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AudioQuest Victoria Audio Cable with DBS Review

Chuu

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So with all the analysis, I'm kind of curious what people's opinions are of the two patents they claim cover this technology

Apparatus and methods for dielectric bias system
Apparatus and methods for dielectric bias system

I've worked professionally in the patents field before, and I think it's incredibly important to understand how an examiner reads patents. First, examiners are taught to always read the claims first. Because from a legal point of view --- the claims are everything -- and you must not bias yourself into reading the claims in light of the claimed invention. Because if they're written broadly enough it covers things already in the prior art, even if those things are not described in the patent, it must be rejected.

The second is the concept of Utility. Patents must have utility. From an examiner's point of view utility is important in two aspects. First -- any utility stated in the claims has no legal weight. In other words, statements such as "for use in . . .." in the claims don't say anything. You find an invention that matches the claims but has a different use? That's prior art. You try to sell a device that the claims covers but has a different use? That's infringement. The other important part of utility in this case is *a patent must be useful for something, not necessarily what the patent is described as the intended use*. In other words, if something is novel to one of ordinary skill in the art and literally has any use at all -- it can be patented. The rejection of a patent because it is 'useless' just does not happen.

In other words, the examiner when granting this patent is basically asking (1) is this obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art and (2) does it have any use? Not what we're asking, (3) does this make any audible difference at all?

Without going into details, I think it's very likely the second patent is garbage. I suspect what happened is the first patent is close to expiring and they wanted some invention with a further out expiration date and tried to see what they could get past an examiner. And it worked.

From what I can tell, and I'm not an EE and super out of my depth here so this is likely wrong, what the first patent is trying to claim is "You have a current running in a coax-style cable. This by definition is going to create capacatance in the cable between the signal and ground because of the diaelectric present. We want to preserve this capacatance when the signal is removed". Does this make any difference in at all? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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amirm

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Well, assuming a cable that is a standard 3-wire + shield mic cable, used unbalanced and with the "cold" wire connected to the DC bias on one end, this would create a DC "bias" field in the dielectric, wouldn't it?
No. If you hook up one terminal of a battery to the shield of a rca cable, nothing happens. No circuit is completed and no dc is induced.
 
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amirm

amirm

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Not really, that voltage is not at the point of being harmful, and there is not any significant current involved.
Oh, I would not be too sure. 72 volt dc is a serious voltage. It may not kill you but you may very well receive a shock.
 

scooter

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Not really, that voltage is not at the point of being harmful, and there is not any significant current involved.
Hmm, how much current do you think is enough to kill a human?
And when you're sweat skin resistance significantly decreases.
 

scooter

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amirm

amirm

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Based on your provided link you can read that if a person is sweating, skin resistance might fall to 500 ohms. Now use Ohms law to determine a current.
I'll just add that around 100-300 mA of current could be fatal for a human.
I suspect these easily go up to 50 milliamps for short periods. They are actually rated for normal use at 15 milliamps. Definitely not something to be ignored.

This device needs to have safety certification.
 

Harmonie

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So with all the analysis, I'm kind of curious what people's opinions are of the two patents they claim cover this technology

Apparatus and methods for dielectric bias system
Apparatus and methods for dielectric bias system

I've worked professionally in the patents field before, and I think it's incredibly important to understand how an examiner reads patents. First, examiners are taught to always read the claims first. Because from a legal point of view --- the claims are everything -- and you must not bias yourself into reading the claims in light of the claimed invention. Because if they're written broadly enough it covers things already in the prior art, even if those things are not described in the patent, it must be rejected.

The second is the concept of Utility. Patents must have utility. From an examiner's point of view utility is important in two aspects. First -- any utility stated in the claims has no legal weight. In other words, statements such as "for use in . . .." in the claims don't say anything. You find an invention that matches the claims but has a different use? That's prior art. You try to sell a device that the claims covers but has a different use? That's infringement. The other important part of utility in this case is *a patent must be useful for something, not necessarily what the patent is described as the intended use*. In other words, if something is novel to one of ordinary skill in the art and literally has any use at all -- it can be patented. The rejection of a patent because it is 'useless' just does not happen.

In other words, the examiner when granting this patent is basically asking (1) is this obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art and (2) does it have any use? Not what we're asking, (3) does this make any audible difference at all?

