ABX testing with AQ Dragon power cords

dcwa,

I'm talking about the wall behind the speaker It's like inches away from the wall if you pulled the speaker out further into the room I guarantee it'll sound a lot better, The speakers are way too close to the wall behind them.

I know it’s your room and tastes, but I agree with @zuesman that those speakers look like they’re begging to be another 6” - 12” or so into the room and maybe a little closer together as well (obviously you’d increase toe in a bit as well when pulling them out). They’re far too close to being in the corners for my liking even with the bass traps and just look like they need more room to breathe to fully open up. I’d definitely give that a try if you haven’t already and hey, unlike almost everything else in this expensive hobby it’s free! Just my $0.02 FWIW.

@dwcda 

I don’t want to hijack your thread, but I am very interested in your G5’s. I have an appointment next week to hear a pair, but I’d really like to hear your honest thoughts.

Please DM me when you get the chance.

Thanks.

@zuesman I’m talking about the wall behind the speakers too. The front edge of the speakers is 4 feet from the wall behind them. But I’ll give it a try later today & move them another foot from the wall, change the toe-in and see what I think.

@jdougs 

The others are right about pulling your speakers away from the wall. The manual says the speakers should be away from the corners and they should be a meter from the front wall.

Give it a shot, you’ll be amazed 😀

I agree with the last two posters. Your speakers are too close to the front wall. I also have huge corner bass traps floor to ceiling behind mine but I still put the speakers out nearly 5 feet. Plus yours are too in line with the equipment cabinet between them which causes sound placement interference. Specially the way they are towed in which aims their reflection at the cabinet. I would put them at least a full foot further out with less toe in. It may do wonders for your soundstage and specially 3D effects. But if you are happy as is, great.

@curiousjim Think you tagged the wrong person here! haha

My apologies — I initially said decrease toe in when pulling speakers out further and should’ve said increase, but obviously you’d decrease toe in as necessary when moving the speakers closer together that I think you should also play with.  My bad. I’d expect you’d get a deeper and more 3D soundstage with doing this (recording permitting of course) and look forward to hearing your thoughts. 

Plus yours are too in line with the equipment cabinet between them which causes sound placement interference.

@baylinor makes a great point here that I neglected to mention, and I agree the speakers can probably use at least another foot out from the wall if not more.  Just use your ears, which you obviously already do, and you’ll know pretty quickly what you prefer, and Goodonya for being open to trying something different!

So, it’s treason, then…. 

@jdougs 

Oops.😁

@dwcda Thank you for your post and your reasoned responses to several hostile and incredulous responses. You and I share a similar philosophy about the audible effects of cables and cords. I've tried to hear the difference in interconnects and power cords at least a dozen times over the years. So far I can't tell one from the other. I am not saying that someone else cannot hear the difference. If they believe that one cable has more detail or better soundstage than another cable then that is their truth.

Due to my life sciences background when I do a comparison between components or cables I try to reduce the influence of expectation-bias as much as possible. I have two DACs, an SACD player, and a CD player. Using Blue Jeans cables as a control, I can compre the sound of two components to get a baseline. My Berkeley DAC (using the SACD as a transport) and my Marantz KI Ruby sound very similar playing a standard CD. When I replace the interconnects in one component I can compare the sound against a standard (the other component).

Lots of people on the forums have said that silver cables have a distinctive sound. So I bought a pair of AudioQuest silver RCA cables to see if I could hear a difference. I left the cables in for several months so they could "burn in" and I could compare them every so often to see if I could hear any of the sonic effects that others describe. Short answer - no.

AFAIK, there is no ABX or double blind test that shows that audiophiles (or normal people for that matter) can tell the differnce between interconnects or power cords. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of tests that show the opposite - that if the listener does't know the brand or story of the cord he/she is listening to, they can't tell cables apart. If anyone is aware of a scientifically rigorous blind test that shows that listeners, even trained listeners, can hear the difference between cables please let me know.

