Audioquest Water interconnects

I do not have experience with those cables, but it would be helpful to know what you are using now. Personally I have steered away from Audioquest as I find the number of choices a bit overwhelming and somewhat mystifying. 

Thanks. I’m using cheaper Audioquests called Black Mamba that I bought many years ago from Audio Advisor. 

I absolutely love AQ HC power cables. Putting a AQ HC power cable on your Krell will be a game changer (1m is fine, if you can get it to work). It will also give you a bigger bang than ICs, get them later.

I know they are expensive but buy used and confirm serial nos. with AQ.

Dragon, Firebird and Hurricane high current.

I demoed the Dragon ICs and they weren't for me.

Contemporary Audio Quest power cables are nothing less than revelatory. There had to have been a redesign of their High end stuff a two or three years ago, because prior to that they were nothing to write home about. 

The Audio Quest cable with the boxes on them... tend to be much better sounding than their predecessors. I was listening to some of their top of the line ones yesterday (over $50K). 

Over the past decades, in part because of the incredible plethora of cables I concentrated on some well reviewed and respected brands. Transparent are my go to, Cardas, Wire World (I don’t buy them any more), Nordost, DHL as budget, and a couple others. 

You can find other great sounding cables. But with break in of over a hundred hours, often two hundred hours, evaluating them and knowing the basic characteristics, so to optimize your system becomes a gargantuan task. So, getting to know some very well known brands and their characteristics (house sound) makes the task more predictable although not simple. 

So Cardas is warm and natural... the warmer the more budget oriented they are, Transparent are not even slightly harsh but completely transparent, Nordost very incredible in their high end products with great transparency. DHLabs... surprisingly well balanced and good sounding for the money... I start here if I am not sure where to go.

If I had to build a new system now, I would use all of either Transparent, Cardas, or DHLabs, with power cords from AudioQuest. 

Since you have Audio Quest. I would try the lending library from the Cable company and compare Audio Quest with Transparent. That way you can confirm against something that is know to be phenomenal cables. Your system components look very well balanced, so you probably want neutral. If you are trying to stay cheap... go DHLabs... the best you can afford. 

Thanks!  I have a Transparent Performance Power cord. I thought improving the interconnects made the most sense. I also thought the Audioquest Water was a good value at the price point if I stuck with Audioquest for the loom effect among the speaker cable and interconnects. 

We were aq dealers some years ago we had the water and others in that series compared them to wireworld and the wireworld interconnects were superior 

Dave and Troy

AUDIO INTELLECT NJ

Wireworld dealers 

@ghdprentice is correct. do the lending lib rary at thecablecompany.com the best way to go. I upgraded once from a set of AQ Yukons to AQ Water, it was a good step up, but I was not in love with them. Have since moved from AQ back to Nordost. I would say get a set of Water and a set of Nordost Heimdall 2's they are both in the same price range. it should be great fun. Moved my entire system to Nordost Heimdall 2.

and I mean get them from the lending library

They are good quality.  I have a pair.  I paid $200 for a meter , they were used but looked new.  A great price but I think I like the few pairs of DH Labs Air Matrix Cryo better . They are less that the AQ and have much better connectors in my opinion. 

I agree with @zlone re: Audioquest product mix being impossible to figure out with weird naming systems, no easy way to understand which tier is at what level. I've written them a couple times over the years to mention it but whoever is behind the product naming process seems to be hellbent on having as many products as possible with as many confusing names as possible. Monster Cable introduced a pretty simple concept in 1990 when they sold our chain product. It was pretty much "Good", "Better", "Best" or "Ultimate". Each group had natural price point differences and the product visually looked more and more expensive as you went up the ladder. 

I have used AQ water and was very happy with their performance. 

The AQ Water interconnects were some of the first upgrades that I made in my system. I went from a pair of XLO interconnects that came with my used equipment to the AQ Waters. Significant upgrade, as well as every upgrade up the line. For your current system, you may want to compare the Earth and Water, then choose which works best for you. 

I have one I like it but it is stiff. It has a good bass and layering.

In my system AQ Water are great sounding cables and at a good price point, especially now that they’re discontinued and can be found at half price (or less) than their original price. Good low level detail, bass, no harshness or sibilance to my ears. Well made and good quality.

At that discount they are a good deal.  As mentioned, they are stiff    Good cable though. 

What specific improvements/sound characteristics are you looking for, and do you need balanced or RCA?  

The AQ Water ICs have been replaced by a new line and most places are selling Water ICs at a discount. I had them and liked them on a digital tuner/streamer.

What do you think changing your interconnects is going to do. 

After you get the Audioquest  Earth and Water cables, all you need is the fertilizer to make it sprout. :)

I took advantage of the closeout prices and picked up the Water's at a big discount. I upgraded from Nordost Heimdall to the Water RCA's and XLR's. The biggest gain was in the bass control and openness of the midrange. Great cables, especially if you can still find them on closeout.

What IC’s are you currently using?

Moon Audio has some apparently good sounding, well constructed IC cables at good prices as well.  Mine are AQ Thunderbird and Wireworld Platinum but both are not budget friendly.  If you are going to stretch, the AQ top three or four power cords are likely to help you the most.  Available used at good prices on this site.

cables sound different when plugged into different brand components.....you have to sample a selection and choose