ABX testing with AQ Dragon power cords

@redlenses03 Wrote:

  Also, not sure about how to find a quality electrician etc..

I would search out electricians that also have audio knowledge. This is an old thread about dedicated AC mains power branch circuits, see here. 😎

In the thread (dedicated power circuits), there are two such electricians that also have audio knowledge: @jea48 and @kingrex 

Mike

Well, I went to the OP’s place yesterday and listened to his system. Thank you Dave for allowing me to do this and also making me an espresso from your own home-roasted beans. Turns out we both have similar hobbies- a love for audio and coffee. This shows the OP’s passion and dedication, I have my own high end espresso machine and commercial grinder, but I don’t go to the extent of roasting my own beans. His taste in beans is different than mine, he prefers a slightly darker roast, and traditional chocolate notes, while I like to experiment with a variety of lighter fruity notes from beans shipped to my house in the form of a subscription.

I mention this because our taste in music differs also. I first listened to his fine turntable (listed in his original post) using a UHQR Steely Dan pressing. I haven’t listened to vinyl in over 20 years?. Peg Sounded great. Plenty of bass, much more than I get on my planar magnetics, as I expected, but great. I would like to emphasize that I don’t get out much to any other systems; no dealers, no pals with high end systems to hear, just my speakers in my setup for well over 10 years. The way he brushed off the platter, then swiped down the album before playing ensured a complete lack of any pops or crackle- it could have been a stream it was so clean sounding! Again, I want to emphasize the lengths he took to ensure the highest quality in preservation of the sound.

Onto streaming: I was hoping to eliminate the Mcintosh pre-amp and go direct from the Lumin T3 to the amplifier, just to eliminate one variable in the equation. At first he said he was fine with this, but when I got there he said he would never listen to this system this way, as the pre was needed for his 2 sources, so he declined. Okay, shouldn’t be an issue to still hear some differences in cables, right?

I first sat in the only chair in the room- the room was smaller than I thought by looking at the picture above. It looks like it may be a 20 x 30 room, but the back wall does not extend much beyond the right edge of the picture. Unfortunately it is a square 16 x 16 foot room. The speakers were 55" from the front wall, 84" apart, slightly toed in, and the seat was 104" from each speaker, but behind the seat were several GIK 4" thick traps with diffusion grating surfaces, similar to the ones on the front wall, and then a few feet to the back wall. Dave tried the 1/3 rule and has experimented with speaker positioning given suggestions from others here. Cardas has some suggestions for speaker placement square room setup or according to this they call it a diagonal setup? diagonal

Dave does not listen to jazz or classical. Oh oh, I hope I can convince him to play some tunes I am familiar demo’ing my stuff. Played the beginning of Peg again a couple times and I tried my best to put it in memory, but again this sound was so different than what I am used to- big bass, soundstage was not very wide, sounded so closed in compared to mine. Detailed, but closed in. I mentioned the huge bass again, and then he turned down the sub- Ahh the sub! I didn’t notice the sub- He then turned it off and wow- the speakers sounded so lean, by comparison. I forgot to ask how many hours were on them and if they were fully broken in ?? But It any case preferred to not have the sub on, elimination of another variable, but he likes it- again different preferences. The sub went back on- he did adjust the level at times via his phone.

First was the insertion of the Puritan PSM156 with a Puritan Ultimate power cord. He wanted to plug it into a 12 ga heavy-duty extension, I said no, directly into the wall please- elimination of variables. I don’t know how the Dragon power cords were plugged in, but his outlet is quite far from the rack- he should have either moved his rack over to where the outlet is. Even better is to put a new outlet behind the rack for future evaluations. A dedicated line even better. The Ultimate cord is 1.5m, and the power cords could reach to the PSM156, so he needs 2.5m from outlet to rack. Dave has ordered a PS Audio P12 with an Audioquest Tornado which will do the same. I think we can agree there is no point having a new hi-fi (Furutech?) outlet and a power conditioner/regenerator if there is an $5 extension between them. Dave said the extension is made of the same stuff in the wall- I know, but....anyone know how to answer this question?

We listened - nothing. Played the same piece of music- 20 seconds of Peg- and I honestly could not pick up any difference. Bummer. Tried some Fleetwood Mac Dreams, and Steely Dan Black Cow. Hmmmm....