What is interesting about this debate is that merely reporting that one cannot hear a difference between cables brings forth a surprising degree of defensiveness. It's similar to the response you get if you challenge someone's religion.

If I understand the OP correctly, he is not saying that cable differences do not exist. He is just stating that using the methods, materials, and conditions he has at his disposal, he can't hear a difference. That makes two of us.

I've moved the speakers out & closer a bit. The center of the speaker is now 55" from the back wall. The speaker centers are 82" apart and the listening position is 82" from the center of each speaker. I listened for awhile & I do like the sound so I'll keep it like this for awhile & play some records. Time will tell. 

The owner of the amp/cable company heard no difference. He still thinks that there is a reason for it and is working to help me determine why.

Under normal circumstances we shouldn’t expect to hear differences between these cables, so I don’t think looking for a reason is appropriate here. Looking for a reason when a difference is perceived makes more sense. If a way is found to make a perceivable difference happen, then we’d like to know what kinds of things were changed, and it’d be interesting to see if measurements can pick up on something, and maybe we’ll solve a mystery.

Room looks nice! How resolving it actually is I can't say with any confidence by looking at it. You could test that too, using REW. You can also listen to bass and lower midrange clarity using a gated burst test like the MATT:

In all the cable cable controversy, it is the cable believers who so quickly go to the ad hominem remarks and get upset so quickly. This is no surprise since they are the ones who have fell for the anti-science paycho acoustic depths and spent so much money they could have spent on room acoustics or speakers. 

There is a physics principle that says you can't get more information than the original signal. Your system has cables that are probably better than most recording studios so any differences you hear using super duper cables are outside the limits of what the recording engineer, musician and producer heard in the first place. There is no getting around this argument. 

Another reason you can't hear the difference is because you have well designed power supplies in your components, the argument that the better the system is the more you can hear the cables is backwards.

Good of you to try!

The equal triangle distance is something that is rebuked by many. The ideal distance between the speakers should be about 83% of the distance between your ears and the speakers. Meaning you would be better off 100" from the speakers since they are 83" apart. The other important component to all that is to have at least 8 feet behind your head to the back wall. If you don't then you would need to shorten the distances between the speakers and yourself. Anyway, once I found this out, I have never had any inclination to change it. Main difference is my speakers have less than a 1/2" of tow in because my acoustic treatments allow for it. The toe in thing is obviously speaker dependant but the room has a lot to do with it. Your speakers look like the kind that could sound best if aimed straight out if your first reflection points are correctly treated. I use high diffusion there with absorption for second reflection points right next to it. Funny how this thing started with cables and moved onto things that will have much bigger impacts. Glad you are keeping an open mind. Enjoy the journey!

I’ve rarely witnessed so much worthless energy and emotion expended. 
 

Bye Felicia 

1. OP Please make a comparison video. I am sure I can hear them difference.  Alex/WTA

I listened for awhile & I do like the sound so I'll keep it like this for awhile & play some records. Time will tell. 

Looks like toe in is about the same, and since the speakers are closer together you might try a little less toe in especially if images seem too centered and soundstage width is compromised or less than desired.  I’d think bass may also sound a bit different and along with it the overall frequency balance of the sound that’d be worth assessing as you listen further.  In my system/room this type of positioning produced a bigger 3D soundstage, the bass was better integrated and balanced with everything else, and the speakers disappeared better so some things to listen for but your experience could well be different.  As always, lotsa variables and your ears will tell you what’s right/better, and after a while moving the speakers back to their original position will likely be very telling and informative.  Anyway, glad to hear there are at least some things you like so far, and keep us posted with your findings if you could.

@baylinor Nailed it and meticulous installation of the various components from ground to panel, picking phase legs, wire to dedicated outlets and hospital grade high clamping force outlets are a must.

To the OP…. your rack / gear make a nice proxy wall… how far off that are you ? 

BTW power cords, given competent appropriate grade and gauge materials and fantastic shield are the LAST thing i muck around with….

