I’ve installed the Ice Age power cords.
How much time should I allow for break-in?
How much time should I allow for break-in?
Do I need higher quality power cords?
- I have an expensive Isotek Orion Power line Conditioner connected with an Isotek Elite Power cord. It has plug-ins for five power cords. Considering this, would I further benefit from higher quality power cords for my components other than the stock ones that came with them?
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It’s not that I don’t find power cords to make a difference, it’s that I find price is rarely a marker for quality here. The one "bandwagon" that truly annoys me with power cords (and other categories), and that is just as simple-minded and potentially problematic as that which is typically labeled as "trolling activity," is the blind adherence and snobbish approach to "you get what you pay for" irrespective of care through trial-and-error and open-minded experimentation with specific system implementation. Taste is also a major factor and only contributes to the complexity of finding the right cable component for one’s setup, not least recommending them to others. From my chair quite a few expensive power cords I’ve tried have struck me as having different and rather overt signatures or flavors rather than sounding "better" as such, to the extend where a particular sonic character appears to have been sought after as opposed to making them sound less "intrusive;" the rationale apparently being that "if these power cords are going to cost thousands of dollars we better make them sound like ’something’ (and look like a million)." Tonality, coherency, transient snap and dynamic prowess are some of the sonic traits I’m very keen on achieving, and to me this is reflected with cables that are relatively uninhibited in this regard and maintains diversity to the material that is played (honesty of reproduction?). For this purpose I’ve found twisted Home Depot style solid-core installation copper wires, with no further outer-sleeve insulation and pure copper connectors, to do the job admirably, and at a very reasonable price. Some may scoff at Home Depot style installation wires for critical audio use, the predominant (true) reason likely being low price and lack of visual appeal. So, in search for higher quality power cords? Keep an open mind, disregard price, try out DIY and experiment. |
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With regard to your first question, I was shocked by the difference power cords made on my Parasound Halo 21 amp. I think I got 4 from the Cable Company and had an Anticable and various stocks including some old upgrades from a dealer no longer in business. I also had that mid-range Morrow. When I rented from the Cable Co. John told me he was going to throw in a Furutech for free as he had heard it was superb with the Halo 21. Lo and behold, how right he was. We are talking in the 1K-1.5K region here. One cord that I had great expectations for made no difference. Another cord had a very slight improvement. The final cord was horrible, the sound took a nose dive into the bass. It was muddy and scary. It was the most negative, dramatic effect that I have ever heard. The Furutech on the other hand excelled: instruments were clearer with greater space, etc. I was very satisfied despite the roughly $1200 cost. The Cable Co. does credit rentals, so the final price was lower. I won't bother you with the stock and old local cords, they very quickly fell by the wayside. I am still experimenting with the Anticable, looking for a place for it to fit in, perhaps my headphone setup. After many decades of concern about interconnects, this was a revelation. All of my equipment has new power cords. The Furutech, the 2nd best Morrow (very expensive) and Ice Age on everything else including the electrostatics. With regard to your second question, check out the Ice Age website. What could improve your amp(s), a little more warmth, more detail and soundstage or more carbon coherence and control? Thanks for listening. warmth (copper/copper), detail and soundstage (copper/silver) ,absolute detail/soundstage(silver/silver) and carbon with silver/silver) hard to describe, my best so far is controlled and balanced. You can also get carbon with copper/copper. Have not tried that. il |
Rvpiano, I would be delinquent if I didn't share this. While I respect Morrow products and have their 2nd most expensive powercord on my preamp, I tried one of their mid-level cords and it now resides in the garage. It could not compete with Ice Age and their options of copper, silver and carbon allow you to consider which would be best for a particular piece of equipment. During the past 2 years, I have tried out about 15 powercords, they can make a huge difference for better or worse. |
If you are looking for a bargain, take a look at Ice Age Audio. It's a father and son team offering copper, silver and carbon options, as well as deep freeze. I put the copper/copper on my SACD player resulting in better sound with just a bit of much needed additional warmth. The carbon impressed with quiet control and balance. Very reasonably priced. |
