• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

AudioQuest Victoria Audio Cable with DBS Review

bigguyca

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2019
Messages
477
Likes
617
The measurements were likely posted here previously, but anyway, it nice to see measurements of the fundamental performance of the. APx555.
 

Prutser

Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2020
Messages
16
Likes
121
As a company AudioQuest has completely taken over the hifi marked in the Netherlands. There is hardly any hifi store were you can buy cables of other cable brands, only AudioQuest. This almost scary how powerful there marketing is.
 

Eetu

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 11, 2020
Messages
763
Likes
1,180
Location
Helsinki
Thank you @amirm. More evidence that when it comes to interconnects there is no reason to buy cables more expensive than Canare Star Quad or something like the Mogami 2964/2965 .
 

Mnyb

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 14, 2019
Messages
2,640
Likes
3,612
Location
Sweden, Västerås
UH-oh :rolleyes: funnny thing many cable companies uses radically different engineering science fiction principles to design their stuff ? Would not the underlying “ problem “ be the same and yield similar solutions. Ei real cables from reputable vendors do have similarities depending on application , a coax with certain dimensions for video and spdif for example and thick gauge cable for speakers.
 

pavuol

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Oct 2, 2019
Messages
1,562
Likes
3,950
Location
EU next to warzone :.(
You was so happy last annual inflation rate was so low and then comes Amir and instantly reduces the value of your cables by 90+% ..:oops:
 

milosz

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 27, 2019
Messages
583
Likes
1,643
Location
Chicago
Whilst reading Amir's review of this cable, I listened to my desktop audio system - which sounded great. Then I stopped reading the cable review and my system IMMEDIATELY had all kinds of phase shift and nonlinear encabulation. THESE CABLES ARE SO GOOD THAT EVEN READING ABOUT THEM IMPROVES SOUND QUALITY!!!
 

milosz

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 27, 2019
Messages
583
Likes
1,643
Location
Chicago
Whilst reading Amir's review of this cable, I listened to my desktop audio system - which sounded great. Then I stopped reading the cable review and my system IMMEDIATELY had all kinds of phase shift and nonlinear encabulation. THESE CABLES ARE SO GOOD THAT EVEN READING ABOUT THEM IMPROVES SOUND QUALITY!!!

Right after posting that comment I got an invoice from AudioQuest via email...... ;)
 

pavuol

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Oct 2, 2019
Messages
1,562
Likes
3,950
Location
EU next to warzone :.(
Who else begging for your money online publishes two reviews back to back as I just did? Come on... Donate some money my way using

True!
Me trying to keep the pace with all the reviews:
giphy.webp
 

EdW

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2020
Messages
329
Likes
413
Location
Cambridge, UK
I think we’re missing something here. If you were to buy some real quality products like

https://mitcables.com/

you might not need waste money on dac/amp/speaker etc. Plus you’d kickstart the economy out of Covid 19 recession
 

martin900

Active Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2020
Messages
155
Likes
177
I only remmber AQ from breaking down connectors, bad fitting XLR's that don't stick to the standard and because it's all solid core wire - snapped off leads just where they're soldered (or as AQ claims 'cold welded') to the connectors.
Sound good but are fragile as hell.
 

rebbiputzmaker

Major Contributor
Joined
Jan 28, 2018
Messages
1,099
Likes
463
This is a review and detailed measurements of the AudioQuest Victoria Audio interconnect with "dielectric-bias system" (DBS). It is kindly loaned to me by a member and costs US $299.

The configuration I received is unusual in the way it has RCA connector at one end and some kind of 5-pin at the other end:

View attachment 73176

The "DBS" module is a simple battery holder for six (6) 12 volt little cells (type 8LR932). They are in series so produce 72 volts DC. A little LED lets you see if the batteries are still good or not. There is no on off switch so to turn the thing off, I had to unscrew the bottom and take out the batteries.

There is some kind of rubberized paint on the battery holder which has already started to degrade and become sticky. Yuck!

You have heard of anti-copy mechanism in movie content? Well, this device has an "anti-review" and "anti-measurement" feature in that the company claims even after you take out the battery its benefits remain for days until the said "electrostatic charge" and molecular alignment dissipates. This was certainly their argument to Stereophile which tested it and in an unusual twist, declared the DBS to not do much of anything (from what I recall).

The batteries only "energize" the insulation in the cable with an insulated wire that goes through it with the other terminal hooked up to the shield of something.

As to what benefit the DBS provides, this is what is advertised on their page:

View attachment 73177

We are told about phase shift but no measurements are provided. Phase shift is trivial to measure. We shall remedy this in our tests here.

How energizing an insulator traps RF works is based on principles above any known physics so don't know how to test that without alien technology. But we will test to see if noise is reduced in audio spectrum which is what we hear.

DBS Cable Test and Measurement
For this testing, I focused on my Audio Precision APx555 for analysis. It generates a signal and analyzes itself. Let's start with using the generic cable I use for all of my testing of audio equipment:

View attachment 73179

APx555 has an internal loopback with even a shorter path. Switching that on made no difference showing that our generic cable is as transparent as it gets.

