AudioQuest Wind High-end Cable Review

[Prutser]

You can start your own high end hifi cable shop, count me in if you make money.

Sorry i am a so called prutser like we say in Dutch. I will probably go chapter 11 very quickly.

 

[Blumlein 88]

At first I was going to joke that it was nice of them to throw in a free audiophile-grade cable, but it looks like there's actually a fanbase for Hitachi LC-OFC cables. The LC-OFC (linear crystal oxygen free copper) process was patented by Hitachi:

"So the story goes... 1975, Hitachi developed their own method for reducing grain or crystal boundaries. LC-OFC is Hitachi's patented process and their exclusive product. After extrusion, the copper wire is re-heated, or annealed, which reduces impurities between the crystal boundaries as the copper crystal grows and leads to a longer grain length. A typical crystal (or grain) in a 1mm diameter LC-OFC conductor is 130 mm long."

https://theaudiostandard.net/thread/1117/lc-ofc
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4582545

So you actually have a rare and desirable free cable.

People will see Amir is up to his old tricks again. Trying to effect the reputation of a AQ by throwing in a ringer. A super special cable from yore while pretending it was some throw away just left hanging around.

He needs to test the cable Ray posted a picture of or maybe some coax RG6 interconnect.

 

[Mindcool]

What a kind and nice person. Leaving his old ignorant ways behind by donating the cost of this cable he could have gotten back by selling it, instead giving it to you to dissect properly. Thank you very kind person, not many folks out there willing to leave their old ways with a gesture like this...

I donated the cable. I was once an audio fool, now I am a science diehard. I hope no one else needs to learn this the hard way as I did.

 

[Robbo99999]

This is probably the absolutely worse side of "audiophile", glad to see silly high end cables debunked yet again!

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

I donated the cable. I was once an audio fool, now I am a science diehard. I hope no one else needs to learn this the hard way as I did.

Removing the cable from your abode was good Fengshui.

 

[Tks]

I donated the cable. I was once an audio fool, now I am a science diehard. I hope no one else needs to learn this the hard way as I did.

More respect for putting a face to the gesture made. Thank you again Mindcool.

 

[digicidal]

I donated the cable. I was once an audio fool, now I am a science diehard. I hope no one else needs to learn this the hard way as I did.

The important thing is to focus on how much money you're not spending on those tweaks moving forward. Looking back can be painful for many of us. Unfortunately for me, the problem isn't just limited to audio. I can easily make my own designer cables with nice sleeving on the cheap... less possible to make my own carbon fiber pieces for my car... and the markup on some of those is inline with AQ cables unfortunately.

 

[pavuol]

For heavens sake give Audioquest at least some credits for writing nice poetry (lead paragraph at the "Wind" family product page).

And btw., someone tell them there is one available to link finally:

 

[PeteL]

Sure. Here is a shot of it:
View attachment 89773

Zooming in, I was surprised that it is made in Japan, Hitachi cable!

View attachment 89774

It is even directional for bloody sake!

I wonder if it came with one of my high-end Sony DVD or SACD players of the time. It certainly has been a durable cable and I often use for S/PDIF connections.

It still looks like a decently shielded cable tough, I do not think the cable just one post down would have done as well with the transformer test. As for the « direction » It is indeed laughable, but interestingly (or not) Monoprice premium XLR cables, good cables, have this arrow too, but often terminated erroneously, like he arrow pointing the female. Looks like even them don’t care, but Still wonder where this could come from. Also, yes I obviously don’t advocate high end cable, but to be curious, do you not believe at all the idea of 75 ohm coaxial transmission line for spdif? I know it takes some length for the return loss to be significant, but still I myself still believe in complying for the standards, I do not use regular interconnects for spdif, for peace of mind...

 

[Count Arthur]

Expensive cables can make a difference.

I sold these and put the money towards some new active speakers and some ~£30.00 XLR cables and I heard significant improvements.

Incidentally, because the new price has increased significantly since I bought these, I actually sold them for around what I paid for them several years ago -result!

 

[JustAnandaDourEyedDude]

I suppose they may soon release a complementary cable to this one, for connecting your DAC and amp to the mains supply, with dielectric shielded from EMI/RFI. Naturally it will be named the AQ Wind Power. Only $1800 per meter. And follow that up with the Fire Power and Water Power in their product family.

 

[ROOSKIE]

I am not the first to say it but Audioquest seems to be really pushing it.
Really ought to be illegal and in fact this level of dishonesty, false representation and price gouging might actually be.
Something to look into for the right person.

 

[Bluesideup]

AQ I thought were understood to be full of it, putting it politely.

So are all cables nonsense, Tara Labs, Crystal Cable, Gobel, uber high end brands that leave the lips of these audiophile reviewers so regularly?

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Sure. Here is a shot of it:
View attachment 89773

Zooming in, I was surprised that it is made in Japan, Hitachi cable!

View attachment 89774

It is even directional for bloody sake!

I wonder if it came with one of my high-end Sony DVD or SACD players of the time. It certainly has been a durable cable and I often use for S/PDIF connections.

Omg, you used an Oyaide cable marked as hitachi when comparing with AQ. Everyone knows Oyaide cables are better than AQ.

 

[amirm]

Omg, you used an Oyaide cable marked as hitachi when comparing with AQ. Everyone knows Oyaide cables are better than AQ.

But it doesn't have any batteries like AQ Wind has. I can hook that up pretty easy though. What can I get for it then? $3,000???

 

[StevenEleven]

I am not the first to say it but Audioquest seems to be really pushing it.
Really ought to be illegal and in fact this level of dishonesty, false representation and price gouging might actually be.
Something to look into for the right person.

Here is their Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AudioQuest. Wikipedia has indicated that it reads like an advertisement and apparently would welcome edits to make the entry more neutral. Also this might be a good place to start as to their corporate structure, whether they are publicly or privately owned, whether they are owned by a larger company that might find this unfortunate aspect of their operation embarrassing, etc. I really don’t know.

In the U.S. Federal government this would seem to fall within the bailiwick of the Federal Trade Commission. One may file a complaint and see where it goes. https://www.ftc.gov/

Though the FTC has to prioritize amongst many bad actors in terms of their workload, I am sure.

A state attorney general or a state consumer protection agency might be interested also.

The problem with an individual lawsuit is that they can probably hire better lawyers while an individual would have trouble affording it, and proving fraud in a civil suit between private parties is very difficult. Plus the law as to advertising in the U.S. is pretty lenient by what you might call moral or values-based standards.

AudioQuest is a fair target, if, as Wikipedia states, they are the largest player in the audiophile cable market space. If you think what they do is wrong, they would make a good test case or example for a state or Federal review of such practices.

Hope this helps.

 

[win]

In audioquest's defense, they do have some OK products. I have some 90* rca adapters that makes my subs look neater. And a record cleaning brush. But I'm pretty sure the brush was white labeled.

does anyone really feel bad for people shelling out thousands for cables? They are injecting cash into the economy after all, and someone else would have taken that money somehow!

 

[Kuppenbender]

But it doesn't have any batteries like AQ Wind has. I can hook that up pretty easy though. What can I get for it then? $3,000???

Before this comparison, about $50

But you can’t save people who don’t want to be saved. The Golfing Panther, in his infinite wisdom, has just added a couple of zeros to its value.

 

[wwenze]

Shield the shield? I forgot was it RG-6 that requires a weaved shield plus another layer of foil shield

 

[wwenze]

Im suprised it had no effect on frequency response. Figuered that would be it's trick.
Thanks for taking the time to test it.

You want one that screw with frequency response? Actually with active loads it can be made possible.