Long time ago AQ moved production to China and renamed ICs to stay competitive. Python became King Cobra, Viper became Diamondback etc. I had both, Viper and King Cobra. I decided to upgrade and considered Sky. It was too expensive and I went for Acoustic Zen Absolute instead ($650 0.5m XLR used).
I wouldn't buy any cable from ebay (unless it comes from well known store), especially cheap Chinese copy. You get what you paid for. |
@kijanki - the seller said the cables re used and are AQ not copies. But how do I make sure? I did try the King Cobra model many months back but they just did not sound good, not open and dark sounding. The only interest I have in the Sky is that the Vandersteen MP filters use them and I want to make another MP filter copy. The filters only use one half of the IC or I can just make them with RCA in/out and try any interconnect if I want to. Any more thoughts? |
Yes Just tell the guy that you will take them but you need to
send the to AQ to verify authenticity.
Hope you don't get screwed sure sounds fishy for 200 bucks. Best JohnnyR
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@bigkidz You said: I see on eBay what I believe are copies of the AQ Sky interconnects King Cobra is pretty much the same in character as Diamonback (Viper), but a little more refined (smoother). It is very neutral, open sounding with nice treble extension. In comparison Acoustic Zen Absolute is little "faster" with darker background (and more refined). Absolute is made of zero-crystal pure silver with oversized hollow core foam Teflon insulation. It results in extremely small capacitance and inductance (6pF/ft, 0.02uH/ft). It would be pretty easy to make plain cable that just looks the same and sell it on ebay. Last year I bought pretty nice Hakko soldering iron with station. There are identical irons on ebay, for much less. The only difference is slightly different mark on the bottom. They are cheap Chinese illegal copies. If they copy $100 soldering iron, wouldn't they copy $2000 cable? AZ Absolute Silver runs at about $900 used. It is almost 50% of the new pair. Sky, at the price you mentioned is 10% |
Audioquest has always made their cables in Audioquest facilities in the US. Why would they make their cables in China? If it doesn’t make sense it’s not true. from Audioquest website, “If you see AudioQuest-branded products being sold for “too-good-to-be-true” prices, the chances are very good that the products are counterfeit. Be particularly wary of AudioQuest-branded cables being offered for unusually low prices from China and Hong Kong, especially on auction or bid sites. AudioQuest cannot ensure the authenticity of any product purchased from any unauthorized AudioQuest dealer. If purchasing from a marketplace, such as Amazon or eBay, please verify that the seller is authorized. To verify that a dealer is authorized to sell AudioQuest before purchasing via the AudioQuest Dealer Locator click here.” |
@geoffkait - thanks that is why I posted this as I remembered something about this years ago. They are not selling the cables as new but used cables. I emailed the seller and he responded by saying authentic but still probably not correct. I guess I am better off looking somewhere else.
Thanks |
Audioquest is made in China. I've read about it in the interview with the head of AudioQuest, but I cannot find it right now. I'm not sure if they make all cables in China, but my King Cobra have sign "Made in China". If you have King Cobra look on the right bottom of the back side of the box. There is a tiny sign "Made in China" under larger red word "Jaguar". Also, moving production to China was the reason for renaming cables (lower prices of the same thing). King Cobra is the newer version of Python that was quite expensive. Check construction and materials of both.
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So what? Audioquest cables would be assembled by Chinese workers, but the design and parts and control of directionality, everything else, is Audioquest in an Audioquest plant. That’s hardly the same thing as Chinese products. So give a break. Thats like saying iPad and iPhone are made in China. It’s semantics.
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I never said it makes any difference. I mentioned it only to show that the same cables from US and China had different names and prices. Still, cheap imitations most likely won't be of the same quality, no matter where made.
As for China, I type it on wireless Logitech keyboard (made in China), connected to MacMini (made in China) and to ViewSonic monitor (made in China). All wonderful quality. |
One telltale sign that it is a fake is looking at the velcro bands on the DBS packs. If they wrap around the DBS and/or have AudioQuest written on them in white, then they are most likely fake. Just look at some pictures of authentic cables online and compare them to the eBay ones.
There are of course more precise copies, so this is just the obvious one. I would try to stick to buying AQ cables used from well rated sellers or even better dealers if you are looking for authentic cables. Even still I have heard of stories where highly rated people end up innocently selling Sky cables they thought were real and turned out to not be the case (refunds were issued as I recall). |
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If you didn't like the sound of the King Cobra, then you might not care for AQ's higher offerings.
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@dustsailor I did you the Audioquest Diamondback for the filter I built as I had one single cable and just decided to use it. It worked fine and I did not have anything to compare it to but the original MP filter. To our ears, the one we built was better sounding. I could not compare the cables on the filters as they are fixed. Parts quality on the filter that we built was much higher (better capacitors than the original WIMA, and better resistors than the original ones) so that makes it hard to say. I purchased the King Cobra's and in a few systems they were musical but not as open as the other cables that they were compared to at that time. Since Vandersteen uses the SKY ICs on their filters and I current use those filters in my system, I wanted to match the ICs on the filters that I am building now. I can use any cable for the filters and actually could be the filters with inputs and outputs to try any cables. |
Read through the seller’s feedback. Many “used” pairs have
been sold. Right…
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@tubegb they are used so unless they owned many pairs probably not.
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