ThunderBird: Mythical Creatures interconnect in solid PSC+ copper with FEP insulation
AudioQuest ThunderBird is the first of the three interconnects in the Mythical Creatures series, which continues with FireBird and Dragon. It uses solid copper conductors, ZERO-Tech technology, 72 V DBS biasing and RCA or XLR connectors made specifically for the series.
Sold as a pair: the pack holds the two cables for the right and left channels.
Conductors and insulation
The conductors are single wires of Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+), the highest grade of copper the brand uses, oriented according to the Direction-Controlled principle. A solid wire rules out electrical and magnetic interplay between strands, and the care taken over the surface lowers grain-boundary distortion. Insulation differs by polarity: the positive conductors run in FEP air tubes (FEP Air-Tube), where the metal barely touches the insulation and FEP offers a very favourable dielectric constant; the negative ones instead have a deliberately more lossy insulation, with neither air nor FEP, suited to the different task the return path performs.
ZERO-Tech, DBS and noise dissipation
ZERO-Tech cancels the electrostatic field between the two signal conductors, so the cable has no characteristic impedance and no mismatch is created with the source and load circuits: radio-frequency noise dissipation stays linear octave after octave and transients are not compressed. The 72 V Dielectric-Bias System (DBS) biases the dielectric, lowers its noise and makes its filtering effect linear; the XLR version uses a double DBS pack (Dual-72v) to preserve full isolation between the conductors. The Level 6 Noise-Dissipation system also includes a resistive mesh of carbon and graphene and RF drain wires plated with 6% silver.
Terminations and lengths
RCA for unbalanced connections, XLR for balanced ones. The plugs are very high purity Red Copper with silver applied straight onto it; the copper-plated, grounded shells stop RF noise from coupling capacitively into the conductors. Lengths: 0.5 m, 0.75 m, 1 m, 1.5 m, 2 m, 2.5 m, 3 m, 4 m, 5 m and 6 m.
Key features
- Conductors: solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+)
- Technology: ZERO-Tech and Level 6 Noise-Dissipation
- DBS: 72 V, double pack on the XLR version
- Insulation: FEP Air-Tube on the positive conductors
- Connectors: RCA or XLR, silver on Red Copper, copper-plated shells
