Maple Audio Works Audio Cables

Maple Audio Works Technology Overview

“While others try to capture the spirit of music, we set it free…”

We build our cables with negating interference in mind, as well as using the best quality conductors available. When transporting over any electrical medium, interference and leakage are major factors. The conductor’s own resistance is a means of leakage, so the quality of the conductor is of utmost importance. Interferences are the plague of most audio systems. The main kinds of interferences we encounter are electromagnetic interference, radio frequency interference, electrostatic discharge and mechanical interferences.

Electromagnetic interference is defined as any electromagnetic disturbance that interrupts, obstructs, or otherwise degrades or limits the effective performance of electronics or electrical equipment. Basically every electronic device you own causes interference, of course some greater than others and the closer you have such devices in relation to your audio system the greater the amount of interference is generated. Radio frequency interference is caused by electromagnetic radiation, which is emitted by circuits carrying rapidly changing signals. The most common way to getting rid of this kind of interference is through the use of bypass or de-coupling capacitors, which in a transport medium comes down to filtering, which does not make sense in audio cables. When we begin to filter the signal we begin to lose parts of the signal we want to keep. The only application where this does make sense is in the power source or power supply, thus power cable design can greatly benefit from filtering because you want only clean power and nothing else.

Electrostatic discharges are everywhere, especially in a carpeted room. Static is something that is just part of existing in our atmosphere. Charged particles just releasing their energy where ever they want. Of course safeguards can be put in place to help prevent static from affecting your audio system and the cables, which connect the components. In the case of interferences shielding cancels or protects from most of them. Of course each type of interference is influenced more greatly by different materials with different qualities.

Finally we look at mechanical interference. What is it? Simply anything that moves causes mechanical interference or vibration, even the sound you are generating with your audio system is a form of interference that affects the end result. For this reason we can see why isolation cones and weight loaded devices really do work. Mechanical interferences can have the same effect on cables as they do on individual components, reflecting from, or absorbing mechanical interferences becomes more important as the true realization of what they can do to your system.

Please note that our cables do not act as filters, we are simply allowing the frequencies to travel unobstructed to an intended path or source. As soon as you start to filter the frequencies information is lost. If anything, we are promoting a more complete means of transportation for the signal. The frequencies are arriving fully intact at their intended destination.

One of the most overlooked internal interferences that we encounter is crosstalk. Frequencies can affect other frequencies. Analogue signals are composed of multiple frequencies sharing the same medium, thus allowing ample bandwidth is extremely important. The importance of a Litz configuration is important in the construction of a loudspeaker cable in particular because we are allowing the various frequencies to travel less restricted with similar frequencies. We don’t want to force a signal to move through an inadequate medium, which doesn’t allow the signal to breathe. I like to think of this as “frequency crowding”, when this happens all of the nuances and dimension of the music are lost by the time it reaches our ears. Sends and returns in both loudspeaker cables and interconnect must be safeguarded against each other. The closer they are to each other the more shielding becomes important.

Maple Audio – Frequency selective audio cables. Does bi-wiring and tri-wiring make a noticeable difference? The answer is definitely yes, especially if you know how to build bi-wired and tri-wired cables correctly. When we build a bi-wired or tri- wired set of loudspeaker cables we are not simply putting two identical sets of cabling together. We are custom building the cables to address specific frequencies. Audio frequencies are very selective of the medium in which they decide to travel if alternate paths are available. We build our cables completely different to address high frequencies versus low frequencies.

Why does this happen? Different frequencies travel at different skin depths; lower frequencies tend to travel towards the core of the conductor, whereas the higher frequencies travel closer to the outside of the conductor. For this reason higher frequencies prefer many small conductors with lots of surface area as opposed to lowerfrequencies preferring only a few larger conductors.

Wire Composition (Common to all of our products.)

Family Copper

Product Form wire

Processing Continuous cast hot rolled, then a succession of annealing and drawing at different temperature to allow a continuous single

Nominal Composition Cu 99.99

Material Copper OFE Oxygen Free Electronic.

Application DataCopper N0 : C10100, As .0005, Sb .0004, P .0003, Te .0002

For the Layman

Now that we have all of the technical mumbo-jumbo out of the way, I would like to relate to you an analogy of how cables work. First of all I don’t like to think of our cables as exotic, simply we provide an accurate transport mechanism to connect your audio components to one another. We don’t believe in gimmicks to sell our products, we are very straight forward with our design. We don’t believe in over complicating things, but we do try to take all interferences into account. Making an excellent audio cable is very involved, yes, but relatively simple once you understand what is going on and what has to be done to transport the signal in tact. The first thing I want to say is that no cable can improve the signal, secondly you cannot surpass the quality of your components with the use of cables. The cables simply reveal what your components are truly capable of. The problem with most cables is that they are not shielded or insulated adequately and they do not have sufficient bandwidth to transport the signal properly. There are many cable companies out there that make excellent products because they have realized this. Cables and audio components are affected by interference. The quality of connectors and conductors also play a major part in transporting the signal in tact. The signal that is being transferred between your components is not simply one signal, but a range of signals. The analog spectrum that is being transferred needs to breathe in a sense. The way I like to relate this idea is by comparing a dirt road to a highway. First let’s look at bandwidth as well as the quality of conductors. A dirt road cannot transport the same volume as a highway, which relates to a small conductor to a large conductor, or single conductor to multiple conductors. Remember an analog signal is composed of many frequencies, so you need sufficient bandwidth to allow those frequencies to travel unobstructed. Second, if we increase the size of the dirt road to accommodate the traffic, we realize two things, it's a bumpy ride and we can't go as fast, and if we do go too fast we will likely slide off the road or collide with other vehicles. The dirt in my mind relates to the quality of the conductor, one being solid core versus stranded and second, the material used being is something to the effect of 99.99% oxygen free copper with very long crystal lengths versus standard grade copper. So now we have solved the problem of allowing the signals to travel at almost full speed, and allowing the frequencies to travel without affect one another and minimizing the loss of signal, we must consider other things to which in the dirt road/highway scenario relate to things like rain, snow, hurricanes, and earthquakes, which are external interferences. These relate to electromagnetic interference, radio frequency interference and mechanical vibrations which all affect the transference of the signal. What do we do to avoid these things? We must safeguard by adequately shielding and insulating the signal so these things have a minimal effect on the signal Again, I don't like to think of our cables as being exotic; they are simply very true conductors with no gimmicks. Believe me there are a lot of gimmicks out there and that is exactly what they are, I won't name names, because that isn't my style. There are definitely better ways to manufacture cables and that is simply what we do. This is of course just my opinion, but I don't believe in filtering the signal, because we will inevitability lose a portion of the signal we want to keep. So just keep your eyes and mind open, always try a variety of components before deciding on buying. There are a lot of bargains out there and you don’t always have to spend more money than other people to get a better system than they do. If you buy right, you might be spending significantly less than most people and end up with a superior system.