Now let's test the AudioQuest Victoria cable with DBS off (batteries taken out):

View attachment 73180

As we see, there is no difference at all. Noise level is the same. Distortion is measured down to whopping -160 dB or 27 bit PCM sample. Everything is as good as the generic cable.

Switching DBS on with insertion of batteries naturally does nothing:

View attachment 73181

Using a single tone at least, the Victoria DBS cable is not able to provide any improvements because our generic cable was already more than good enough despite the extreme precision of our measurements.

Let's now test the claims regarding phase shift. For this testing, I looped back one channel on APx555 using the same generic cable as above. And the other, using DBS with or without batteries. Here is the outcome:

View attachment 73182

The curve is not flat because there is a tiny phase differential between the two channels of the AP. Fortunately that is a constant in all scenarios and we see that there is absolutely no difference whether we use the generic cable, or Victoria with DBS on or off.

In other words, there was no problem to fix. Even zooming in as much as I did, +- 1 degree, there is no phase error due to the cable much less it being non-linear in nature.

To test for tonality differences, I ran a frequency response test with the generic cable and once again, Victoria with DBS on or off:

View attachment 73183

Perfection! With either cable.

Discussion and Conclusions
Once again we have a tweak vendor imagining there is a problem in audio and proceeding to fix it without first verifying the problem was there to begin with! To a lay person I am sure the concept of cable insulation causing non-linearity makes sense as much as a photon torpedo does in Star Trek TV series. That is science fiction though. The real life has to deal with things that can be proven to exist first before rushing to create an expensive solution for it. Of course there is no evidence that the fix works either.

There is clearly no technical problem that the Victoria cable with and without DBS solves. So how about listener testimonials that using such cables improves sound? Explanation is simple: you put in this cable and then intently try to listen for difference. Your brain switches form lay back enjoyment of music to analysis and now it notices detail in your system which heretofore had ignored. Viola! You now hear more air, more detail, instruments that you had not hear before. The bias is set in now and switching back to your old cable sounds dull, uninteresting, etc.

To above I will just say this: how come you were proud of your system prior to using this cable? If it lacked such detail, air, etc. how was it ever good? Had you spend all that money on your electronics, speakers, etc. only to have dull sound waiting for this cable to rescue it? See where I am going?

Please accept how your physiology works. Understand that your brain is creative, highly adaptive and can do things differently in different conditions. Have a loved one switch cables on you and then see if you hear those extra improvements. If you don't, combined with the above measurements, please follow the only logical conclusion that these cables and their tweaks do nothing for your system.

Needless to say, I can't recommend the AudioQuest Victoria cable with DBS. If you are itching to spend $300, give that money to a charity or a loved one with a real need for money.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Who else begging for your money online publishes two reviews back to back as I just did? Come on... Donate some money my way using : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Do you really expect us to believe that the cable does not make a difference from just your review? You did not even try different batteries, there are many different brands of A23 batteries! How do you know the batteries were even good that you were using, did you put them in your garage door opener first to see if they work? What about a linear power supply? This review is really incomplete, I hope future ones will be more useful.
 

KxDx

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2019
Messages
347
Likes
672
Location
Tidewater Virginia
Do you really expect us to believe that the cable does not make a difference from just your review? You did not even try different batteries, there are many different brands of A23 batteries! How do you know the batteries were even good that you were using, did you put them in your garage door opener first to see if they work? What about a linear power supply? This review is really incomplete, I hope future ones will be more useful.
He didn't tell us the room temperature either. Shameful.
 

AudioSceptic

Major Contributor
Joined
Jul 31, 2019
Messages
2,691
Likes
2,534
Location
Northampton, UK
I provided the cable for this review, after purchasing it thinking the DIN was a phono DIN. I got it on eBay for a good price, regardless of the DBS. I was getting set to resell it on eBay when I thought "Hmm, maybe Amir would like to test this. I've always wondered if DBS does anything measurable..."
Just curious, but which connector is it? One of these <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_connector#Circular_connectors>? DIN used to be a standard with many Euro, and some UK, brands, but I think Naim is about the only one still using it, apart from tonearm makers.
 

restorer-john

Grand Contributor
Joined
Mar 1, 2018
Messages
12,579
Likes
38,280
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
I'm guessing it's one of these

It's a standard 180 degree 5 pin DIN.

Horrible, just horrible things. On every tape deck, open reel, cassette and most tape loops on integrated and preamplifiers through the 1970s. Low level, high noise, poor channel separation and horrible. Just horrible. Try soldering 4 tiny wires and a shield in a nasty housing held together with nothing except melting pins in plastic and you'd be as bitter as I am toward DINs. RCA plugs may be old and simple, but they are a joy to work with!

Then you have the variations, the ones used by Quad on their 34/405-2 etc. And the nasty turntable tonearm "DINs" that were basically whatever they decided- Grace, Empire, Pioneer whoever. Collars, no-collars, long pins, short pins, changes in geometry, screw-in etc.

DIN standard plugs of all types are utterly putrid. There's not a single one I like. For contrast, take the BNC or the Belling-Lee, glorious connectors. The 1/4" phone connector. The Cannon XLR. The PL-259 or the Banana (4mm). All great and none of them DIN related. I would chuck out anything DIN to be honest.

I bet you the Speakon is US designed is it?
 
Top Bottom