources, although it will be hard to equal the good single-ended connector solutions of today. The geometry of the standard-compliant XLR plug simply can not go as-low-mass-as the single-ended one by design. And using the non metallic material is hardly an option.
March 2025: New interconnect product
AIReference by YELLOW development are working on applying the air-helix and OCC-copper build solution to a high-resolution interconnect cable. The very first single-ended, single-conductor, un-shielded cables pair are in the checking-the-prototype-performance phase. The interconnect basic design guideline is down-sizing the speaker cable build solution to smaller, two-to-six conductor build solution.
The prototype single-ended build solution uses a dual-helix conductor space geometry, and single-contact, non-metallic connectors. The next build solution design will be a balanced cable pair with XLR M/F connectors. The balanced cable will use the same conductor spacing support solution as single-ended one, but with triple-helix conductor space geometry.
The AIReference by YELLOW parts inventory have ordered the interconnect cable parts stock. The sales will total the parts, labour, and ROI costs as soon as the shipment clears the import customs, within a week or so. This will give us the interconnect cable sales price.
We continue to strive to offer the audiophile community the very best performance, at a reasonable price.
Regards.. AIRef team