[Pez]

Aero was the product that opened the doors for Hapa Audio. Being the first product on the planet to utilize Aerogel as a dielectric, Aero digital showed the world who Hapa Audio is and the reviews from actual clients speak for themselves.

The folks right here on AC have been clamoring about aerogel cables. With the introduction of Haiku RCA/XLR I showed what Aerogel can do for analog cables. But bluntly, the amount of labor involved and the materials made Haiku just outside of most audiophile’s budget.

I have put a ton of R&D into lowering the labor involvement on ALL Aerogel Nano-polished products in order to make it easier for me to make and less expensive for my clients. It is this research that has lead to, what I believe to be, the most exciting and important product Hapa Audio has released to date.

Introducing Aero RCA

I am happy to introduce the long awaited Aero RCA!

Aero RCA is the end result of years of design and research insanity. With Aero RCA I have managed to eliminate all unnecessary materials, and more importantly, drastically reduced the amount of labor involved. Whereas Haiku RCA/XLR requires no less than a week and a half to manufacture a 1 meter pair, hand making Aero RCA can be accomplished in a day.

Absolutely no compromises
With a more rapid build process, it would seem to follow that I am using lower quality parts, or reducing the quality control of my process. Nothing could be further from the truth. Aero RCA utilizes the same nano-polish level of refinement and the exact same UPOCC that Haiku RCA uses.

Construction
Aero RCA consists of a quasi coaxial design language borrowed from my Ember lineup. The center conductor is a solid core UPOCC 20 gauge analog core, polished in house to a surface quality that is 120 nanometer scale, eliminating surface oxidation and aberrations caused by the wire drawing process. This proprietary technique yields a sonic performance that is second to none.

The analog core conductor is then housed in an Aerogel layer held in place by a teflon tube. Exterior to that, I utilized the exact same braided copper litz shielding array that I designed for Ember. Finally, the braided litz shield is bolstered by a non-metallic pearlescent Mylar exterior. This shield renders Aero RCA to be the quietest and most revealing design to date.

Options
Because I have developed a quicker method of nano-polishing, I have made it easy to apply this polish to any material and it makes no effect on the amount of time in on labor.

Aero RCA will come in two flavors:

Aero Copper RCA

Aero Copper RCA utilizes a nano-polished copper core and will come with KLE-I Absolute Harmony connectors standard. It will have a white pearl jacket.

Aero Silver RCA

Aero Silver RCA utilizes a nano-polished silver core and will come with set of ETI SilverLink pure silver pin connectors standard. It will have a black pearl jacket.

How does it sound?
I designed Aero RCA to replace my Quiescence line which is now discontinued. And to that ends, Aero RCA offers an incredible improvement to sound quality. However, what soon became apparent in my subjective testing is that Aero RCA BESTED Haiku RCA and XLR. And not by a small margin, Aero RCA offers a wide performance improvement over Haiku.

In fact- in my subjective testing I have found that even Aero Copper is more detailed and refined than Haiku.  

Aero Cu RCA has similar tonal balance to Ember, slightly warm and robust. That said, Aero Cu not only drastically surpasses Ember in accuracy and detail, it also surpasses Haiku RCA in these categories.

Aero Ag RCA can best be described as dead center neutral.  Incredibly detailed, very dimensional and astonishingly dynamic and also offers a substantial sound quality improvement over Haiku.

Either option is awesome. Some folks with solid state amps and want a bit of warmth should opt for Aero Cu RCA, those with a warm sounding tube system might opt for Aero Ag RCA. It is entirely feasible that you might benefit from mixing and matching. But if you want to know for sure….

Tour?
Yes… Tour. Sign up to reserve your spot. I am planning on doing one tour leg, but if demand is high enough I can be convinced to do a second leg. I am asking that all tour participants post their thoughts on Aero RCA here on AC. The tour will be tight, it will consist of the following:
1 pair of Aero Cu RCA 1 meter
1 pair of Aero Cu RCA 1.5 meter
1 pair of Aero Ag RCA 1 meter
1 pair of Aero Ag RCA 1.5 meter

Again, to sign up please click and fill out the form.

Pricing
As stated before, the new Nano-polishing technique means I’m able to drastically reduce my labor, but it also means that when purchasing either Aero Cu or Ag, the only difference you are paying for is the parts cost. This means there is no ‘silver premium’ anymore.

This pricing will be the introductory price and will no longer be available after the tour is complete. Pricing applies to tour members AND all AC members. I am able to build any orders for Aero Cu RCA immediately. Aero Ag RCA I have in limited supply and will be accepting preorders for anyone who purchases when my limited supply runs out.

1 meter Aero Cu RCA - $1099 (down from $1199)
1.5 meter Aero Cu RCA - $1499 (down from $1599)
2 meter Aero Cu RCA - $1899 (down from $1999)

1 meter Aero Ag RCA - $1399 (down from $1499)
1.5 meter Aero Ag RCA - $1849 (down from $1949)
2 meter Aero Cu RCA - $2099 (down from $2249)

I have already seeded quite a few cables to my beta testers. I encourage them to chime in and give their thoughts on the new cables. I look forward to any questions and/or comments you all might have. Thanks for tuning in.

[Charles Xavier]

Signed up. Send them my way. Can't wait to compare to the Embers.

[dflee]

Patiently waiting.
And quite excited to hear them.

Don

[BobRex]

I’m also on the Empirical test list.  Might be an interesting comparison.
Maybe it’s time to convince the boss that my current cables are
Ummm “broken”. 

[MttBsh]

I’m on vacation in Italy. Being on this latest Hapa tour will make coming home a bit less painful

[nlitworld]

I smashed my fingers so hard hitting that submit button. Jason, your cables never cease to impress, so I'm really looking forward to how these compare.

