Audioquest SKY Interconnects

One telltale sign that it is a fake is looking at the velcro bands on the DBS packs.  If they wrap around the DBS and/or have AudioQuest written on them in white, then they are most likely fake.  Just look at some pictures of authentic cables online and compare them to the eBay ones.

There are of course more precise copies, so this is just the obvious one.  I would try to stick to buying AQ cables used from well rated sellers or even better dealers if you are looking for authentic cables.  Even still I have heard of stories where highly rated people end up innocently selling Sky cables they thought were real and turned out to not be the case (refunds were issued as I recall).

+1 Ziggy

If you didn't like the sound of the King Cobra, then you might not care for AQ's higher offerings.

@dustsailor I did you the Audioquest Diamondback for the filter I built as I had one single cable and just decided to use it.  It worked fine and I did not have anything to compare it to but the original MP filter.  To our ears, the one we built was better sounding.  I could not compare the cables on the filters as they are fixed.  Parts quality on the filter that we built was much higher (better capacitors than the original WIMA, and better resistors than the original ones) so that makes it hard to say.  I purchased the King Cobra's and in a few systems they were musical but not as open as the other cables that they were compared to at that time.  Since Vandersteen uses the SKY ICs on their filters and I current use those filters in my system, I wanted to match the ICs on the filters that I am building now.  I can use any cable for the filters and actually could be the filters with inputs and outputs to try any cables.

Read through the seller’s feedback. Many “used” pairs have been sold. Right…