We reached out recently to AF Audio in the U.K. to check out some of their cables. They responded with a yes and sent over a pair of 1 meter Solid Silver RCA interconnects. I tracked them everyday waiting not very patiently I may add, for them to arrive. It didn’t take all that long for them to get here, I think about a week and a half so not bad at all. AF Audio is a small business which does not have a tone of overhead like larger manufacturing facilities can have. This leads to some savings for them to pass on to you. It would seem that you get more for the money with AF than other mainstream cable companies, or at least in my experience.
AF Audio RCA Build
Over all the build is very nice. High quality components went into the process. They are not perfect, but in a good way. The branded heat shrink is not perfectly matched on each end, but it’s nice in a way of reminding you these are hand made. They are not pumped out of a giant factory. They are not imperfect in a sloppy way, just in a human way. You feel more connected to the AF Cables, you look at them and see someone’s passion.
We took some full frame macro photos to magnify the components for you so you too can see what we see.
The terminals on the ends gave a very snug fit on both my Marantz SR7009 and my Nakamichi PA5 Stasis amp. It wasn’t to tight nor loose. You will have confidence in the connection.
We love the braided sheathing on the cables keeping the conductors together, while also being very flexible. One channel is marked with an addition red piece of heat shrink to keep your channels in order. Once think I personally would have liked would be if the left and right channels would have been bound at some point to keep them neat. That is a personal aesthetic preference and not a performance based one.
AF Audio Sound
The sound is excellent, pure and simple. I did not notice a massive difference between the cables I had and the AF Audio, more subtle characteristics. The higher frequency sounded to me as more detailed, more separation in the varying instruments in some of the test pieces I listened to. All that said I am on the side that cables make a difference if you system is up to par. Think of cables like tires for a car, the best race tires in the world will make little difference on a Ford Pinto, however if you have a Ferrari you may experience different results. That is to say, 10,000 dollar cables will not make a boombox sound better, but why limit your ultimate reference system by using sup par cables. Cables are after all what connects each piece of your system together.
Contact AF Audio
If you are interested in a set of your own AF Audio Cables head over to their website below or Facebook.
Af Audio also offers Mains, Mains Conditioning systems and much more.
I recommend if you are in the United States shooting them an email to arrange purchase.
Our test equipment was as follows.
Source: MacBook Pro: Tidal MQA songs
Preamp: Marrantz SR7009
Power Amp: Nakamichi PA5 Stasis
Speakers: Martin Logan LX16
Speaker Cables: GearIT White, Banana Term.
Cables tested: AF Audio Solid Silver, used as Pre to Power amp Interconnect.