Solid Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) and Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+) Conductors

Solid conductors prevent electrical strand-to-strand interaction, major sources of distortion. Surface quality is critical because a conductor can be considered as a rail-guide for both the fields within a conductor, and for the magnetic fields that extend outside the conductor. The astonishingly smooth and pure surface of all AudioQuest’s Perfect-Surface metals nearly eliminates harshness and greatly increases clarity compared to lesser materials. The careful choice of the sizes of the PSS and PSC+ conductors ensures that FireBird’s performance is close to using all PSS Silver, but at a much lower cost.

Carbon-Based Linearized Noise-Dissipation System

Today’s environment is saturated with radio-frequency noise that is extremely difficult to filter or reject. The frequencies of this noise from satellites, cellular towers, and Bluetooth, etc., are so extremely narrow that a conventional shield, or a series or shunt filter, is wholly inadequate. Much of the low-level signal that carries the harmonics and spatial cues that define high-resolution audio is masked by induced radio-frequency noise. AQ’s comprehensive Linearized Noise-Dissipation System combines multiple shields and a carbon-based linearized resistive network that turns most of this noise into heat. By "linearized," we mean that the system is equally effective across extremely wide bandwidth, rather than at selected frequencies only, as is more common. The remaining bad energy is effectively drained away from the sensitive amplifier circuits via directionally controlled signal and shield conductors.

ZERO-Tech

The only complete way to eliminate characteristic-impedance mismatches between a cable and the attached source and load is for the cable not to have any fixed characteristic-impedance value. ZERO-Tech accomplishes this by eliminating interaction between the insulation (dielectric) and the cable’s conductors—enabling uncompressed current transfer. All-important transient current is unrestricted, and RF Noise-Dissipation is linearized (consistent octave to octave).