Alright let’s put in some better speaker cables- out goes the Mogami and in were my Acoustic Zen Absolutes. He has 4 binding posts on the back of his Amati’s, with the stock jumpers. I know cable companies make jumpers for this purpose, but I would assume the supplied plates of metal from Sonus Faber would be decent? so those were used. I am not sure which post was used to connect the spades on the speaker cables- the high frequency ones or the low frequency ones.

We listened- again I got no difference. Double bummer. I was feeling quite disappointed with myself, I thought this would be easier, no such luck. I don’t do this for a living, thank Christ. Probably why his dealer is reluctant to set them up at this home. At this point I decided to take a step back from the evaluation. Again, this is his system he is familiar with, it sounded quite different from mine. I asked him to sit in his seat and see if he heard any difference.

This sounds really hap-hazard and not very systematic, but you know we just met each other, naturally we were chatting about other things etc., and not trying to make excuses for reasons why I was unable to hear what should have been a clear difference, but I am trying to find excuses for what should have been clear differences. This is starting to remind me of golf. We did talk about golf, actually.

Okay enough is enough. We then put in the 2 Zavfino Silver Dart power cords I brought, into the amp and the pre, and then the only pair of interconnects I brought as I thought I needed only one pair- Acoustic Zen Absolute XLR’s between the Lumin and the Mac pre. The Lumin was powered by a S-Booster, so no option for the power cord there. The existing Mogami’s were still between the pre and the Mac Amp and everything else was patched up with what sounds very nice in my system. He was not happy about how difficult it was to remove the XLR’s from the Lumin’s thin covered rear panel.

He was still in the listening chair, I asked if he heard anything- he thought on the Alanis Morrisette track he picked up some small level detail he hadn’t heard before. Finally! I asked him to play Anette Askvik Liberty. From listening at the side of the listening position it sounded good- some of the detail was more prominent than I recall getting on my system. One key part for me is when she says "bones"- I listen for the realism and lack of sibilance in that word. It sounded good. He said this music sounded like Trespassers William- never heard of it- when the sax started to play on Liberty he switched to a song from Trespassers William- I liked it and took note of the band. I mentioned some of my go-to’s for evaluation is the air on horns.

Last I had him insert my Apollon NCx500 in place of his Mac 462. I asked him how that sounded- he said it sounded good. It was definitely louder than the 462.

We then went back and swapped out all of my cabling for his Take Five Mogami’s. From the side I believe heard a less-tight bass and a less natural, more sibilant voice on Alanis. I wrote the word "believe" because we didn’t go back and forth for me to be certain, and I didn’t take the listening seat again. He wasn’t sure. He then went back to that low level detail he picked up- I hear it now too- no difference. I am sure he will say this so I will first: He then said for the loose bass, is that better? I assumed he turned down the sub- I said yes, he said I’m messing with ya, I didn’t change anything. Okay, fine.

So, I don’t quite know the reasons for the immutable system, where it was not easy to hear cable changes, as compared to mine- was it the tubed pre amp that was in the chain? Does it "smooth" out differences? Is the MC462 resilient? Hmmm, I recall when posting in Audiokarma many years ago when I had Mac amps there were posters claiming of improvements with cabling. Is it my lack of familiarity with this sound? Or was it the room? I wonder now if perhaps it was overdamped? He said he has tried putting the system on the other wall, he has used REW, and this was the best spot. There were many traps- first reflection points on ceiling, behind speakers, behind listening position. I really don’t know. I am perplexed- again- thank Christ I don’t so this for a living.

I have changed out single cables and heard differences in my system- yes, sometimes it takes several back and forths for me to be sure, but other times it was immediate- you know that 5 note "it is so obvious". My Silver Dart power cable was one of those moments. Cable deniers are rolling their eyes as their must have been a "confirmation bias" - Okay, well, it is the same as when someone might say they love lasagna over shepherd’s pie, and no-one would ever say "did you test them blindfolded?" because nobody doubts how obvious it would be to the person to tell the difference, because they have lived that experience.

