Masterfully Revealing the Poetry of Music! . . . . ExLGII™ Silver Conductors: Many silver cable offerings are actually made from "Jeweler's Silver" or re-claimed and recycled silver from photographic, print media and other industries that are then extruded through carbon dies. These grades are what typically find their way into lesser expensive silver cabling. None of this is so with our ExLGII™ silver. First, ExLGII™ is virgin, not recycled silver as used in many lesser expensive offerings. ExLGII™ silver is OSHA certified for it's purity as opposed to other "manufacturer developed" certifications to come up with whatever purity level they want to promote to create "market interest". RSAD's ExLGII™ silver is not only OSHA Certified, it's also graded for it's "Q"uality which is distinct from purity. RSAD's High "Q" silver designation has to do with the levels of types of impurities where purity is strictly the level of purity regardless of impurity types. As per RSAD's spec, our silver is extruded through diamond dies which are cleaner and create a better conductor surface compared to carbon dies. Because of how we build our cables, we are able spec the softest, largest grain silver available probably in the industry. When we first spec'd our temper to our metallurgist, he said "No! don't do that, it's too soft for cable manufacture." When we explained to him how we build our cables he basically said "...hmmm, interesting. That will work." The silver is then cryo-tempered which finishes the heat tempering process and minimizes the grain boundaries of the conductors. Not all cryo-freezing is the same. Cryogenics, depending on how it's done can be a mixed bag when applied to audio cabling and other audio related products. We've invested some good time and testing to come up with a process we feel best serves the sonic performance of our cabling. Utilizing the expertise and patience of an industry leader in the field of cryogenics, the process developed for our conductors is at least somewhat unique on a couple of levels. One being that we use a vapor process as opposed to liquid emersion, the "hold" time and temperature is specific to our request and the ramp down and ramp up times are also specific to our request. A few other tricks specific to RSAD but.... Further, each conductor for a given project goes through an "in-house" proprietary five step cleaning/polishing process. The cleaning/polishing is labor intensive in that great attention is given not to stress the conductors. The first two cleaning procedures are done by hand. The third procedure finishes the cleaning process on a microscopic level and is unique to the industry. Lastly, final hand polishing results in a literal high definition mirror finish which also seals the finish. The sonic contribution of this cleaning/polishing technique is not inconsequential and is significant to our cable's performance. RSAD's ExLGII™ silver is unique and we were probably the first to begin changing enthusiast's negative perceptions and experiences of how silver performs sonically without affecting silver's virtues. Ridge Street Audio Designs cables feature materials and construction techniques that comprise our unique ExLGII Silver Conductors and CordLESS Cable™ Technology. [Back to Top]

Masterfully Revealing the Poetry of Music! . . . . CordLESS Cable Technology: I hate listening to a music system. Like you, I'd much rather listen to and enjoy my music. This is what RSAD's CordLESS Cable Technology is intended to facilitate. Cabling that is transparent and does not impose it's own signature on top of the virtues you appreciate in your electronics and loudspeakers. The primary catalyst for this "Feature" designation is the insulator we use and its expanded function in our cabling. In our Midnight Silver Edition Gen.II and Poiema!!! series cable products, this designation also has to do with the redistributed surface area of our solid core conductors. We view the insulator in an audio cable as more than just a dielectric to isolate conductors from each other and we view the choice of conductor gauge and it's form as more than a means to minimize DC and AC resistance. Insulator and conductor choice can mean the difference between a good sounding audio cable and world class high performance cable. Virtually all commonly used insulators for audio purposes impose a discernable editorial to the music signal. These distortions include time smear, electrostatic noise and mechanical resonance feedback. Some designers, rather than deal with these issues, actually use these aural artifacts as means to tune or create a signature in their cabling! Our insulator is a sealed air/organic type whose properties virtually eliminate these distortions leaving the conductor and insulator interface to impart no discernable editorial on the music signal. We could divulge more about our insulators but then we would have to kill you. Suffice this to say and live: The sonic impact of our insulator is no small issue. At some frequency all conductors, regardless of material, suffer a phase shift and begin to attenuate the signal at a given frequency dependant on the size of the conductor. This is a pretty simplified definition of "Skin Effect". Small conductors avoid high frequency roll off and may allow bats to enjoy our music but the lower midrange on down will suffer, sounding attenuated and lacking bloom. Stranding many smaller wires together to achieve a larger gauge wire is one approach to solve this problem but this approach introduces at least as many problems as it solves and is especially noticeable as a type of noise when installed in high performance music systems. On the other hand, a cable could be constructed from a pair of large gauge solid conductors but then you lose the bats and the sparkle in the music that gives it it's vivaciousness. What to do? Our solution is to redistribute the surface area of a solid core conductor so that we're able to use large gauge equivalent conductors and avoid the high frequency roll off endemic with large gauge conductors. Foils and ribbons were originally tried but we found them to be too delicate for manufacture into an audio cable. As foil and ribbon type conductors are defined as being anywhere from 0.002 to .005 thick, they are prone to too much stress that will fracture the conductor's grain not only in manufacture but also in simple dressing during installation in an entertainment system. Finally, the redistributed surface area of our conductors play an important role in how we accomplish our different cable's impedance characteristic and it's associated electrical Q. This is critical to how well an audio cable carries out it's transmission function in a given application. As forming an optimized LCR circuit, we depend to a good degree on our conductors being responsible for very high quality L, C, and R properties rather than only LCR values producing a target impedance product. All in all, our CordLESS Cable Technology is a significant factor to the holographic presentation our cabling is able to provide. Ridge Street Audio Designs cables feature materials and construction techniques that comprise our unique ExLGII Silver Conductors and CordLESS Cable™ Technology. [Back to Top]