Any recommendations for aftermarket C-7 power cord for Bluesound Node 2i


Looking for help on finding a better sounding C-7 power cord for my Node.  I have read about Audioquest, Pangea, Cullen, Shunyata, etc.  I have even looked at making my own.  Any suggestions or experience with good C-7 cords would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
pfeiffer

Showing 5 responses by buschmann

I installed the Wireworld Aurora mini on my Node 2i and am very pleased after 4 hours of listening.

Lower noise floor, so better audibility of the quietest parts of the music. Even things like the mechanical noises of piano pedals. I can hear the tube noise in some older recordings that was not previously audible.

Cleaner reproduction of all frequencies and better separation of instruments.

Very impressive improvement in bass definition and low end extension.

The C7 connector is not polarized, so you can plug it into the Node two different ways. I found a big difference in the sound of the two directions.

I'll report back if there are any changes after a week or so of use.
I'm using a Yggdrasil external DAC connected with a Mogami 2964 coaxial cable and an iFi SPDIF iPurifier with UltraCap™ LPS-1 power supply.
Any thoughts on iFi and SPDIF coaxial cable quality? Is cable quality made irrelevant with the iFi?
Thanks to lowrider57's comments above, I decided to try out alternative data cables between the Node and my DAC. As I stated above, my original cable was a good quality conventional 75 ohm coaxial cable.

I installed a pretty radical SPDIF cable made by Mad Scientist Audio using carbon fiber for the center conductor. It made a dramatic improvement in the sound. Much more of an improvement than the previously upgraded power cable. The sound was better resolved, bass and treble were extended, and transients were crisper. I'm surprised to find such a change when the iFi is supposed to be regenerating a "perfect" SPDIF signal to the DAC.

I then decided to try an optical cable for something completely different. I installed a Van Den Hul Optocoupler II, and found that at first listen it's a small increment better than the coaxial with carbon fiber and iFi. I'll need a little more listening time before coming to any conclusion.

The Node, streaming Tidal HiFi or High Res files off a USB stick, seems to be capable of really good sound when cables are optimized. It's already my best quality source of music, and it's not fully tweaked yet.
After extended listening, the carbon fiber coax sounds like it has wider frequency response and dynamics than the optical cable. Since my DAC allows instant switching from one input to the other it's easy to do an instant A/B comparison. Seems strange that a digital cable could have that effect, but that's what I hear.