Dave would like all to know he is not a cable denier. In his words: "I feel that the human brain isn’t able to remember the specific details from previous listening & make a valid & detailed comparison with a new session. So when you/I hear Dreams play with my cables, spend 5 minutes swapping all cables and then listen again, I don’t believe we can make a true comparison. Had we done blind testing I think that would have been borne out. So I’m not denying that cables can make a difference, I have some on order, I’m saying that you either accept they can & jump in without evidence, or you don’t." He did buy upgraded cables from the OEM ones, and may continue to do so.

Shame. I was really hoping to shed some light on the situation and point out some focus on sounds and make it more obvious for him, but this experiment turned out to be inconclusive.

Thanks again dwcda for allowing me to come over and listen to your system. 

A lovely honest assessment, good on you and the host. 
‘imo and excluding shows, I hear 20…30 systems a year…subject  system have reached the mac limits of resolution. 

So mclinnguy came over with his cables so we could experiment and see what differences we could hear. Initially we listened to the system as it was, Mogami 3104 speaker wires, Mogami 2549 XLR cables & Powerline 10 awg power cords with Furutech FI-11 Cu connectors (referred to as stock cables previously in this thread). I played some of my favorite songs & some songs that mclinnguy wanted to hear. I repeated them as necessary until  he was ready to swap cables. 

We started by  using the Puritan conditioner  and connecting the amp/preamp/Lumin to that. Then we played the same music. Neither of us could hear any difference

We swapped speaker cables. No difference.

Then we swapped power cords & the XLR between the pre & Lumin. Both of us could hear a slight difference.  A little more & fuller treble & mids. mclinnguy thought there was more difference than I could hear. I suggested that he let me swap some stuff blind and he could tell me what he thought & he said "I know, you're  one of those guys". We had a brief discussion about the value of not letting your brain override or determine what your ears are hearing but in the end I didn't push it & we swapped back to my cables. The change was not significant but there was a slight noticeable change.

The bit with the sub was more of me being a dick than anything. mclinnguy felt that the sub was loud so  I used the app & said ok, better? He said yup and I told him that I hadn't  changed the sub. It's not like he gave it a lot of thought. The only reason I did that was to try to make the point  that your  brain will tell your ears what they're hearing & by  thinking I'd adjusted the sub he believed the music sounded better.

Overall the most noticeable change (for me) was the swapping of the amp. But a lot of the difference was because it was much louder at the set volume of my preamp. So it was difficult to tell  if the amps sounded that different or if increased volume made it seem so. But his amp did sound good, for a fraction  of the price of mine.

It's my honest opinion that if he & I were to hear the system with his cables & my cables and we didn't know which was which neither of us could reliably choose either set of cables as "better". But I also believe that it's possible that different cables could sound better, I just don't think that the brain can store a sample and compare it to another sample reliably 5 minutes later. When I adjusted the sub the effect was immediate & we could both tell that something had changed.

One needs a clean sound audio system to hear the cable sound difference. All your systems sound un-natural (with noises) like a left speaker in below video. The much important sounds are masked by the glare and veils which makes hard to see/hear the music.

Below is a live recording of my system which is cleanest sound. Hear my system at THE Show 2024, OC. Costa Mesa audio show (my rm #272) on June 7-9. Alex/WTA

That's a funny title "To You Who Don't Love Me" instead of doesn't.

On a different subject, I'm really glad that the moderators moved that "What happened to us" thread. 

@dwcda nice! Thanks for the update.
So the most surprising first - you couldn’t tell that the Puritan was in your system. That’s a 180 degrees from my experience with it. Is it the PSM156?
In my system with PSM156, using 3 different power cables feeding it, it restricted dynamics, sweetened and mellowed out the presentation to the degree I couldn’t live with it. I tried their Ultimate cable and didn’t like it - brittle up top, thinner sounding although with higher res than the Classic. Running amps into Puritan was garbage. Even the dac and preamp sounded pinched. I’m exaggerating for illustration purposes but you get the idea. I sold it and don’t miss it one bit. Direct on dedicated line now. Some people love this power conditioner, I didn’t.

Second part…the loud sub. That’s potentially the culprit. Bass that’s overpowering is going to overwhelm the entire presentation. I would be testing every change in the system with the sub off. But it’s your system you do what you like. However, like I said, sub will null subtle changes. You’re going to probably tell me I’m looking for way to justify hearing the change but that’s how it is.

The fact that both of you heard power cables make a difference is cool. And that again comes down to the degree of improvement, if any. Is it worth it to you? Going back to original configuration, you would know if you can’t live without that cable you just heard. If this feeling isn’t there, move on.