Hi rvpiano, It does make an big impact. I have been fortunate enough to be able to hear the difference between stock cables, Transparent, Wattgate, JPS, Synergistic, Analysis Plus, Oyaide, HB Cable design and Stage Three Concepts. All within every variable of Copper/ Silver/ Rhodium/ Gold etc. Bottom line your components performance is based upon Power. Power is the life blood of your system. Power Chords are the Veins. The better the power delivery the better performance. It's that simple. With stock cables your components are only operating at 50%. The idea is to get them to operate at 100%. By the way - I heard these cables I listed above paired with some of the components listed by naysayers in this post. I heard these cables in the owners of the component company's private listening rooms. In fact when hearing those components in those private settings not one of those owners was using a stock Power Cable which their own company provides. I would second Soix suggestions as this is sage advice. But you already know that. Best of Luck |
My unfortunate experience has been that everything matters to some extent or another. To the OP, what I’m planning on doing is taking advantage of the generous risk-free trial periods offered by some direct sellers like Cullen, Triode Wire Labs, etc. Just choose whichever one provides results or qualities that jibe best with your tastes, needs, and budget based on reviews. The used market, especially for cables, is another relatively low-cost/risk way to go albeit involving a little more work -- but many more choices to be had obviously. Frankly I’d be surprised if you didnt hear a difference with better PCs. Whether it’s for the better or worse is the ultimate question, but my money’s on the former. Definitely worth a shot. The good news is that this is an area that is very cheap (or free) to experiment with in your own system and could potentially yield significant improvements. Another way way to go that I'm also considering is just to make my own by buying some lengths of good bulk cable and connectors. I'm not handy by any means, but even I'm willing to give this a shot as it sounds relatively simple and maybe more than a little gratifying to do. Some popular makes to explore would be Oyaide, Furutech, Wattgate, Supra, and DH Labs just to name some. On on another note, have you ever considered modding your Ref 9s? Seems I’ve heard several other owners being really happy with the results. I might consider that even before messing with cables. Anyway, best of luck. |
Speaking as a musician first and not an Audiophile I have to say I have noticed a huge difference by putting on good power cords on my equiptment. I was a classical guitarist and lutenist and although this can be infuriating to some people I noticed a difference in the fingering noises of soloists and I say if that is more prominent then many other details come to the fore. Now I also have to say I have been accused by lots of people on here that it is pure imagination on my part but I would rather take the word of a musician than a pseudo scientist any day. In my case I made up my own cables from Neotech mains cable and Furutech plugs and it cost me a third of the price of a JPS Kaptovator which I also own and it is also every bit as good as the Kaptovater and in some areas even better. Try one on your amp first and if you are happy with it continue with your source equiptment , I am sure it would be benificial to your system. Good luck , Jim. |
Today I got the try the Nordost Blue Heaven and Red Dawn power cables on my MA252 and Rega Apollo CD and after an hour of listening and then going back to the stock cables I couldn't believe the difference. I was expecting maybe a subtle difference but the difference was so acute even my wife could hear the difference:) Which is just as well after I told her how much they were:) |
spotcheckbilly12345 Sounds like a case of inflated ego mixed with expectation bias, nothing more and nothing less.And you base this opinion stated as fact on ... your own ego and expectation bias, perhaps? |
Wow, inadequate power supplies in my equipment. Shadorne, have you, or have you not, tried a different cord on any of your components ? You must have the only equipment who's power supplies are not woefully inadequate. @spotcheckbilly, thank you for coming to the party. 10 posts. I am quite sure your numbers will be in the hundreds in no time. Enjoy ! MrD. FWIW, this is always fun. |
mr D. I don’t dispute your finding. It is indeed quite possible you hear a difference because your equipment power supply is so woefully inadequate. This is NOT the same as “resolution level” unless you spend all your time listening to the AC 60 Hz power signal and other harmonics and related noise coming out your speakers. |
@shadorne,@roberjerman, I always find it interesting when those folks who cannot hear differences in power cords ( as well as some other upgrades / tweaks ), claim these sonic differences do not / cannot exist, and then talk about voodoo or meditation. Upgrading the power cord of a piece of equipment is not necessary ( it is not necessary to upgrade tubes either ). But we do it to reveal greater musical involvement with our systems. In each of your cases, one of three things are occurring : 1 = The system is not up to the resolution level in which it can be heard ( including the room acoustics ). 2 = You have not tried any. 3 = You are deaf ( or just have weak hearing / inexperienced hearing ). Oh, I am sorry. There is a 4th. You guys may have joined the troll bandwagon. Nothing you could say will convince me ( and others ) it is our imaginations. I am sorry for my bluntness. Enjoy ! MrD. |
