Do you have a circuit diagram for these cables?
Audioquest DBS - What Voltage?
I've been listening to my system for several years with 72 volt Colorado interconnects and 48 volt Volcano speaker cables, and never gave much thought to the voltage. I did previously have non-DBS Volcanos, and thought they sounded darker than the DBS ones.
Anyway, I decided to disconnect the DBS on the Volcanos to see if it made a meaningful difference. I was surprised to find that the sound became a bit more recessed but focused, which was welcome in my system. This was obvious immediately, and over the next day or two continued to develop maybe another 25% in the same direction.
So, I tried the same thing on the interconnects, both between my DAC and my Preamp, and between my Preamp and Power amps. The overall effect was similar, and the sound with all batteries removed was as though recorded a bit further away in a significantly less reverberant room.
After a while, it became clear that removing all the batteries was too much of a good thing, and I began experimenting with running the cables at a lower voltage.
The easiest way to do this is to simply reverse the direction of the batteries in their holders. The 72 volt battery holders include 6 x 12 volt batteries, so reversing one results in 48 volts, reversing two gives 24 volts.
After quite a bit of experimentation, I found that 12 volts from DAC to Pre, 24 volts from Pre to Amps, and 24 volts in the speaker cables gives me an ideal balance.
I must say that this ability to tweak the sound is an under appreciated advantage of the DBS cables.
I theory it would seem that more voltage is better, but in my case at least there does seem to be an optimum somewhere in the middle.
7 responses Add your response