AudioQuest Big Sur Stereo RCA-RCA Cable (1m Pair)

The Big Sur is the flagship of AudioQuest's Bridges & Falls series of analogue interconnects — the highest tier before stepping up to the separate-cable Rivers series (Sydney, Red River, Yukon) and beyond. It sits above the Tower, Evergreen, and Golden Gate, and upgrades both of the two most critical elements that define a cable's performance: the conductor metal and the termination material. The conductor moves to Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+), AudioQuest's highest-purity copper, while the RCA plugs are made from Pure Purple Copper rather than the standard gold-plated brass used in the three models below it. The cable is named after the Bixby Creek Bridge and the dramatic California coastline at Big Sur.

Perfect-Surface Copper+ : What the "+" Means

AudioQuest's copper hierarchy runs through three tiers in the Bridges & Falls series: Long-Grain Copper (LGC) in the Tower and Evergreen, Perfect-Surface Copper (PSC) in the Golden Gate, and Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+) in the Big Sur. All three are solid conductors — the absence of stranding is a constant across the entire range. The differences lie in the purity of the base copper and the extent of surface processing applied during manufacture.

PSC, used in the Golden Gate, applies AudioQuest's proprietary surface-protection technology to high-purity, low-oxide copper, keeping the conductor surface smooth and free from the microscopic imperfections introduced during conventional wire drawing. PSC+ takes this further by applying the same processing to an even purer base copper. AudioQuest describes PSC+ as their best copper — to the greatest extent presently possible, it minimises distortion caused by the grain boundaries that exist within any metal conductor. The grain boundaries in copper act as microscopic obstacles to the signal, causing scattering and distortion at each junction. Purer copper has fewer grain boundaries per unit length, and the Perfect-Surface processing ensures that the external surface of the conductor — where the electric and magnetic fields guiding the signal interact most directly with the metal — is as free from discontinuity as current manufacturing technology allows.

The practical consequence is a conductor that introduces less of itself into the signal path. Where lower-purity copper can add a subtle hardness or grain to the sound — a textural coloration that becomes more apparent with extended listening — PSC+ aims to be as transparent as possible, letting the character of the source material and the connected equipment define the sound rather than the cable.

Purple Copper Terminations

The Big Sur's most visible upgrade over the Golden Gate is its RCA plugs. The Tower, Evergreen, and Golden Gate all use cold-welded, gold-plated terminations with stamped ground shells — effective and well-engineered, but using conventional plug metals. The Big Sur steps up to cold-welded, gold-plated Pure Purple Copper terminations. Purple Copper is a high-purity copper selected specifically for its electrical properties rather than its machinability, offering lower distortion at the critical connection point than the nickel-plated or OFHC (Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity) metals commonly used in competing manufacturers' plugs.

This matters because the plug is where the cable meets the equipment — a point of transition that, if poorly executed, can undo the benefits of a superior conductor. Any RCA plug introduces a contact interface between the cable's conductor and the equipment's input or output socket, and the metal quality at this interface directly affects signal transfer. By using a plug body made from high-purity copper (gold-plated for corrosion resistance) rather than brass or nickel-plated metal, the Big Sur maintains conductor-level purity right through to the point of contact. The cold-welded connection between conductor and plug — using several tonnes of pressure rather than solder — avoids introducing a dissimilar, lower-conductivity metal at the junction and prevents heat damage to the conductor's crystal structure.

Shared Architecture

The Big Sur shares the core architectural design common to all Bridges & Falls cables. Both left and right channels are carried in a single jacket, using Asymmetrical Double-Balanced geometry that provides separate paths for ground and shield functions — where many single-ended cable designs force both through a single conductor, the double-balanced approach keeps them separate for a lower-impedance ground path and cleaner performance. Foamed-polyethylene insulation is nitrogen-injected to maximise air content, minimising the dielectric absorption that causes timing distortion and dynamic compression. The Metal-Layer Noise-Dissipation System (NDS) intercepts captured radio-frequency interference before it reaches the equipment's ground plane. All internal conductors are direction-controlled, with arrows on the plugs indicating the preferred signal path from source to input.

The jacket is a brown-on-black nylon braid, following the Bridges & Falls colour-coding convention: Tower (black with white stripes PVC), Evergreen (green on black nylon braid), Golden Gate (red on black nylon braid), Big Sur (brown on black nylon braid). Like the Evergreen and Golden Gate, the Big Sur's nylon braid jacket is not rated for in-wall installation — the Tower remains the Bridges & Falls choice where CL3/FT4 in-wall ratings are required.

The Top of Bridges & Falls: What Comes Next

As the flagship of the Bridges & Falls series, the Big Sur represents the practical limit of what AudioQuest can achieve within the single-jacket stereo-pair format. Because both channels share one cable, the RCA plugs at each end are necessarily close together — within a few centimetres. AudioQuest notes that if the left and right RCA sockets on your equipment are spaced more than approximately 7.6cm (3 inches) apart, the Bridges & Falls plug spacing may not reach comfortably, and their Rivers or Elements series (which use separate left and right cables) should be considered.

Moving up from the Big Sur to the Rivers series (starting with the Sydney) brings several structural changes beyond the conductor metal: separate left and right cables for greater flexibility in routing and connection, Triple-Balanced geometry (adding a dedicated ground-reference conductor), and progressively higher-performance metals and noise-dissipation technologies. The Big Sur is the top of the affordable single-jacket range; the Rivers series begins the move into dedicated two-channel hi-fi cable territory.

The Big Sur is also available in 3.5mm mini-to-RCA, 3.5mm mini-to-mini, and DIN-to-RCA configurations. The DIN-to-RCA version is made to order at AudioQuest's headquarters in Irvine, California. Available lengths for the RCA-to-RCA stereo version: 0.6m, 1m, 1.5m, 2m, 3m, 5m, 8m, 12m, 16m, and 20m.