That’s my take on it. And I’m looking to hear @mclinnguy thoughts on what he heard.

Oh and I forgot…having a Furutech FI-11 CU (copper) AC connectors will change the sound of the cable. Just like using Furutech XLR connectors on Mogami instead of their stock Neutrik. Good connectors make a difference and will improve the sound of the cable. The FI-11 CU is relatively cheap but excellent connector. I used it before. 

@audphile1 uh, look up ^ 😉

Lol thx @mclinnguy 

@mclinnguy read your thoughts on the comparison. The UHQR are very nice. I have Steely Dan and Miles Davis. The sounded superb when I had the table.

My room is a challenge as well. It’s not square but not too far from it. I struggled with bass overpowering everything else and I have no sub. Just my Wilson Sabrina and Pass X260.8 mono amps. Once you tune the room and system the difference becomes apparent. I still suspect the sub is a possible culprit. Also, the 4” thick GIK bass traps will suck up some of the mids and highs as well. I switched to limited range tri traps behind the speakers and the results are excellent.

When I read you heard sibilance with mogami xlr vs Absolute Copper that’s exactly one of the biggest differences I heard in my system when switching between Mogami studio gold and AZ Absolute Copper. So I don’t think you imagined it. In any case, it is what it is.

You know I’ve read the criticism of ASR and how badly they treat people with different opinions. My goal on posting my experiences here is not to stir up crap and cause trouble. If anything I’m providing a counterpoint. I’m not bashing those that believe power cords make a big difference nor am I demanding that you agree with me. They are valid experiences that support the contention that in some circumstances cables sound the same. But sarcastic posts as I’ve encountered here (audphile1) show that ASR isn’t unique, people don’t like to read experiences that differ from theirs. They find them threatening.

@dwcda , Hmmm, your account is a lil over a month old. You had to have existed somewhere else before you joined here....I see some symptoms of an ASR scientist incognito by the nature of your posts since then. What"s your username there? Tell Majidimehr I said hi.

On to this topic, if you can’t hear any differences, isn’t that a wonderful thing?? You can sport 10 dollar amazonbasics wire and save thousands.

Here are the reasons cable difference can’t be heard though.... the 3 Ts

- Terrible room+untreated room

- Terrible gear (not all gear/speakers is resolving, it can be sht packed in a pretty chassis)

- Terrible ears (combination of unfortunate genetics, age and/or accumulated hearing damage)

In either case, you are good, count your hidden blessings and save thousands by sticking with 10 dollar Amazon basics wire.

Future Prediction (I could be wrong):

I also get the feeling you could soon start a thread on ’all amps and dacs sound the same" like ASR scientists. Well, how about that? That’s tens/hundreds of thousands in savings headed your way soon.

You can throw away all the dacs and stick with the 2 dollar realtek dac in your pc. You can throw away all the amps and get a Pyle amp for 40 bucks....

Savings....Savings....Savings...Bravo.

No, I have no account on ASR. My room is square but treated and is vastly better sounding than when it was untreated. My McIntosh/Lumin/Pure Fidelity gear seems like it should be able to resolve properly. If my ears are bad then so are the ears of 4 others who came to my house to compare cables... including a guy who manufacturers cables. He also complimented the room acoustics and my equipment.

I doubt I'll be swapping my MC462 for a Pyle amp and my Lumin T3 for a Realtek DAC. I assume that's the gear you're sporting so you've got that covered.

Funny thing, you're proving how correct my quote was about how similar the treatment of dissimilar views here is with ASR.

All jokes aside, here are a few things to consider

- Your rig is not the most resolving rig out there...That almati with a 6 inch mid and dome tweeter crossed over higher than i would like is no resolution beast (compared to say, a Borresen, etc). It is a very pretty and "musical" speaker and you pay more for the pretty, i suppose. The Mac is no beast of detail, depth-wise nuance, etc. It is one of those flat soundstage amps (flatten everything out). Pair that with the fact that you have your speaker close to the wall, sub in the suboptimal location, etc...you reap what you sow. Ummm...couldn’t comment on your dac, never heard it, but, i would wager that it is not some king of detail like aavik, technics, etc, In summation, you probably won’t detect any soundfield nuance change, etc that can happen from a cable change. But, your goal probably was to have a "musical" (non hyper-detailed) setup and your rig probably accomplishes that... nothing wrong with that....

