Audioquest Castle Rock Bi-wire review

joecoulson

As most of you know from details on other threads, I picked up the set of speaker cables the other day from HIFIbuys in Atlanta. They are the Audioquest Castle Rock bi-wire 8 foot pair with bananas on the speaker side and spades on the amp side. They were a barely used demo pair that I got for a substantial discount of which I will not post here because they are still in the middle of the sale they have going on. This annual sale discounts a bunch of gear but they make you come in to purchase said gear. The list price for these cables as they are constructed (connector options) is $1799. The cables that they are replacing were the Acoustic Zen Satori cables with single spades on each end and the matching banana jumpers.

The cables have a nice braided jacket over them with two-tone fabric and they are quite stiff. Even though the outer Jacket is about the same thickness as the Satori’s, They are much different because of the cable thickness inside.

The connectors are the AQ 1000 series in Silver. Spades in the amp end, two sets (bi-wire) of bananas (these are solid posts, not the cheaper Z type you see on their other series). They also have the DBS 72v packs on them.

The cables were in minty condition.





Hooking them up was not as simple as I would like it to be but that’s because of my current situation with my audio furniture. I did have to disconnect some gear to get to the amps and then obviously connecting a speed is a little harder than plugging in a banana. But the connection I believe is better on the amp side for a spade. They hooked up perfectly to the posts on the Elac Adantes that these are going on.




Even though these were demo wires, I’m not sure how long they sat before being sold to me. So I did let them settle into the system for a few days before doing some critical listening today. These are the three songs that I chose during the quietest period of the day with no interruptions to get specific changes recorded in my system.

Beck - The Golden Age (Sea Change)
I am hearing much more detail and almost a holographic quality to the high pitch percussion which I believe is some sort of xylophone. It emanates from the right of the soundstage and echoes across the left. With the addition of these cables I can hear much more of a click as the percussion instrument is initially struck. I’m also hearing more from the back up singers than I have before, while I heard them before this change, I didn’t hear them with as much up-and-down height as I do now. It’s almost as if they are produced to have much more height than all the other sounds, hopefully that makes sense.

Sam KDC - Departed.
This one is recently new to me but I have listened to it about 50 times in the last 6 months. This so far has shown me the most drastic change from the addition of the Castle Rocks. The lead singer (Alice(?) has this already sexy voice front and center, but now the sound comes forward and then rises with echo, like being in a wide open club. I’ve actually yet to hear a soundstage like this one on my system. This showcases so much height and depth (front to back) that it seems like we have full Dolby Atmos. The other sounds are (and always have) echoed around the image, but not the lead singer’s voice. Amazing.

Anette Askvik - Liberty
This song generally showcases very well on any system. What I have learned to listen for is how black it can get between sounds. Lower noise floor of you will. I have gained here also. The AQ gear I have acquired over the past year and a half have all contributed to lowering the noise floor. This cable furthers that. The Acoustic Zen - Satori did a very good job of this, but the Castle Rocks just take it a step or two further.

Overall quite happy with this purchase. I’m not sure I would pay full retail of $1799 for them, but at the deal I got, I’m quite happy.

jdjohn

Nice, Joe! Could you discuss the little 'DBS' module. Is that '72v' for volts??? Surely not.

joecoulson

It is voltage, not sure how, but the circuitry has 72 volts from the batteries which I believe are 3v. What that means as far as the 72v to the tech, above my pay grade. As I understand it is not a closed loop. Only negative terminals are connected. (For my wires)

From info page:

Audioquest's patented Dielectric Bias System (DBS) puts all of a cable’s dielectric into a strong, stable electrostatic field which saturates (organizes) the molecules of the insulation ... continuously from the time the cable is terminated. The exceptionally simple design uses a wire down the middle of the cable, which is simply an extension of a battery’s anode. This wire is attached to negative (-) of a DBS battery pack, and nothing else. It is not in the signal path and has no interaction with the signal. Depending on the model of interconnect (analogue or digital) or speaker cable, an existing foil “shield” is used as the DBS anode by connecting it to positive (+) of the DBS battery pack. The negative side of a battery is nothing; it’s just an empty reservoir. Again, there is no interaction with signal flow and no extra connections are introduced into the signal path.

