With the addition of AudioQuest’s patented Dielectric-Bias System, Cougar brings a level of low-level clarity and resolution rarely seen at this price. Perfect-Surface Copper+ is the icing on the cake, raising Cougar’s performance significantly above Wildcat’s.
Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+) Conductors
Perfect-Surface Copper+ has an astonishingly smooth and pure surface. Proprietary metal-processing technology protects the wire’s surface at every stage of drawing and fabrication. When high-purity low-oxide copper is kept as soft, pure and smooth as possible, it becomes a wonderfully low-distortion PSC+ conductor. PSC+ is manufactured by applying the same exceptional technology to an ultra-pure copper. The resulting sound quality is even more focused and simply less in the way. For over 30 years AudioQuest has pioneered the use of superior metals; yet even we were surprised by the huge leap in performance made possible with Perfect-Surface Technology. PSC+ simply outperforms all previously available copper metals at any price. All of Cougar’s conductors are solid. Electrical and magnetic interaction between strands in a conventional cable is the greatest source of distortion, often causing a somewhat dirty, harsh sound. Solid conductors are fundamental toward achieving Cougar’s very clean sound.
Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation
Any solid material adjacent to a conductor is actually part of an imperfect circuit. Wire insulation and circuit board materials all absorb energy (loss). Some of this energy is stored and then released as distortion. Cougar uses air-filled Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation because air absorbs next to no energy and Polyethylene is low-loss and has a benign distortion profile. Thanks to all the air in Foamed-PE, it causes much less of the out-of-focus effect common to other materials.