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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
rrayda
abex
322 posts
 
I just sold all my AQ cables which included the Rubys and Indigo speaker cables.Great value fort the $$.

I sold them to pay for 47Labs OTA cable which to me must be in the league of Kimber Silver Streak.

Glad your happy with the AQ.Also I am glad for another vote where someone hears difference in cables.

Post over at AR's cable BB to tell them they are hearing deficient please!
nrchy's avatar
nrchy
2,124 posts
 
I have owned the Ruby cables, and you are right. There is definately a big improvement over the stock 'junk' cables that come with equipment. Every time you replace a pair of ICs and speaker cable you will notice the same thing. Some cables and application will make more improvements than others. Keep playing around with this stuff. Cables costing hundreds of dollars can make improvements that would cost thousands to get when buying electronics.
happy listening
markone-3823
1 posts
 
I've previously owned A/Q Emeralds. Later I up-graded to
the Pythons, which took my system to another level.
The A/Q range at each price point, seem to offer a superior improvement to other makes I've tried, like Nordost, K/K, Straight Wire and MIT. IMO they just offer a natural, mellow, non-grainy ingredient to the sound.
Glad you're enjoying your A/Qs cables.
Cheers.
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