I’ve seen some recent pictures of AQ Storm Series power cables, various models including Dragon, Hurricane, Firebird, that no longer have braided conductors. The newer cables appear to just have 3 parallel conductors, with everything else looking the same.
Does anyone know why AQ made this design/construction change? One would think that when they originally designed this line of cables, they took the conductor geometry into consideration, and obviously chose braiding as superior at the time. What changed?
Are you sure you’re comparing apples to apples? I could be mistaken, but a common feature of AQs top models has always been solid core conductors. Which is the reason they tend to be so stiff (so much so I have to return a Tornado as unusable, it wasn’t possible to bend it enough to be practical behind my rack). The lower tier NRG series, however, utilizes stranded conductors.
The braiding I’m referring to is the external geometry of the cable. With the Storm Series, they are essentially 3 separate cables – hot, neutral, and ground – joined at each end by the appropriate plugs.
The original design had those 3 runs braided, and in the newer versions they are not.
I should have let you know, AQ is no longer offering the French Braid configuration except for custom orders. They switched to the parallel configuration a couple months ago. There zero no change in performance with the new design, they changed because this parallel configuration offers greater flexibility and many end users had complaints about the lack of flexibility with the French Braid design.
It does seem a bit strange… I never really thought these cables were any less wieldy than any other high quality power cable.
The two things I initially suspected were:
Maybe the braided construction was infringing on someone else’s intellectual property. However, if they’ll still make them for custom orders, this certainly isn’t an issue.
To make a 1 meter finished cable with the braids, you need to use quite a bit more than 1 meter of material. I don’t know what the actual ratio is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the braiding adds 20% more material to the finished product.
If I had to bet, I think I would put some money on #2 as being a bigger driver of the change than complaints about lack of flexibility.
Hello, the changes also got me thinking about Audioquest Storm cables. One argument is that the individual strands twist a little easier when laying than the braided ones. On the other hand, a conductor laid in parallel also has other parameters C and L. The DBS was also laid because it is said to sound better now. If all these changes sound so much better, why wasn’t it always done that way? I thought the exaggerated price was due to the engineering and design. The most important thing to improve the sound has been forgotten so far. The inferior connectors and transitions of the strands in the connector. Plugs make a difference! Better a simple cable with quality connectors than an expensive cable with cheap connectors. A Storm cable with Furutech NCF connectors is on a different level! That bothers me and I did it myself.
I terminated the cable with Furutech cable lugs. This requires a decent press.
I never really thought these cables were any less wieldy than any other high quality power cable.