[Nick B]

Looks good, Jason 👍👍  Would like to participate.

[Pez]

Tour is filling up VERY quick. We already have 9 participants. Let’s leave it open for a few more days, it might be that I need to make more sets for a second leg!
 
I just sent this care package off to our first victim. I have not emailed any of the participants so don’t sweat it, I had a volunteer to try out the cables and break them in a bit prior to the rest of the tour.

[mresseguie]

Tour??!  Did you say TOUR???

Ahem. I just returned home from Taiwan a few days ago, and haven’t even set up my audio system yet. If I say pretty please, could you squeeze me into your tour? 

P.S. You mentioned that someone has already heard these new cables. Was this unnamed person so impressed with your newest cables that he spontaneously placed an ad to sell his ’old’ Hapa Audio cables?

[Pez]

Tour crew,
I sent an email off to all participants. I am genuinely humbled by how quickly it filled up. On top of that, ALL participants who signed up are returning clients of Hapa Audio!  I hope that means I’m doing something right.

I am ok with having a few more folks sign up if they’re interested, or if you’d rather wait to see what the buzz is, I’ll leave the form open during the tour. 

[WGH]

Hi Guys,

I'm listening to both pairs of the Aero Cu right now. DAC to preamp and preamp to amp. Sorry, no comments yet.

Pez wrote to the tour crew: "Wayne in AZ has agreed to break in the cables"

It's a nasty job but somebody has to do it. Luckily I have a Hagerman FryKleaner to speed up the process. I'll let the Aero Ag cook in Current Mode for a few days while I listen to the Cu, then the Cu will go into the FryKleaner.


The FryKleaner description:

"Cables are best burned-in directly; separate from your sound system. Connect a pair of cables from the positive outputs to the inverted outputs to differentially drive the cables with current similar to a direct short. This method proves to be much more effective than when in the system.

"Cables can be burned-in using either voltage or current. Voltage mode is achieved by leaving one end of the cable disconnected. This is often a rather ineffective method, because without a current draw the magnetic properties of the conductors are not exercised. Shorting one end of the cable will generate a current flow and force the voltage to zero. The FryKleaner’s maximum output signal level of +10dBu (2.5V) produces 25mA through the cable, far greater than experienced under normal audio use."
https://audioxpress.com/assets/upload/files/304hagerman2264.pdf


I found my RCA connectors so I can burn-in 2 pairs at once.




Wayne

[Pez]

Wayne,
Much appreciated on you taking on break in. Looks like a pretty nice basic rig for RCA cable burn in. I like it.

I am surprised how often I’m asked about break in. Generally speaking, most of my cables take around 100 hours to be 95% broken in. I offer the option for my clients to have me break their cable in using my combo of Audiodharma anniversary cable cooker or the Hagtech cable cooker. I will cook them in for clients for 72 hours. Any more than this does not appear to push the process any further. After the 72 hours there is still a break in process for the end user. This can be variable depending on system, whether the cable is being run constantly etc. 

Subjectively, my experience with the new cables is that they break in really quickly and the process is pain free. The copper version especially appears to be quick to beauty. I couldn’t believe how great it sounded after about 2 hours of break in. The silver version can take a bit longer, but it sounds superb within a day worth of music.

As such, I don’t actually recommend clients use my break in services for the new Aero RCA cables. if you want quicker delivery then just go for none and I can build the cable and get it in the mail the same day in most cases (assuming no backlog) If you still want burn in, no problem, just let me know. No extra cost or complication on my end so none is assessed to you.

On another note, I made up a couple of sets of the new cables for my photographer. I’ll have the new pics maybe next week? This new design is so nice, the basic photos I took don’t do it justice. I’ll be updating the website with the new cables and improved photos on some products in the near future. Also, I could do a mini tour using these sets and maybe something to tag along? If anyone has any other products they’d like to hear, let me know and maybe we could put something together. 

[golfugh]

Well, just thought I’d interject some information, hopefully useful.

I’m running a full loom of his cables in my 2 channel setup.  It started with the AeroAg USB, then I added an Ember RCA from Oppo to Pre.  I added his Torsion speaker cables in the midst of all the other cable changes and then recently added a set of embers from pre to amp.

I’ve had the opportunity to test the new AeoAg and Cu…I’m currently using AeroCu from Source to DAC and Pre to amp.  It all began when I contacted Jason about possibly ordering a balanced cable from Oppo to Pre and he mentioned you’ve got to try this first…well being the sucker I am I said yes!  Jason’s never done me wrong so why not!  The voice in the back of my mind (my wife) said I knew it, “whatever go ahead” (true story, she knows I’m crazy).

Initially he sent me both an AeroAg and Cu to try.  I inserted them source to DAC and sat back to wait for Mr Toads wild ride of wild and wooly breakin.  BTW, these cables had no time.  So, it was wild for almost 10 minutes then magic happened.  From my notes:

Big sound…chills to start
Clean/tight
Oh my WTF
Holy crap detail to die for

After a few hours I tried the Cu:

Wow same detail, but ever so slightly warmer
No loss of detail
Silent/Smooth
Way cool
Sounds like silver w/copper warmth and no loss of detail
Holy S…

Well those were quick notes taken over several hours.  The music I listened to was a mix of female vocals, instrumental and well my favorite to assess cables and systems Haevn.

So, I have all Aero cables throughout my 2 channel system.  I never planned on it, it just kind of happened.  But I have no regrets!

All I can say is Jason’s cables are literally the best cables  I’ve used and owned (across the board) but the new Aero Cu and Ag exceed everything Jason has done!  They’re that good IMO.

Thanks Mark