Best to all in music ;-)

Is the amplifier and preamplifier plugged into the wall or is that a power strip / power conditioner behind the rack?

This thread has gone way off topic with talk about speaker positioning! As if that is going to make one power cord distinguishable from another! Oy ve!

"... hospital grade high clamping force outlets are a must." Really? You can hear that too?

One aspect that is highly significant, it also matters how the power is done internally to the component you're using. With a conventional unregulated linear PSU in say, a typical power amp for example you can generally hear effects of fuses, power cords readily IME. But we can make a linear PSU where you can't hear much of those upstream items at all. Just for example, if you filter and regulate downstream. It does matter (a lot) IME.

Another example, I have a super shunt attenuator buffered preamp design that employs 2 stages of very high performance linear regulation. One would likely be enough but hey, it has 2 because that's how I wanted it :D And the fact is you'll be very hard pressed to hear anything happening upstream (power cord, fuse). In theory and in real experience. You can't hear much of a DC flat line basically, no matter how much wishful thinking is also applied lol..

In my friend's super system he's done a lot of power chord research. He also has AQ Dragons (the full loom in in fact). As I was advising him, we basically couldn't hear any power cord effects using said preamp and a power amp design I brought. 

So I'm just trying to say, IME not all systems are as sensitive as others to power cords and fuses. JME YMMV.

TEK

@donavabdear Wrote:

Another reason you can't hear the difference is because you have well designed power supplies in your components, the argument that the better the system is the more you can hear the cables is backwards.

I agree! In my opinion, addressing the AC mains power coming in the home and the wiring in-wall is more important. All-wiring and grounding from the electrical pole to the audio equipment matters. 😎

See article here!

Mike

Well hold on Mike. I think I am seeing either a power strip or a power conditioner or both. Let’s not rush to conclusions that the amp and preamp are getting good power for their property designed power supplies until the OP confirms. A bad power strip or a limiting power conditioner can cap your system performance at a certain level and no matter what you do that bottleneck will prevent any further improvements. It’s tough to see in the pictures what that stuff behind the rack is and what the unit on middle shelf to the left of Lumin is for. 

Oh relax. I put an ammeter on the surge protector that the amp & pre are plugged into and while playing music at my typical level they were drawing under 2 amps.

The unit next to the Lumin is the Sbooster power supply as detailed in the OP.

Dude you have your McIntosh components plugged into a surge protector? 
It doesn’t matter how many amps they draw. That surge protector is your bottleneck. Take it out. You’re choking your system. 
Plug the amp and pre at least for the duration of the evaluation directly into the wall using the dragons. Re-evaluate. Seriously surge protector?

Way ahead of you. I already moved them both to the wall and compared again. No change in sound but I'll continue tomorrow. But it's a power bar, the two units draw <2 amps, nothing else but this system is on the circuit, how is it being choked?

Choked by the surge protection circuit in a cheap strip like that. Fine for routers or cable box. Not great for audio components in a system of that caliber. Something like a passive power conditioner that’s not restrictive would work great. Shunyata is one example. Listen to it for a few days then reintroduce stock cords. Don’t just listen to changes in treble, mids and bass. Pay attention to the entire presentation. Where the instruments are in the soundstage. Depth and width of stage, layering. Make notes on your favorite recordings how they sound. A quick A/B is not the right way to do it. Give yourself time to get used to it for a few days or even a week. Then go back. 

I'd been considering a PS Audio 12 or AQ Niagara 5000.

That’s good too. Regen. Clean power. 

First of all, congratulations for being smarter (or at least less gullible) than the average audiophile, no matter how experienced they are.

Second of all, thanks for including others and for the testing method which is the only valid way to test things such as this. When people connect new items, whether cables, interconnects, amps, etc, they will have an expectation bias (though they may not recognize it or admit it) and especially if the item is expensive. If these new speaker wires cost $10,000 a foot, they must sound better, right?

