Review: AudioQuest Ruby Interconnect

Category: Cables

Ahhh, the glory of a better interconnect. Until I ponied up and bought these little gems, I had been running stock interconnects with all of my components. When I purchased some upgrades to my system, my dealer suggested I try a higher-quality interconnect, and I listened. Thank god. At first, I was a little skeptical ($125 for some wire, uh huh...), but I proved it to myself. When I brought my new CD player home, I went ahead and hooked it up directly to my amplifier via its variable gain outputs with the interconnects that came in the box. Ok, this sounds like music.

I auditioned some CDs and decided the one I would settle on to illuminate the comparison for me as one "Thar They Blow" by the Nuclear Whales Saxophone Orchestra. Brilliant music, every saxophone ever produced (from the super-rare Contra bass all the way up to the soparanino), played masterfully and recorded live directly to two tracks of musical nirvana, but I digress... I listened very closely to one particulaer track called the Casbah Shuffle which has a very dense and richly layered interplay between tablah drums and the saxophone ensemble. Lots o' punch, lots o' finesse--perfect. Sounds good so far... Then I switched out the interconnects (to the Rubies) and wow. The bass tightened up considerably, the highs seemed a little more airy and the sound was "deep". This is something I was not expecting and indeed a welcome experience.

Now, this may seem like a review that basically just says: "If you've never tried it before, go buy some good interconnects and get going!". But, I have tried a few other interconnects since I purchased the Rubies (Straight Wire, Nordost, Monster, Cardas) and have always ended up back with the Rubies. I won't say that the other interconnects I tried weren't a little better (for $200 more), but for the price, nothing could even come close to the Rubies. I can highly recommend these interconnects to anybody that wants a better listening experince without totally breaking the bank. Enjoy.

Associated gear
Sony CDP-XA20ES CD player
Parasound HCA-1000A amplifier
Yamaha RX-V800 A/V receiver
Audioquest Type-4 speaker wire