Silver is the whitest of all metals – its elemental symbol is Ag, argentum – Latin for white and shining. More significantly for audio it exhibits the highest electrical and highest thermal conductivity of any known metal. Silver, unlike copper, does not readily oxidise so does not produce a high resistance, poor conducting, oxide layer on its surface. Instead, when exposed to the atmosphere, it forms a very low resistance thin layer of sulphide produced by a reaction with the sulphur pollutants present in the air. Whether these properties are of significance to the audio performance is not certain, but the life-like transparency, solidity of the image and ease of communication when using such pure silver cables becomes clear upon auditioning. SilverBlue SQ – Pure Solid Silver Interconnect Cable SilverBlue SQ (StarQuad) combines the highest quality and most effective conductors and insulators with a geometry chosen by iterative subjective evaluation to produce an analogue interconnect with a performance second to none. This new SQ version of SilverBlue improves upon the original twin-screened SilverBlue by making four significant changes to the earlier design. These are: SilverBlue SQ increases the number of signal carrying pure silver conductors from 2 to 4 to double the effective cross-sectional area whilst maintaining individual conductor isolation using thin micro-porous Teflon around each silver strand. We use porous Teflon to greatly attenuate the effect the insulator has upon the audio generated fields surrounding the silver conductors. Due to a phenomenon known as ‘dielectric absorption’ the insulator immediately surrounding the signal conductors absorbs and releases energy that modulates the audio signal, resulting in poor transparency and a confused homogeneous sound lacking in instrumental separation. The four individually insulated conductors are configured in a quadrilateral star arrangement with diagonally opposite conductors commoned during termination. This greatly attenuates any induced radio frequency interference by cancelling opposite fields induced into the audio conductors due to the symmetry and close proximity of the hot and cold signals in the star geometry. By its very symmetry and natural rejection of external interference, SilverBlue SQ is a perfect contender for use in high quality balanced XLR interfaces. The third design change from the original SilverBlue is in the size and position of the tightly-knit, woven silver-plated copper braid. In SilverBlue SQ a higher percentage of coverage has been achieved to further protect the signal carrying conductors from outside interference. Most significantly the braid has been increased in diameter and spaced away from the silver conductors, using layers of micro-porous Teflon, thus ensuring that any interference induced into the screen cannot be induced into the silver audio carrying conductors. Finally, in place of the PVC outer jacket surrounding the original SilverBlue we have chosen a direct derivative of PTFE offering the same low dielectric constant of 2.1 with an attractive but durable, high gloss finish. Outside diameter is 7.25mm maximum, colour Royal Blue. SilverBlue SQ is one of the highest resolution audio interconnects available regardless of price and will especially excel when used with minimal electronics and in natural sounding systems. All finished interconnects are silver soldered and terminated either in the precision-machined German WBT connectors or the Swiss manufactured Neutrik XLRs for balanced system use. © 2003 Audio Synthesis