AudioQuest Evergreen RCA Interconnect Cable (3m Pair)

AudioQuest Evergreen — Stereo RCA Interconnect Cable

The Evergreen sits second in AudioQuest's Bridges & Falls series of analogue interconnects, above the Tower and below the Golden Gate. All cables in this series carry both left and right channels within a single jacket — a design choice that makes them thinner, more flexible, and more versatile than traditional split-pair interconnects, at the cost of having the RCA plugs fairly close together at each end. The Evergreen shares its solid Long-Grain Copper (LGC) conductor material with the Tower below it, but upgrades to a woven nylon braid jacket (green on black) in place of the Tower's PVC. The step up to the Golden Gate above brings a move from LGC to AudioQuest's higher-purity Perfect-Surface Copper (PSC), where proprietary processing keeps the conductor surface as smooth and oxide-free as possible. Above that, Big Sur introduces PSC+ copper and upgrades to gold-plated purple copper terminations.

Solid Long-Grain Copper Conductors

Both the positive and negative conductors in the Evergreen are solid, single-strand Long-Grain Copper — not stranded. In stranded cables, the individual thin wires making up each conductor are in constant contact with each other, and as the audio signal passes through, electrical and magnetic interactions between those strands create distortion. This strand-interaction distortion is one of the largest sources of signal degradation in conventional cables, and eliminating it by using a solid conductor is a fundamental design decision that AudioQuest applies across every tier of their range, from Tower at the entry level through to their Mythical Creatures reference cables.

The copper itself is Long-Grain — meaning it has fewer grain boundaries, fewer oxide inclusions, and fewer impurities than standard OFHC (Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity) copper. Grain boundaries are microscopic discontinuities in the metal's crystal structure, and each one acts as a small obstacle to signal flow. By reducing both the number and severity of these boundaries, LGC provides a cleaner signal path. AudioQuest points out that surface quality is particularly critical because a conductor acts as a rail guide for the electric fields within it and the magnetic fields around it — at all frequencies, the conductor surface carries 100% of the current density, so surface purity directly defines the conductor's overall performance.

Insulation, Shielding, and Noise Dissipation

The insulation on both conductors is foamed polyethylene. Any insulation material adjacent to a conductor becomes part of the circuit in the sense that it absorbs energy from the signal's electromagnetic field. Some of that energy is stored and then released out of time with the original signal, creating a smearing effect that degrades detail and imaging. Foamed polyethylene minimises this problem because it is predominantly air — and air absorbs almost no energy. Polyethylene itself is a low-loss material with a benign distortion profile, making the air-filled foam version one of the least intrusive dielectric options available.

AudioQuest's Metal-Layer Noise-Dissipation System provides 100% shield coverage while addressing a specific problem with conventional shielding. Most cable shields capture incoming radio-frequency interference perfectly well, but then drain that captured energy straight to the equipment's ground plane, modulating the ground reference and introducing noise and distortion into the signal path. AudioQuest's NDS acts as a secondary barrier that absorbs and reflects most of the captured RFI before it reaches the ground-connected shield layer, preventing this ground-plane contamination. All internal conductors are direction-controlled — oriented during manufacture so that the natural directional tendency of RF noise propagation works in the cable's favour rather than against it.

Geometry and Terminations

The Evergreen uses AudioQuest's Asymmetrical Double-Balanced geometry, which is purpose-designed for single-ended (RCA) applications. In many competing cables, a single conductor path handles both the ground and the shield — meaning the shield is pulled double duty as an audio conductor, which compromises both its shielding effectiveness and its signal-carrying quality. The Double-Balanced design separates these functions entirely, with dedicated positive and negative conductors of equal quality and a separate shield that handles only noise rejection. The asymmetric element of the geometry delivers lower impedance on the ground path, which AudioQuest says contributes to a richer, more dynamic presentation.

The gold-plated RCA terminations are cold-welded rather than soldered. AudioQuest's cold-weld system uses several tonnes of pressure to create the bond between conductor and plug, avoiding the introduction of heat (which can alter the crystalline structure of the copper at the termination point) and solder (which is itself a relatively poor conductor that creates an impedance discontinuity at the joint). The ground shells are stamped rather than machined, which allows AudioQuest to select the shell metal for its low-distortion characteristics rather than its suitability for machining — a small but representative example of the engineering priorities running through the cable.

Practical Considerations

The single-jacket stereo design means the Evergreen is noticeably slimmer and more manageable than a traditional pair of separate left and right interconnects. This is a genuine practical advantage in tight equipment racks where two bulky cables can be difficult to route, and the slim gold-plated plugs fit comfortably into closely spaced RCA sockets. The nylon braid jacket is more resistant to kinking and abrasion than the Tower's PVC and has a more refined feel, though it does not carry the CL3/FT4 in-wall rating that the Tower's PVC jacket provides. If permanent in-wall routing is required, the Tower is the better choice within this series for that specific application.

The Evergreen is also available in 3.5mm mini-to-RCA, 3.5mm mini-to-mini, and DIN-to-DIN configurations, making it one of AudioQuest's most versatile interconnect families. The RCA-to-RCA version is available in ten lengths from 0.6m to 20m, covering everything from a short connection between a DAC and an amplifier on the same shelf to a long run across a room to a separate zone or recording setup.