Sorry - this product is no longer available
Audioquest Castle Rock 2.5
High-End speaker cable, 2.5 m,banana plug
Like Gibraltar before it, Castle Rock is designed as an extremely high-performance cable which provides true Double-BiWire performance in a single attractive cable. Original Gibraltar’s all important basics – superior geometry, magnetic autonomy of each quad-conductor section, Perfect-Surface metal technology, conductor-size optimization (AQ’s Spread-Spectrum Technology), etc. – are the fundamentals of Castle Rock. Castle Rock employs AQ’s best copper conductor metal (Perfect-Surface Copper+), AudioQuest’s DBS (Dielectric-Bias System) and NDS (Noise-Dissipation System). A very recent advancement featured in Castle Rock (and all other Tree and Rock Series speaker cables) is the addition of the sleek new Hanging Silver 1000 Series Multi-Spades and Bananas. Originally developed for the WEL Signature Series speaker cables, these plugs are made using a Hanging Silver over pure Red Copper process in which the spades and bananas are submerged (“hung”) into a vat of extreme-purity silver, resulting in a very thick direct-silver plate. No intermediary performance-degrading materials (such as nickel or alloy) are used. Also new to Castle Rock is a more-neatly-sculpted “breakout” (the covering where the cable separates into red and black legs), which is now made of a synthetic non-magnetic polymer, rather than metal. We’re making this all-models upgrade because speaker cables and AC power cables carry large magnetic fields which interact with any metal “collar” around the cable. Eliminating metal in the breakouts is another significant (and clearly audible) step forward in our goal of eliminating distortion and making the cable sonically "invisible." Please note too that AudioQuest now offers a Single-BiAmp option for any Rocket, Rock or Tree Series speaker cable, including Castle Rock. Although similar to a Single-BiWire configuration in which the speaker end has four connectors, the Single-BiAmp configuration also has four connectors at the amplifier end to accommodate the growing number of users who wish to take full advantage of all the amplifier channels in many of today's AV receivers and multichannel power amplifiers.
Castle Rock represents the culmination of Gibraltar’s long-term evolution along with performance-enhancing new systems and materials. These ingredients add up to important audible improvements and more pleasurable listening! Audioquest cables are legendary in audiophile circles for their neutrality and resolution.
For 28 years, Audioquest has worked tirelessly to achieve sonic neutrality in all their cables, regardless of price. Ensuring that music flows unchanged and uncolored requires removing the myriad distortions that occur when a signal flows through a cable. To accomplish this, Audioquest has bypassed conventional cable design and focused their efforts on both the physical properties and sonic characteristics of the conductors and connectors, as well as all materials used in the creation of their cables.
- CONDUCTORS: All eight of Castle Rock’s conductors are solid. Electrical and magnetic interaction between strands in a conventional cable is the single greatest source of distortion, often causing a somewhat harsh, dirty and confused sound. Solid conductors are the most important ingredients enabling Castle Rock’s very clear sound. Whether a conductor is solid or stranded, skin-effect is a prime distortion mechanism in speaker cables. Castle Rockvery simply keeps this effect out of the audio range by using conductor sizes that are below the threshold for audible distortion.
- PERFECT-SURFACE COPPER+: Castle Rock uses extremely high purity Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+) conductors. All conductors are solid, which prevents strand interaction, a major source of distortion. Surface quality is critical because a conductor can be considered as a rail-guide for both the electric fields within a conductor, and for the magnetic fields outside the conductor. The astonishingly smooth and pure Perfect-Surface eliminates harshness and greatly increases clarity compared to OFHC, OCC, 8N and other coppers. The superior purity of PSC+ further minimizes distortion caused by grain boundaries, which exist within any metal conductor.
- DIELECTRIC-BIAS SYSTEM (patent pending)-Unfortunately, because insulation stores and releases energy, it is also a “dielectric.” In a cable application, all released energy is distortion. The misnomer “break-in” is often used to describe the pronounced improvement in performance as the dielectric adapts to a charged state as the cable is used. Whenever a cable does not have a charge on it, it is re-adapting to an uncharged state; it is becoming new again.
By maintaining a 72 volt dielectric-bias, far above the voltage of delicate audio signals, the DBS system provides considerably better transparency and dynamics than is possible even from a cable in continuous use. It takes a couple of weeks for the DBS system to reach maximum performance. Since DBS battery packs are attached when Castle Rock cables are first terminated, Castle Rock will be approaching or at peak performance by the time it is installed in your system. Since there is no “load” on the two standard hardware-store batteries, they will last for years. A test button and LED allow for occasional verification of battery performance.
- GEOMETRY: The relationship between conductors defines a cable’s most basic electrical values (capacitance and inductance). However, even when those variables are kept in a reasonable balance, the relationship between conductors can be varied in ways that greatly effect the sound. The dual spiral construction of Castle Rock allows for significantly better dynamic contrast and information intelligibility than if the same conductors were run in parallel. The specific 4-cross geometry used in each half of Castle Rock maximizes this advantage.
- SST (Spread Spectrum Technology): Any single size or shape of conductor has a specific distortion profile. Even though radially symmetrical conductors (solid round or tubular) have the fewest discontinuities, any particular size does have a sonic signature. SST is a method for significantly reducing the awareness of these character flaws by using a precise combination of different size conductors. The four different SST-determined conductor sizes used in Bedrock allow an exceptionally clear, clean and dynamic sound.
- CONDUCTIVE INSULATION- The four negative conductors in Castle Rock are insulated with partially conductive carbon-loaded polyethylene. This remarkable material damps radio-frequency garbage from being fed back into the amplifier. The sonic benefit is exactly the same reduction in hash and better dimensionality that comes whenever RF garbage is reduced in an audio circuit.
- BIWIRING- Castle Rock is an exceptional Single-Biwire cable. When the halves are separated at the speaker end, the double quad-helix design turns Castle Rock into a true double-biwire set thanks to the magnetic autonomy of each quad-helix. On it’s own; one quad would be a little light-weight in performance as it is biased towards treble finesse. The other quad is biased toward the bass; it’s more forceful and lacking ultimate resolution. Together they form a completely optimized full range design, which was the first priority; but when separated the star quad helixes let Castle Rockbe a maximum performance double-biwire in a single cable.
- TERMINATIONS- AudioQuest offers a wide range of high quality connectors that allow Slate to be securely attached to any type of equipment. “Quality” is in the low distortion sound, not necessarily in the eye-candy effect. AQ ends are either a dull looking gold or silver because these metals are plated directly over the connector. There is no shiny and harsh sounding nickel layer underneath. AQ PK-spade lugs are soft because better metal is soft, and facilitates a higher quality connection. For pieces requiring a banana plug or BFA connector the AQ PK-BFA/Banana provides unprecedented performance over conventional brass versions.
A combination of these major ingredients, and many more subtle details add up to explain how even a reasonably priced cable like Castle Rock can sound so good.
- Geometry- Double Star-Quad
- Metal- Solid PSC+ Copper
- Gauge- 13 AWG / 3,31 mm2
- Jacket- Multi Color Braid
- Terminations choice- Silver or Gold plated - Spade / Banana
- 72V DBS
- Lenght- From 1m to 12m
