ABX testing with AQ Dragon power cords


I was talking to my dealer about how good the system sounds that he sold me. I mentioned that I had tried some new speaker/interconnect cables from a local amp/cable manufacturer & both I and the company boss agreed that there was little discernible sound difference between his cables & mine. He couldn’t understand why. He also told me that my room acoustics were amazing, top notch. He’d like me to bring my cables (& his) to his listening room & we’ll compare there. That’s for next week.

My dealer said that in his 40 years this has never happened & he was ready to rise to the challenge. He said he would send me a couple of AQ Hurricane power cords to try on my amp/pre and I’d be amazed. I said why bother, send some Dragons. He told me to connect them to my amp & preamp & I should be amazed within 10 seconds of comparing. Today I received a Dragon HC & Source power cord. I listened to some music I’m very familiar with through my Lumin T3 playing FLAC files from the attached USB. Then I swapped the amp & pre to the Dragons and listened to the same songs. No difference that I could tell. So I redid the test, one song at a time, switching back & forth. Still no difference.

I invited two neighbors over (separately) and asked them to look at my FLAC library & choose a song that they knew well. I played that for them with both sets of power cords. One said he couldn’t hear any difference between the two. The other said that one (mine) sounded like it had slightly more treble, the other (Dragon) sounded like more bass. I played a third version (turned out it was mine but he didn’t know) and he said that was the bass version. He was wrong & admitted that the differences were so small that he really couldn’t choose between the two.

I called my dealer & he asked if the difference was earth shattering. I told him no & he asked how that was possible when he just sent similar cables to another customer last week with a similarly priced system as mine & that guy said that the SQ improved 50% and was ecstatic. I said that that guy must have decided already that he was going to buy them and determined that for that money they must improve the sound. My dealer said that either my ears are those a near dead 95 year old or his last 40 years experience have been a sham. I suggested that he was selling & demoing a product to people that had a propensity to believe it worked & therefore it worked for them. I offered to have him drive here (4 hour drive) and listen for himself & I’ll swap cables while his mind is blown. We may get there yet.

I hesitate to post a photo of my listening room as experience tells me that those that are strong proponents of cables will pick it apart and blame a myriad of other crap  rather than recognizing that the 3 of us heard no difference on a high resolving system situated in a room would good acoustics... but here goes.

 

McIntosh MC462/C2700, Pure Fidelity Harmony TT, Gold Note PH-10/PSU-10 phono stage, Lumin T3/Sbooster, Sonus Faber Amati G5 speakers, Sonus Faber Gravis V sub.

dwcda

Showing 1 response by knownothing

@mclinnguy thanks for your detailed effort to make an objective report on the OP’s system.  Based on the OP’s initial post on his, his neighbor’s, his dealer’s observations, and their n your report, I am convinced that his system in his room is resistant to cable changes.  I believe that is true based all evidence presented.

This has not been my experience.  My room is purpose built and has a dedicated twenty amp breaker and 10AWG AC line that only supplies my audio system.  Many but not all cable upgrades have made an audible difference in my system, and not always a positive difference and not always covarying with price. 

Earlier in thread it was suggested that a dedicated AC line would help.  I highly recommend this step, as everything downstream can be affected by noise in the AC.  Maybe this is in fact what the OP has supplying his system, I haven’t scanned the entire thread.

@Mclinnguy noted that there was a long extension cord connecting the system to the wall outlet.  I wasn’t sure if this was successfully bypassed.  If not, it certainly wouldn’t help.  The last cable upgrade I have made was to put a different PC between the wall and my power distributor, and that has turned out to be revelatory.

It has been suggested that the character of the OP’s gear/room combination does not respond to cable changes, and it has been suggested that if the OP is happy with the current sound of their system, then yah(!) the OP can save a ton of money and time fiddling around with expensive wires.  I concur.

I suggest if the OP is still cable curious, they go to their dealer and ask them to demo some cables in their shop in a system that the dealer thinks will result in the most dramatic difference in sound reproduction, and make the dealer prove their case in what they consider ideal circumstances.  I did this in shopping for my first aftermarket power cable, and the results were not subtle.

YMMV

kn