The AudioQuest Yukon RCA to RCA cables are simply one word: “spectacular”. These audio component interconnects have high-level performance and as Graig Neville said in his AudioQuest Review: “Vocals were clearer and the Yukon made me tap my toes and want to turn up the volume”.
Back in 2018, AudioQuest introduced a new range of audio interconnects which deliver a performance level and price that just a few years earlier would have been just a dream. Forget all the advertising hype. This is a product that needs your close attention if you are a serious CD fanatic...or have other components that you cherish and want to get best or close to it. The AudioQuest Yukon stereo RCA cable is terminated by a silver-plated male stereo RCA connector on each end.
Solid Perfect-Surface Copper Conductors (PSC): 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 they 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 Yukon'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 Yukon’s very clean sound.
Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation: Any solid material adjacent to a conductor is actually part of an imperfect circuit. Wire insulation and circuit board materials all absorb energy (loss). Some of this energy is stored and then released as distortion. AudioQuest Yukon uses air-filled Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation on both conductors because air absorbs next to no energy and Polyethylene is low-loss and has a benign distortion profile. Thanks to all the air in Foamed-PE, it causes much less of the out-of-focus effect common to other materials.
Triple-Balanced Geometry: 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/specialised 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” Yukon 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.
Cold-Welded Hanging-Silver Plating Directly Over High-Purity "Red-Copper" Plugs: 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. Red-Copper offers a cleaner, clearer sound than the nickel-plated or OFHC metals commonly found in competing manufacturers' plugs.
This plug design enables a perfect heat-free connection between cable and plug. The connection between the plug and conductors is made using AQ’s Cold-Welded System, which provides a superior connection that ensures that the structural integrity of the conductor is kept completely intact. The Cold-Welded System refers to a combination of high pressure at the point of contact and the use of copper- or silver-impregnated paste. Yukon’s RCA silver conductors get silver paste.
The History Lesson: Personally we like how Bill and his team come up with names for their products, so this is the story behind the "Yukon" series: Meaning “Big River” in Athabaskan, the Yukon River starts with the Llewellyn Glacier as its source in British Columbia, and empties into Alaska’s Bering Sea. It may have been the first immigration route for North America’s first indigenous humans, and was certainly the principle means of travel during the 1896-1903 Klondike Gold Rush. Paddle-wheel riverboats continued as the dominant form of transportation along the river until the 1950s when the Klondike Highway was completed. King Salmon from the Yukon River remain an elusive, but prized delicacy.
About AudioQuest
AudioQuest has been the largest cable supplier to the high-end specialist market for several decades and is sold in over sixty countries. Founder Bill Lowe is especially pleased that this success has been possible despite his insistence that the foundation of the company, and the foundation of AudioQuest marketing, must be the performance of the product and when he visited Audio Trends a couple of years back we were convinced of this by his genuine sincerity. In the audio world, many professionals have learned that it is not always convenient to listen to the products they sell … they might learn something they don’t want to know! Bill has always understood the challenge of basing the existence of AudioQuest on the performance of the product. However, to Bill, this is the only reasonable way to do business and the only acceptable way to combine his passion for music (and all things high performance), with his need to make a living.
Main Features
- Product Description: AudioQuest Yukon stereo cable with dual RCA connectors at each end
- Conductors: Solid Perfect Surface Copper (PSC) conductors for excellent performance
- Insulation: Foamed polyethylene insulation for low distortion
- Shield: Metal-layer NDS (Noise Dissipation System) shields against RF interference
- Geometry: Triple-balanced cable, separates the ground and shield for quieter performance
- Jacket: Black/silver braid
- Connectors: Cold-welded, silver-plated RCA plugs feature a solder-less design for lower distortion
- Available Lengths: 500mm; 1 metre; 1.5 metre; 2 metre and 3 metre
- Manufacturers Warranty: 5 years - Does not cover misuse or abuse
