AudioQuest Evergreen RCA > RCA Audio Interconnect Cable - 3m - Stereo Pair

Oh, audiophile cables, how I love you so. A source of endless entertainment, both from the wattses and voltageres that you carry from my DAC to my amp, and from the mind-numbing copy that graces your packaging. The box for the Evergreen starts out with a lovely story about where the cable gets its name. Apparently this cable is named after a bridge in Washington that, I kid you not, "because of structural issues, a replacement is inevitable." So, before we get to all the buzzfeatures, our cable is compared to a rickety old bridge -- failed marketing maneuver, or planned obsolescence?So on to the features. First up is that the cable is made of 'long grain copper,' which is a positive. My last cable was made of long grain rice, and that was not ideal. The sound was kind of wet, a bit sticky. I much prefer the long grain copper that the Evergreens are made of. The second selling point is 'solid conductors,' which again is the mark of a quality product. Back in the late nineties I tried a fancy new audiophile cable that used highly salinated water, touting their second point as using 'liquid conductors,' but as anyone with a cat and a waterbed knows, some things are really best left solid. Point three is the 'Double-balanced asymmetrical geometry,' and while I don't know what that means, I have always found symmetry a bit boring (but balance crucial!). Point four is 'asymmetrical conductor sizes,' which reminds me of my train ride into DC with my short, sassy conductor and my tall no-nonsense conductor. Good guys to have around when you're in a jam, so I'm going to give the Evergreen some credit here for their conductor dream team. Point five is the 'Metal-Layer Noise Dissipation System,' which, I'm not even going to make a joke here, I think is just a really silly word for 'shielding.' The last feature is 'Foamed Polyethylene Insulation,' which sounds like the itchy stuff in my walls, and I will say that my music has a nice itch-that-needs-to-be-scratched quality about it. The final word on the box is the instruction to make sure that the arrows point from your source to your destination. I botched this one rule up and everything sounded like a 128kbps MP3. Then I realized I was actually listening to a bunch of 128kbps MP3s, and that was easily rectified without disconnecting my fancy green cables.I'm not a believer in audiophile cables, and at ~25 dollars, this can hardly call itself an audiophile cable. It's not made of 101% oxygen-free silver copper Dalmatian. The insulation hasn't been injected with nitrogen or helium or radon. Heck, it hasn't even been doused in holy water! And to boot, it's named after a failing bridge. But there are a few things that make this cable worth the 25 bucks. First, the construction is solid. The connectors feel great. Tough, solid, yet not so massive that you can't get two paired up in a tight set of jacks. The cables themselves, the combination of conductor material and insulation also feel sturdy. Sturdy, yet flexible enough to maneuver without issue. That sounds silly, but it really can alleviate quite a bit of frustration when you're snaking cable around. The connectors are gold plated, and while I don't have much faith in that improving my tight, tight bass response, I have had trouble over the years with lesser connectors oxidizing, and that never ends well for anyone. Gold should hold up better in this regard. The cables also seem well shielded, something that actually has a great deal of impact, and that lesser cables often fail at. The path my interconnect between DAC and amp takes is not too pleasant, and the cheap interconnect I grabbed from an old parts bin was picking up all sorts of line noise, hard drives spinning up, CB radio, EVP, you name it. These cables really are well insulated from all the nonsense interference that tries to infiltrate our earwaves.So, while I'm terribly leery in products that contain more laughable market-speak than relatable features, I can't help but recommend these. For a fairly low price, you get great construction, shielding that actually helps keep your signal clean, and gold plated connectors that will help prevent an oxidized mess from binding them to your components. And unlike its eponym, I think this cable is going to last me quite a while.

I've been a borderline audiophile for quite some time now. At this point, I'm pretty pleased and proud of my setup. I just recently got a new power amp for my 2.1 setup and wanted to make sure I had a quality cable feeding the amp.Some people swear that cables make a tremendous difference, other people swear the other way. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle, but leaning more toward them being important. In the digital world, I believe that you have a connection or you don't. In the analog world, I think quality components make a big difference.--- Construction ---The cable is nice and thick with quality elements. There don't appear to be any stress relievers on the ends, but maybe that won't make a big difference. Each end has directional arrows which indicate which direction the signal should go. I've never understood how that would make a difference, but it's there if you care.The only problem I have is the amount of slack after the fork in the cable. My amp's inputs are so wide apart that this BARELY reaches. It shouldn't be a problem for most people, though.--- Sound Quality ---I'm not going to pretend there's a huge difference here (if any at all). I need to believe that there's a bit of a placebo effect going on. AudioQuest claims there will be better quality, so there must be, right? Well who knows.As I A/B'd this cable versus a cheaper pair of competitor's connectors, I feel like I noticed a tiny difference, with the AudioQuest coming out on top. The difference was mainly in low-end definition. But like I said, I could be imagining things.--- Value ---I'm happy with the purchase. When you consider that I could get a Belkin PureAV pair for 1/3 the price, it makes me question the decision. However, I'm pleased with the sound quality (whether it's different or not) and the build quality is superb.

Excellent product. Couldn't be happier.