Digital coaxial cable with solid silver-plated conductors
Forest Coax is a coaxial cable for carrying digital audio between sources, DACs, amplifiers and processors. It brings together solid silver-plated conductors, metal-layer shielding, rigid foam insulation and cold-welded plugs.
Conductors
The conductors are solid-core Long-Grain Copper (LGC) with 0.5% silver plating. A solid core cuts down the way neighbouring strands disturb one another, electrically and magnetically. Digital signals run at frequencies so high that they move almost only along the conductor surface: that is why the better metal sits on the outside, where it matters most, which also improves noise dissipation while using a modest amount of silver.
Shielding and insulation
Metal-layer Noise-Dissipation shields the shield itself: it absorbs and reflects a large share of radio-frequency interference before it gets to the grounded layer, so the disturbance does not alter the ground reference of the equipment and, as a result, the signal.
Hard-Cell Foam insulation is a rigid foam with air pockets created by injecting nitrogen. The gas stores no energy and so cannot release it later as distortion; the stiffness of the material holds the conductors in a steady position along the whole cable, which favors a constant impedance.
Terminations and lengths
- Gold-plated, cold-welded plugs: contact is made under high pressure, with no solder, which is a frequent cause of distortion.
- Ground shells are stamped rather than machined, so the metal is picked for low distortion and not for ease of machining.
- Lengths: 0.75 m, 1.5 m, 3 m and 5 m.
