With The Maestro interconnect we start out with a high purity (99.99%) single, Teflon coated silver wire. Why silver? Because it’s a better conductor than copper. Why 99.99% purity? Because 5N silver (99.999% purity) is rare and on average costs 5-10 times more and very hard to produce and find. 6N silver (99.9999% purity) is too soft to produce, in other words it CANNOT be produced! Moreover, even if one could produce it, it would probably cost 100-500 times what 4N silver costs. In short, 6N silver does not exist and anyone who claims they have 99.9999% pure silver wire is probably not being entirely honest with you.
Keeping the principle of “less is more” in mind, we use a SINGLE 18 gauge wire. Why? A single wire eliminates the noise and RFI generated by any multistranded wire. Furthermore, time misalignment is eliminated by a single wire, i.e., the entire signal reaches the end of the IC at the same time. In addition, a very thin wire minimizes the Skin Effect phenomenon. Furthermore, through extensive listening, we feel that an 18 awg silver wire, though more costly, is the BEST gauge of wire for an entirely balanced presentation of the full range of audio frequencies.
To improve upon the sonic of our IC, we cryogenically treat our silver wires (main and ground leads), silver RCA connectors, balanced XLR connectors for 5 days before assembly. Cryogenic treatment involves placing the wires and connectors in a liquid Nitrogen tank (approximately –346). This process affects the crystalline alignment of the metal along the length of the wire such that the individual crystals of silver align closer together, facilitating the transfer of electrical charges along the wire. Theoretically speaking, this should lead to a faster and smoother electrical transfer with smaller fractional signal loss. By traveling faster through a single conductor, with less loss of musical information, the immediacy and transparency of your audio system is augmented. Does this process actually make a difference? We believe that if you were using a revealing and ultimately “natural” sounding audio system, then the benefits of cryogenic treatment would be imminently audible.
The transparency is also augmented by the fact that we use a single wire for the main lead with no RFI and EMI from other strands, which is the Achilles heel of any multistranded design.
Using a unique design, we are able to maintain a relatively constant distance of 2.5 cm between the main lead and the ground wire and avoid direct contact of the dielectric materials of the two wires. The combination of these two design principles further eliminates the chance of EMI and RFI from the ground lead contaminating our main silver lead.
The RCA version of the Maestro interconnect is terminated with cryogenically-treated silver connectors from Cardas. I never understood why people use silver wire with gold plated cooper or brass RCAs. Dissimilar parts/metals will conduct the signal at different speeds, adding more coloration that will definitely affect the transparency of your audio system. After the soldering is finished, we cover our IC with an attractive black and white nylon mesh and as the final step. Now the cables are ready for use.
Our unique design principles, high quality parts, and the special cryogenic treatment results in augmentation of transparency in an entirely natural manner, lifting layers of veils and allowing the music to simply come to life. This enhancement of transparency, results in a 3-dimensional soundstage with greater focus and image stability of individual instruments in both space and time, imparting an organic or natural quality to the music so much so that the “illusion” becomes difficult to discern from the “original”.
Please allow for 100 hours of “burn-in” for best results.
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