About The AudioQuest Forest USB Type A to Type Micro B Data Cable
In 1982 Sony gave us "Perfect sound forever," along with the attitude that, "it's just digital, so all CD players sound the same."
That has been well and truly disproved and qualitative differences between players has become accepted truth. Next came separate transport and DAC combos, which brought with it the attitude that "all S/PDIF digital audio cables sound the same…" That was also disproved. Now the frontier has moved once again. Is digital audio really just ones and zeros? Technically it is, but with many years of listening to products at all prices, we don't believe so. Once you've had a chance to listen to an AudioQuest Forest USB 2.0 or better, we don't think you will either.
All AudioQuest cables definitely have a high-quality look and feel and in direct comparison to a free-in-the-box USB cable, you will experience greater bass extension, and the soundstage will be opened up with vocals sounding more natural. A quality USB cable is a great way to connect your desktop or laptop computer to a digital camera or like device.
Silver Plated Conductors: Solid conductors eliminate strand-interaction distortion and reduce jitter. Solid silver-plated conductors (Silver over Copper) are excellent for very high-frequency applications, like USB audio. These signals, being such a high frequency, travel almost exclusively on the surface of the conductor. As the surface is made of high-purity silver, the performance is very close to that of a solid silver cable, but priced much closer to solid copper cable. This is an incredibly cost effective way of manufacturing very high-quality USB cables. Silver content 0.5%.
Tip: When it comes to conducting signals, silver is the best-performing metal — better than either copper or gold.
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. Forest USB uses air-filled Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation 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.
Terminations: Precision gold-plated plugs are carefully attached with the very best solder. Through choice of flux and metallurgy, AQ solder has been optimised to make a low-distortion connection. The difference you hear between solders is a result of connection quality. AQ solder does not have a high silver content because the more silver there is in solder, the more difficult it is to make a good connection.
About USB
The letters USB stand for Universal Serial BUS and this was established by a stalwart group of companies such as Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft (just to name a few) in order to give the personal computing world a truly universal standard and means to connect devices such as hard drives, printers, cameras and more importantly, to us, our audio components. Included in the original description are protocols for the pristine transfer of audio over USB. Great care and sensitivity went into this design. Consequently, a computer connected to a USB-enabled digital-to-analogue converter can outperform the best compact disc players available today. AudioQuest is committed to contributing products that honour USB's ability to deliver state-of-the-art performance on this new and wonderful frontier.
Our Take
The AudioQuest Forest is properly engineered to USB specification 2.0, made with quality materials, and tested thoroughly by a group of people who want you to get the most out of your digital material. You'll be surprised at the difference a quality USB cable can make to your enjoyment.
Main Features & Specifications
- Product Description: AudioQuest Forest USB 2.0 Type A to Type Micro B Data Cable
- Terminations: Gold-plated
- Conductors: Silver-Plated Solid Long Grain Copper
- Silver-plated conductors are excellent for very high-frequency applications, like USB audio. The Forest contains 0.5%
- Insulation: Polyethylene
- USB Specification: This cable exceeds USB 2.0 data rate specifications
- Jacket Colour: Black/Green stripe
- Available Lengths: 750mm; 1.5 Metre
- AudioQuest Product Code: AQ-FORESTUU
- Manufacturer's Australian Warranty: 5 Years - Does not cover misuse or abuse
Note: Features & Specifications subject To Change Without Notice. E&OE