So anyone wants to answer my question from above? I have 14 AWG running inside the wall. I have a Torus plugged into it with a short 14 AWG cable. If I use short 14 AWG power cables for everything, how am I being limited in power, especially for low power gear. Sure I get that the power cable is stranded whereas the power line is solid in the wall, but there is no way these components are being restricted in power by extra 6 feet of power cable of the same gauge, even if stranded. |
Alright - clearly I'm a little biased, but here goes: First, ensure that you can separate "high quality/caliber" from "expensive" - they are not one and the same. ;) Second, no matter how much care you take in the selection and/or use of dedicated outlets, line conditioner(s), voltage regulators, or anything related to power (the "power chain"), it's all for nothing without a quality PC to your gear (the last link in the chain). Speaking of the "power chain", for those of you who argue that you are limited by said chain, so nothing you do at the end of it matters, I'll say this - while you may not be able to strengthen a chain by adding a link at the end, you can certainly weaken it. To put it another way, good tires will not get you more horsepower, but lower quality tires will transfer less power to the road. I agree with the poster who said the PC to your conditioner is the least important, so here's a simple experiment (forgive me if this has already been mentioned) - swap the Elite PC with one of your stock cords and see what's what. Cheers and good luck! Nawaz nrgcustomcables.ca |
I have a Torus for my gear. I use stock unshielded power cables. I've tried using stock shielded cables and I didn't like them. I did later find out that the drain wire was connected on both sides. That makes sense. I've read people recommending shielded power cords that have either their shield attached only to the component to prevent interference generated by the component from coming out. On the other hand, I've also seen recommendation of shield attached only to the plug at the wall end to prevent the noise going into the component. How do you decide which one is suitable for a given gear? Are there other problems with these two designs that I'm not aware of? Again, this is within the context that I have a Torus and I keep my power cables away from my well shielded and twisted balanced signal cables. I've tried putting nasty stuff near my interconnects and couldn't make them sound worse. Anyone wants to help me understand? |
Definitely see about getting "loaners" to try in your system (Cable Co. is a good place for this), as it is clear that different people with different gear find markedly different results. My personal experience is that the power cord is the most important cabling for system sonic performance, and that has remained consistent for many years over a lot of different gear. I happen to be a huge fan of Elrod cords. I have found that putting my best power cord feeding my power conditioner made the biggest difference (Shunyata Hydra 8, Audience aR6, Audiodharma Power Wing, Weizhi PR-6, HB Cable Design Acrylic & Marble - - all benefited from being fed by the best cord). I am now using a PS Audio P10 power regenerator, and while it is not insensitive to the cord feeding it (the stock cord is bested by aftermarket cords), using top of the line Elrod cords did not make any difference vs. an older Statement cord, so I have stuck with that. But, even though the P10 delivers very pure and correct power to my gear, you would not miss the improvements wrought by using better power cords between it and the components it feeds. My 2 cents. |
@rvpiano ime the power cord from the wall to the conditioner is actually the least important PC in any system -- provided you get a good base level top let the conditioner do its job then you will get more impact from the PCs to the components. This assumes a conditioner that is not current limiting The Elite cord itself is to my mind problematic as per IsoTek's own description it is not suitable for high current usage -- a PC to a power conditioner should be for the highest current rating possible (unless you only use the conditioner with sources) Elite can be used with small to medium power amplifiers to great effect but for very large power amplifiers EVO3 Optimum proves the better choice. In terms of where best to try a PC upgrade I'd start with the turntable (in my experience turntables are very sensitive to PC quality -- a step up from v2 to v3 Marigo Iridium in my system brought appreciably improved tactility and stability to my EAR DiscMaster), and the CD Transport The latest AQ PCs are good value for the performance and worth trying but price/performance also depends on the country you are in |
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