The insulation between two or more conductors is a dielectric whose properties of energy absorption and release will affectthe integrity of the signal. When the dielectric is unbiased, it causes different amounts of time delay (phase shift) for different frequencies and energy levels—a major problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio.

By creating a highly charged capacitive field for the cable’s primary dielectric, DBS assures extended bandwidth and more linearly filtered noise dissipation. This aids in eliminating the distortions and ringing that plague other cables evenafter years of use and so called “run-in time.” This dramatically minimizes nonlinear time delays and reduces dielectricinduced smearing of the signal, letting sound emerge from a “black” background.

Further, the knowledge gained in the development of the Audioquest’s Niagara series of AC power products, directly spawned the radio frequency (RF) noise-dissipation system utilized for both DBS Black and DBS Carbon. Drain & Kill is what needs to happen to RF energy, and that’s what all Audioquest versions of Noise-Dissipation do. Both circuits are formed for 24 hours with technology developed by NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratories.

What can you expect to hear? Lower noise floor, better dynamic contrast, a wider soundstage ... in short, more immersion into the music


More into here.

https://www.audioquest.com/resource/1137/DBS.pdf

treitz3

In layman's terms, the DBS kicks out all unwanted artifacts from EMI and other nasties, which in turn allows you to hear the music. The rest is probably all marketing spin. It does work and the batteries seemingly last forever (AA batteries, nothing extravagant)

IMO of course. I'm quite sure an AQ salesman would want to take me outside for some "straightening up".

Whatever they do, they do well. I had the CV-8's w/the 72v Battery Pack and the only reason they left the rig was because I found a good deal on a set of Transparent's.

Joe, this is just a suggestion and it's up to you but you may want to post what you have in the rest of the system so folks can put a reference on what your current system is. Heck, you seem to be on a merry-go-round with gear as of late and I don't even know what your system is right now. Food for thought....

Tom

joecoulson

Alrighty then! Glad to Tom. You know most of it.

Sources are:
Auralic Vega G1 for streaming as as the DAC for-
Denon 2910 as transport
Rega planar 2 with mods and Rega Ania MC cart
Rega Fono pre
Those feed into Parasound P6 pre (this is a dual purpose system and this pre gives me fantastic bass management along with flawless HT integration)
That feeds two PS Audio M700 monoblocks
Speakers are Elac Adante floorstanders
Sub is SVS SB16 Ultra (Pangea upper end XLR signal cable on this)

All of it powered by Audioquest Niagara 5000 with. an Audioquest 20amp Hurricane HC 2m power cable (the beast)
Most all interconnects (source-pre-amps) are Audioquest Colorado XLR’s with the RCA version between the Denon and the pre for SACD
There is a PS Audio AC12 on the Vega along with AQ Carbon coax digital
AQ Victoria goes from the Fono pre to the P6
AQ monsoon PC on P6
Rest of the PC’s are Wireworld (of which I will be swapping for either AQ pc’s or the PS A AC12’s
The TT and the Vega have Isoacoustics feet and the speakers have the Gaia 2 feet

I think that’s it (besides the HT equipment, but I’m sure no one here cares about that)

erniejade

Solid review. My 72v cv8 is AA batteries. Read up on Duracell sounding better in the packs. I can't explain it but it did make a difference.

joecoulson

Thanks Brian.

Emlyn

I still have the same batteries in my 36v cables as when I bought them more than a decade ago. May be time to check them again for leakage, but I don't use the cables. One thing I do recall with the speaker cables with the DBS packs is they sound the same from when they're first hooked up as any time later. No break in effect with time because of the charged dielectric materials. They are my second favorite cables behind MIT, but were my favorite when used with a tube amp and a pair of Spendor speakers.

joecoulson

Its interesting because they don't actually draw charge from the batteries, depending on the use of the cable (analog vs digital) it's only hooked up to one end of the battery - negative in the case of the speaker cables.

Joey_V

Joe

That’s awesome

Reminds me of my own AQ Wels

joecoulson

Thanks Joey!

joecoulson

After some more time with these, I am very glad that I purchased this upgrade. I feel the synergy of my system increase with upgrades like this, and this particular one is no exception. Strong believer in everything matters.