Audience Ohno Interconnects

Audience OHNO Interconnects

Single Crystal Copper — Award-Winning Performance at a Remarkable Price

Some cables make you think. The Audience OHNO makes you listen.

From the first notes, there's an ease and organic flow to the music that's hard to put your finger on — until you realize what's missing. The grain, the subtle electronic glaze that sits over so many systems, is simply gone. What's left is music that breathes naturally, with a midrange richness and tonal weight that cables costing ten times as much struggle to match.

We'll be honest: when John McDonald at Audience first sent us a set to try, we expected competent entry-level performance. What we heard was a quiet improvement over our reference interconnects. In a cable priced a fraction of what we were using. That got our attention.

The Science Behind the Sound

The OHNO takes its name from Dr. Atsumi Ohno, the Japanese metallurgist who invented a breakthrough method of drawing wire as a single, continuous crystal. Conventional copper wire — even high-purity copper — contains thousands of crystalline grain boundaries per meter. Every one of those boundaries is a microscopic obstacle where audio signal degrades, dynamics compress, and fine detail gets smeared.

OHNO copper eliminates that problem entirely. A single unbroken crystal means an unobstructed path from your source to your amplifier. The signal you put in is the signal that arrives — intact, coherent, and alive.

Complementing the conductor is XLPE (cross-linked polyethylene) insulation, one of the best dielectric materials available for high-end audio cables. XLPE keeps the signal clean and timing accurate, resisting the subtle distortions that lesser insulation materials introduce.

And despite the slender, understated profile — yes, it really is that thin — the OHNO delivers a presentation that is spacious, composed, and deeply musical.

What the Press Says

The OHNO has earned The Absolute Sound Editor's Choice Award every year from 2016 through 2022 — a rare and sustained recognition that reflects consistent, real-world performance rather than a one-time splash.

"Once you get past the initial shock at Ohno's teeny profile you'll be as surprised as I was by its imperturbable balance and midrange tonal weight... Maybe, just maybe, the best performance-per-dollar cable that I've heard in some time." — The Absolute Sound, Golden Ear Award

Our Take

The OHNO sits at the entry point of Audience's lineup, but that framing undersells it. In our experience, it competes comfortably with interconnects from other brands at two to three times the price — and outperforms many of them in the qualities that actually matter for long-term musical enjoyment: naturalness, flow, and an uncanny ability to get out of the way of the music.

It's an especially strong choice if you're moving beyond generic stock cables for the first time, building a desktop or nearfield system, or looking to upgrade a secondary system without compromise.

Specifications & Options

• Conductor: Ohno Continuous Cast (OCC) single crystal copper
• Insulation: XLPE (cross-linked polyethylene)
• Terminations available: RCA or XLR
• Available lengths: 0.5m · 0.75m · 1m · 1.5m · 2m · 2.5m · 3m