Thank you for the post even though most readers won’t accept it.

One other thing for your evaluation…best listening experience is usually after 11pm when you have lowest noise on the lines (even with dedicated circuit it still appears to be the case) and the house is quiet. Spend some quality time listening and making notes. As I said a few days minimum. Let it all settle. Before you switch back. And no surge protector. Direct to wall.
in that system with properly set up and positioned speakers in relation to the listening chair (start with equilateral triangle toed in then make a slight adjustment by moving the chair further away by half a foot or so and correcting the toe in for the new chair location) you should begin to hear changes however subtle they may be. It will most likely be increased clarity, more focus and position of instruments in the soundstage will be more clearly defined.
Make sure you are listening to at least the redbook 16/44 and higher res files.
The few days of listening hard and alone without someone talking at the same time music is playing, should begin training your ear to be able to discern changes.
No guarantee that the final results will be any different than your initial assessment but at least you have given it all a fair shot at showing you what it’s capable of. I’m familiar with McIntosh amplifiers and they react to power cord changes and the AQ Dragon is one of the power cords that should take these components further towards more refined presentation. If at the end you hear no difference then it is what it is.

When looking for advice about the necessity of having clean power running into my system I navigate towards those who have the knowledge and design expertise to explain the concept cogently. 

There have been so many Internet discussions about cables and interconnects.

I think it’s important one to acknowledge that we don’t know hear the same.

For example, or recent hearing test for me Shows That I am a couple decibels down and hearing in the mid range may be a bit more, depending on the frequency, but my ears are still very sensitive to super high frequencies

So my hearing is a response curve is basically the shape which means I don’t know what it’s all the mid range detail, but I love so much.  
 

Anyway, power cables for me I have certainly made a difference, but not under all conditions, even in the same room with the same equipment. 

I have found the cables make the biggest difference for sensitive digital sources, like a dac and a streamer.  I have a proceed power amp that always sounds better when plugged into the wall.

If we try a cable and you think it makes a difference maybe you can hear a difference it’s your money and your time.

If you try a cable and you cannot hear a difference, then you have either reach the limits of your hearing or the cable is crap.

So I think there are a lot of factors that influence your sound even if it’s in the same room and the room is treated well and some components have better supplies sources and are less affected by power cables  Example that is the external power supply for DACs.

anyway, have fun arguing. I’m gonna go get a beer.

@patrickcarey 

The way your post is written, it sounds like you've already had a few.

@roxy54 lol

I'm surprised at the amount of derision and hostility heaped on the OP here.  I am on the side of "power cords make a difference."  Why? Because I hear a difference.  I disagree that having the neighbors over for a listen disqualifies them because they are not "audiophiles."  if something sounds better, you shouldn't need to be an audiophile to discern the difference.  You just need to listen more to the two components for a while so that you hear each one enough to compare what usually are small, <15% differences.  Whether that difference is worth the money is a personal choice.  However, I do call BS on the customer who allegedly thought that there was a 50% improvement in his system by adding power cables.  I just can't believe that, even if he was comparing Dragons to stock power cables.  But to each his own.

BTW, very nice music room!  

@dwcda 

Nice setup, you should be very proud of it. 

Hard to believe most are men on this forum. 
 

I run a DAC3 into Pass XA100.5s driving MBL 126s.  I've swapped dozens of cables in and out.  Except for low gauge power cords (thick conductors) helping the bass I've only heard very minor tone changes, the kind I get by swapping capacitors inside an amp.  Not better or worse, just maybe a hair different.  It gets boring.  

You guys have way too much time and money...

I started a huge brouhaha with a post on this topic some time ago. If you're curious you can find it easily by searching for my prior posts.   

   I'm a consumer psychologist and a marketing professor who studies how people make subjective judgments about what sounds, tastes, looks, or feels better. The data on this are resoundingly clear. The only way to have confidence that a difference you are perceiving between X and Y—whether X and Y are power cords or anything else—is through a blind comparison where the person making the judgment does not know what they are listening to.

