Best Power Cord for REL Stadium III

Glad to hear you've made some progress. I appreciate you being open minded regarding these tweaks. In general, I've found gold plated plugs have full bass, and roll off or color the highs. Pure copper or brass have full bass, with the pure copper having cleaner mids and highs.

Rhodium gives more detail and smoothness, with tighter bass, but less layering of the soundstage as compared to pure copper. The end caps and termination types may come into play too, but I haven't really tested those out enough yet. At least that's what I hear. YMMV

Yeah, I would tend to think the FI-03 might help a bit.

Mooglie,

Last night, I remembered that I had bought a power cord (been in my closet) with knockoff Oyaide C-037 Rhodium plugs from Hong Kong off of ebay way back at the beginning of my power cord journey. Also found some nice cones with sharp points and installed the cones under the REL. This and the Rhodium power cord made a nice improvement in the bass performance, so I think the Rhodium plugs are taking things in the right direction.

I think I might go for a Furutech FI-03 Rhodium IEC inlet/fuse holder for the REL. Only $22 and should mate well with the Rhodium plugs.

At the same time, I will take your advice to try plugs with different platings to see what works best.

Thanks for the suggestions. I really appreciate it.

Just FYI, the plugs I bought don't say Oyaide anywhere on them. The construction of them is slightly different than a genuine Oyaide, so perhaps they might not sound as good as a real Oyaide. Also note there are no UL markings. However, they do sound very good. I can't advocate counterfeiting, but in the case where the items are not portended to be something they are not, I have no qualms.

IMO, at least this gives one an inexpensive way to test-sample a few different platings. Then, if so inclined, one can use that info to help with the selection of a more expensive, safety lab listed, plug.

Good suggestions from both Stanwal and Mooglie. I actually just built some 4" thick 24" wide OC705 panel traps that run from floor to ceiling in the front corners. Sealed them all the way around ala Jon Risch with soft rubber garage door weather stripping really improved their performance below 80hz. They have been monumental in transforming my room's bass from bloated and mid-bass heavy to a lean and tuneful. Best $500 i ever spent on audio.

I found that placing the REL on its side with the woofer pointed forward and moving it out from the corner 23" in both directions helped tighten the bass significantly. I was using cones under it prior to this and will re-install them per Stanwal's recommendation.

I was already considering replacing the gold plugs on my DIY cord with rhodium plugs, but the Furutech FI-25 Rhodium plugs and IECs run about $100 each. Mooglie's suggestion to buy some Oyaide Rhodium knockoffs off of ebay is just the ticket. I think I'll try that.

Thanks to both of you for taking time to respond.

In my experience, a rhodium plug/IEC should lean out the bass a bit. You could replace the plugs on your DIY cord with some of the inexpensive rhodium plugs on E-Bay. I have tried them and they are quite good.

Alternatively, you could pick up another cord. I use Kaplan cables and the rhodium version has tighter, less full, bass than the copper cord.

I have been using Gutwire 16 cords but just bought some last generation PS audio cords, 2 Statement SCs and 2 xStream Power Plus SCs. They work very well and are available at good prices right now. I have not had them long enough to fully evaluate them to see if they would give the effect you want. I am not sure that I would be able to in any case as systems and rooms vary. If you have not gone to dedicated lines yet I would try that first but I assume that you have. Something I did that gave exactly the effect, IN MY ROOM, that you describe was to put threaded Star Sound cones under the Subs. It made the bass leaner and tighter. Probably cheaper than a PC and it looks like you have a good PC already. I am not using them at present as I just put in Ready Acoustic panels and got rid of excess bass and am still realigning the bass units for new room configuration [you can't move the subs easily on spikes]. The Ready bass traps are another solution for bass problems,they work well. I liked the Star Sound products so well I became a dealer but I don't sell on the internet. I did not get the REL spikes with either of my subs so can't tell if they would give the same effect but doubt if they would given my experience with substituting the SS in other applications. Hope this helps, the REL is a great Sub.