2022 Golden Ear: AudioQuest Dragon Interconnect

AudioQuest Dragon Interconnects

$11,900, 1m balanced

Although AudioQuest has been developing proprietary cable materials and techniques for 42 years, the company embarked on the new “Mythical Creatures” series of interconnects with a fresh mind. Rather than create a more advanced implementation of its existing technologies, AudioQuest approached its new reference series by starting from first principles. It would call on proven technologies but not be bound by them. The result is a fascinating amalgam of fresh thinking and AudioQuest’s proven designs.

Dragon does everything you’d expect from a top-level interconnect at this price, but it also goes above and beyond the cliches of greater transparency, smoother textures, and a bigger soundstage. Judged simply by the traditional criteria for evaluating cables, Dragon excelled in all the audiophile parameters. But this interconnect did things I’ve never heard from a cable—or more precisely, Dragon allowed my system to reveal previously hidden qualities. For example, the midrange was simply luscious, liquid, and stunningly present and vivid. Vocals were completely untethered to the speakers and projected against an absolutely silent background. This had the effect of increasing the sense of presence and fostering the startling impression of the vocalist being in the room. Another aspect of Dragon that is unique is that it conveys a greater density of timbre and more richly saturated tone color. I felt that the sound, from the lowest bass to the top treble, simply had greater body and weight. Instruments not only had more dimensionality and color, but also the sense that there was more energy behind them. The most significant advance in interconnects I’ve encountered in 33 years of reviewing.