   There are two very important things to know about this issue. First, the issue goes beyond confirmation bias (biasing one's judgments in favor of what one already believes to be true). Many people think that the issue is simply one of confirmation bias, so if they don't have a prior belief that power cords either do or do not make a difference in sound quality, they will approach the issue open-mindedly, and, therefore, blind listening is not needed. This makes total sense, but alas, is incorrect. If your brain knows what it is listening to, it will bias the results in all kinds of ways, even if you don't have a prior opinion and are honestly doing your best to make an accurate judgment.

   Second, and this may be the most important and interesting point, if you know what you are listening to you genuinely will hear a difference. It's just that the difference is generated by your brain rather than the power cords. Here is what we used to think and after I’ll share what the research now shows.

WRONG outdated model:

(1) the stereo creates vibrations in the air.

(2) these vibrations reach your ear.

(3) your brain translates these vibrations into a sonic experience.

(4) your prior beliefs about power cords bias your judgment of this subjective experience and bias what you tell other people about it.

New, more CORRECT model:

(1) the stereo creates vibrations in the air,

(2) these vibrations reach your ear,

(3) your brain combines the information it receives from the ear with models about how the world works and motivations about how to be socially successful to actively construct your sonic experience.  So, the sounds you hear in your head have already been influenced by your knowledge of what you are listening to.

(4) You judge whether power cords influence the sound quality and share that judgment with other people. You can do this in a biased way or in a more open-minded and honest way.

The important point is that knowing which power cord you are listening to will bias you at stage 3 and stage 4. If you're committed to an honest, open-minded approach, this will reduce the bias at stage 4, but the bias at stage 3 will still be there. The only way to remove the bias at stage 3 is to do a blind listening. And the bias at stage 3 will happen even if you don’t have a specific belief about power cords. Your brain will introduce biases at stage 3 for a whole host of other reasons that are too complicated to get into in this post.

At the time of my previous post on this issue I searched the Internet to find examples of blind listening tests using different power cords. I was only able to find a few examples, but all of them provided strong evidence that power cords make zero difference in what people hear if the people don't know what power cord they are listening to. This does not mean that all stereo sound the same or that spending money on stereo equipment is always a waste. There are many ways that you can spend money improving the sound of your stereo that hold up in blind listening tests. But from the evidence available last time I checked, spending money on power cords is not a good way to improve the sound quality of your system.

@ahuvia

Oh well then...I guess that you settled that issue. Now we don’t have to waste our time and money on junk that makes no difference. Thanks!

The electricity came from a long way off, how is the last couple of feet going to matter?  In any case, the first thing an electronic unit does is convert the AC to DC, so it doesn't matter how pure the AC signal is.  But such arguments are pointless with these people, because you can't use logic and evidence to convince someone who never used logic and evidence to begin with.

@skeptikal 

So you don't think that what a person experiences through their hearing can be considered evidence?

@roxy54 

Only if you do a blind A/B test.  Confirmation bias is huge and proportional to how much money you just spent.

Confirmation bias is huge and proportional to how much money you just spent.

It is interesting that those that bring up confirmation bias believe it only applies to those that buy things that they don't find value in. Your confirmation bias is that science has everything completely understood. You are biased to never hear a difference, so you won't. There is a clear lack of understanding of what confirmation bias is and when it does or could apply. 

Although confirmation bias is a thing, that doesn’t mean it always overrides listening or that listening is not evidence.  Many of us here have spent years listening to and comparing different equipment and have come to trust our ears, but there are those who just can’t accept that and feel the need to continually chime in that we can’t possibly be objective.  Whatever.  There are many examples here where people (me included) have preferred cheaper products over more expensive competitors in non-blind comparisons, which would not be the case if confirmation bias ruled all and listening wasn’t valid evidence.  Is it infallible?  No, but it can still be useful evidence. 

I guess that's why blind comparisons are better.