Without going into details, I think it's very likely the second patent is garbage. I suspect what happened is the first patent is close to expiring and they wanted some invention with a further out expiration date and tried to see what they could get past an examiner. And it worked.

From what I can tell, and I'm not an EE and super out of my depth here so this is likely wrong, what the first patent is trying to claim is "You have a current running in a coax-style cable. This by definition is going to create capacatance in the cable between the signal and ground because of the diaelectric present. We want to preserve this capacatance when the signal is removed". Does this make any difference in at all? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'll keep your post in my personal files, thanks .
 

davidc

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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..."

Since it from eBay, perhaps it was a cournterfit? Plausible?
 

davidc

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Well, duh. Photon torpedoes won't be invented until the mid-22nd century.

Photon torpedos were the sh-t! They were way cooler than phasers. Except it would have been the coolest thing in the world to have a handheld phaser. Be a lot less annoying people in this world...no evidence left. I'd be rich. lol
 

davidc

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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.


This is clearly true. There are Heavy Duty, Super Duty, Alkaline, Lithium, NiCad, Rabbit poop (last the longest). Any one of these could have given different results.
 

LTig

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This is clearly true. There are Heavy Duty, Super Duty, Alkaline, Lithium, NiCad, Rabbit poop (last the longest). Any one of these could have given different results.
Nope. For this price you can safely assume that the best batteries have been chosen by the designer - of course based on subjective sighted listening tests.
 

Zog

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Photon torpedos were the sh-t! They were way cooler than phasers. Except it would have been the coolest thing in the world to have a handheld phaser. Be a lot less annoying people in this world...no evidence left. I'd be rich. lol
I could send one anonymously to my ex on her birthday - with the attendant card saying 'Hairdryer'.
 

KSTR

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No. If you hook up one terminal of a battery to the shield of a rca cable, nothing happens. No circuit is completed and no dc is induced.
Look harder, Amir. One pole of the battery goes to the outer shield and the other goes to the inner bias wire or inner shield and thus the electrical DC field in the dielectic is created. In case of the (preferred) triax the other electrode of the charged capacitor is the signal wire which is at DC zero and we get a very strong and uniform field from this. There also is the field between the inner and outer shields which has the opposite polarity, that is the auxiliary part resulting from the indirect type of method to apply the field to the dielectric which avoids putting DC directly on the signal wire vs shield as that would need DC-blocking caps and bleeder resistors and the whole safety thing (as unprotected 72Vdc is dangerous).
 
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DeepSpace57

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Still trying such tweaky things with perfect set-ups?C’mon It is already perfect! I do not know why either Sabaj D5, M500 or D50s is not used for this kind of tests.
I respect this forum, but i am not convinced at all. This is like a car with a speed limiter got some gasoline additive into tank.
 

martin900

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The 72V is connected to the foil shield of the cable. There is something like very thin aluminium foil in one of the layers of the cable. It's not connected to anything else, that's why the batteries last as long as their normal shelf life.
JBL seem to do a similar thing with their "charge coupled" speaker crossovers, all X-over capacitors are in series and are precharged with either 9 or 18VDC through a 1meg+ resistor placed inbetween the caps but there, the circuit has to be completed but extremely high impedance so it draws pretty much no current.

The main problem is that if you even try to disassemble the cable, it will be broken beyond repair...I tried that once and can assure you there are NO safety diodes or resistors, if you complete the circuit (=short the batteries), the cable will burn, literally. If you happen to get 72V on the signal lead and have DC coupled gear, it's $$$ repair time. I was shocked (yes, that too) that there were no safety measures on the cable.
I think mine was the AQ Columbia with 72V pack, genuine with box.

Synergistic Research has been doing the same active shielding trick too but they use a wall wart DC supply:
https://www.contrado-audio.nl/wp-co...e-interconnects-RCA-15-metre-123075071411.JPG
 
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Xulonn

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Lots of comments on a "technology" that does something electrically, but does not affect the audio signal or noise levels in high-fidelity audio components. When a difference can be distinguished in repeatable double-blind testing, my eyebrows may be raised a bit.


Spock-Eyebrows.gif
 

scooter

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Maybe it acts like some kind of "active EM shield" to avoid unwanted EM induction from an outside?
Would be interesting to see if it avoids mains frequency induction if cables are near the power transformer.
 

snake3276120

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AudioQuest is sending killers after you lol
 
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