AudioQuest Black Lab RCA Subwoofer Cable - 3m (9 ft 10 in)

AudioQuest Black Lab — RCA Subwoofer Cable

The Black Lab is AudioQuest's entry point into their dedicated subwoofer cable range — a purpose-built single RCA interconnect designed specifically for the low-frequency signal path between an amplifier, receiver, or processor and a powered subwoofer. It sits at the foundation of a lineup that progresses through Irish Red and Boxer (both adding silver content to the conductor) before reaching the higher-end Greyhound, Husky, and Wolf models. Despite being the most affordable in the series, the Black Lab uses genuine AudioQuest engineering throughout: solid Long-Grain Copper conductors, foamed-polyethylene insulation, a metal-layer noise-dissipation shield, symmetrical coaxial geometry, and cold-welded gold-plated terminations. It is a meaningful step up from generic subwoofer cables and the thin, unshielded patch leads often supplied in the box with budget subwoofers.

Solid Long-Grain Copper Conductors

Each Black Lab cable contains two identical solid conductors made from AudioQuest's high-purity Long-Grain Copper (LGC). Two aspects of this design matter. First, the conductors are solid — single, unbroken strands rather than bundles of thinner wires twisted together. Stranded conductors suffer from strand-interaction distortion, where the individual strands make and break contact with each other as the signal passes through, creating micro-interruptions that can degrade dynamic performance. Solid conductors eliminate this entirely. Second, the copper itself is Long-Grain — meaning fewer grain boundaries within the metal. Grain boundaries act as tiny obstacles to signal flow, introducing distortion at each transition point. LGC has significantly fewer of these impurities and boundaries than standard OFHC (Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity) copper, which is an industry specification concerned with electrical loss but not distortion.

Insulation and Shielding

The insulation on both conductors is foamed polyethylene — a material with high air content that absorbs very little energy compared to solid PVC or rubber dielectrics. Every insulation material stores and releases some energy from the signal passing through the conductor beside it, and this stored energy is released as distortion. Foamed polyethylene minimises this effect because air (which makes up a significant proportion of the foam structure) absorbs almost no energy, and polyethylene itself has a low-loss, benign distortion profile. AudioQuest's Metal-Layer Noise-Dissipation System (NDS) provides 100% shield coverage while addressing a subtlety that most shielding approaches ignore: captured radio-frequency interference riding on the shield can modulate the equipment's ground reference, introducing noise even when the shield is doing its job of blocking external interference. The NDS absorbs and reflects most RFI before it reaches the ground layer, preventing this ground-plane contamination.

Geometry, Termination, and Grounding

The Black Lab uses a symmetrical coaxial geometry in which the positive and negative conductors are identical. This prevents the shield from being pressed into service as an inferior audio conductor — a common compromise in cheaper asymmetric cable designs where the shield doubles as the return path. The RCA terminations are cold-welded and gold-plated. Cold welding uses high pressure rather than solder to bond the conductor to the plug, avoiding the signal degradation that solder joints can introduce (solder is a relatively poor conductor and heating the copper during soldering can alter the metal's crystalline structure). The ground shells are stamped rather than machined, allowing AudioQuest to select the metal for its low-distortion properties rather than its machinability. All internal conductors are direction-controlled — marked and oriented during manufacture to reduce the directional effect of RF noise propagation along the cable.

Each end of the cable includes a spade-lug grounding tail (approximately 8 inches long). If your system develops a hum after connecting the subwoofer, attaching these ground leads to a chassis screw or dedicated ground terminal on both the source component and the subwoofer will typically eliminate it. In most installations, the ground leads will not be needed, but their inclusion solves a problem that catches many people off guard when adding a subwoofer to their system for the first time.

In-Wall Rating and Length Options

All Black Lab lengths use a CL3/FT4-rated PVC jacket, meaning the cable is approved for permanent in-wall installation without the need for conduit. This makes it suitable for custom installations where the subwoofer cable needs to be routed through walls, floors, or ceilings — a common requirement when the subwoofer is placed in a corner or alcove away from the main equipment rack. Available lengths run from 2m through to 20m, covering everything from a short connection in a compact stereo system to a long custom-install run across a room.

Specifications