- A power cable is the the one cable you should spend the least on. After you put it through the conditioner, it’s only job is to reject noise until it gets to the component. It is the not the best cable to spend beacoup bucks on and can be accomplished for cheaper. The interconnects, speakercables, digital cables, etc can play a larger factor.

- I would also wager that any guy walking off the street to hear your rig is not some trained listener and golden ear bat...Sounds like poor quality test subjects to me.

Nevertheless, if cables didn’t do anything great for ya, count the pennies saved and have some happy listening sessions..... Tis a wonderful day indeed.

@dwcda 

It's a shame that we can't all have the vast knowledge and experience that @deep_333 has. It would save us so much time and money, but on the other hand, it would hurt to realize how terrible our systems really are when we stupidly thought that they sounded good. 

I would also wager that any guy walking off the street to hear your rig is not some trained listener and golden ear bat...Sounds like poor quality test subjects to me.

@deep_333

For what its worth, this poor quality subject has just acquired a Primaluna evo 400 preamp, and has been waiting for a ’decent’ XLR to plug it between the Weiss DAC and Marchand XM44. I didn’t want to spend too much just yet, so found what I think was the best $300 (Cdn) XLR I could find on Canuck Audio, it has an excellent reputation and retails for $500 US. I don’t want to name it. It showed up yesterday.

All connected, pre is used so well broken in etc, and after a few tracks not happy with the sound- sounds flat and lacks resolution. I expected a little warmth, but this preamp was reviewed to be a pretty good one- very transparent and "non-tube like". Oh well, my first foray into tubes is not a success, first thought is I’ll list it, but let’s just try a cable change: Swapped the $500 XLR with a $950 Acoustic Zen Matrix II, just swapped places between them, as the Matrix II is already in service from the Marchand to the lower channel amplifier. Huge increase in clarity and resolution. Easily a 10 second discernible difference. Dare I say night and day? Would I pass an ABX test? Absolutely. 100%. And this is with $2 a foot speaker cable substituted in on my bass panels as I have sent my Acoustic Zen cables in for re-termination.

Why aren’t other systems as transparent? Not entirely certain.

Quite the wild thread here. Lots of armchair quarterbacks and experts. Telling the OP he can't hear, his system is junk, it's set up improperly, etc. etc. 

Don't get me wrong here: I am definitely not in the "cables make no difference" camp. Quite the contrary. 

But I'm also not in the "you always get what you pay for" camp with cables/wire either. Much of it is prohibitively overpriced and just sounds "different" and not necessarily better. 

Nobody seems to have commented (at least directly) on the cabling the OP is using in his system. For those that are not familiar with Gene at Takefive, he's a pretty knowledgeable guy that sells some pretty good products. Tends to cyrogenically treat everything, also provides optional burn-in (which is a very good idea IMO) at a reasonable price on all his products on an Audiodharma cable cooker. 

So the OP is not exactly connected up with crap. The Mogami 3104, if cryoed and burned in, is a very high quality speaker cable (I can speak from experience, using cryoed & burned in 3103 for a number of years now) that can probably hold its own against some megabuck speaker cables. 

Won't comment on the IC's the OP is using but the power cords are very possibly quite good as well using 10 AWG copper and Furutech connectors modified by Gene. 

So it simply is quite possible that some of these newer cables tried by the OP did not result in much of an improvement in his system. 

I've heard plenty of expensive stuff (cabling) that not only wouldn't be an improvement to me in my system but would be a giant downgrade and a total waste of thousands of dollars. That being said, I did hear one of the Audioquest megabuck power cords in a friends system a few years ago when we were evaluating cords and it was very impressive. But also very expensive at around $3K-$4K Cnd. and simply not worth it to me. I thought it was a great cord in that system. The Nordost Tyr, which we also evaluated at the same time, was awful in that system, and also big bucks, so system synergy and subjective listening preferences are always going to be on the table with cables. 

Carry on......

@hdm  yeah all of my TakeFive stuff was cryogenicallly treated (by default by the vendor) and had the optional burn-in (it was cheap, wth). Funny thing, in this thread the power cables were referred to as "stock cables". Whatever.