Several weeks ago I took delivery of a pair of Martin Logan CLX ART speakers. I hooked them up with the supplied power cords from the seller. The sound was pretty underwhelming, so I let them settle in. After about 4 days the sound had not changed significantly. I decided to rob a pair of PI Audio power cords from my phono stages and put them on the CLX. Signicant change and was getting the sound I expected.
The question I ask myself is why? This is a low current power supply that just feeds the stators.
If it is indeed significant, and it seems to be, what level of cord is going to meet the needs? No reason to spend more than I have to.
Looking forward to reading your thoughts or experiences.
I have a pair of CLS speakers. I am a power cord believer for amplifiers. however, I haven't used heavy power cords on the electrostatic speaker.
The power supply to the electrostat puts....you guessed it...a static charge on the panel. It doesn't power the music so there is no need for short dosages of high current during dynamic sections. So my thought is that power cords are irrelevant and I've been using generic 14 awg cords.
Based on your post I will try better cords and see if I can hear any difference.
I upgraded their average Xovers inside which made a substantial increase
across the board , and a good power cord which we used AQ Thunder
made a additional increase in fidelity through a AQ Niagra 5000 power conditioner .
electrostats are very sensitive to changes.I no longer own them I also owned the ML Evolution with the powered Bass , as with most speakers in mean 90% in truth go cheap on Xover parts inside . I have for the last 20 years always looked to see
what mess they offered ,Maggi worst junk out there , those steel inputs pathetic mass os resistance fifty cent resistors and junk capacitors , Klipsch is another one
I have owned 3 models of each ,sad but truth ,since the Xover is the ♥️ of all loudspeakers, and Xover less doesnot cut it ,no one driver can do everything
having owned a Audiostorefor a decade and 40 years in Audio
rule of thumb 25% on average goes into your speakers or electronics including packaging ,the rest R&D overhead and markup ,unless you are spending $$ expect average parts at best inside your product ,$$ is the driving force
even in $50 k loudspeakers not even close to the best Xovers like Duelund
and on any SE models they charge 4-1 in $$markup in parts ,
cables far more markup. Just to inform others .research inside your product or go to Google Images to possible see what’s under the hood.
I found the same thing with my Xstatics when I changed from the stock power cables to audiophile cables (Mark Tunis Black Magic cables). I attributed the improvements to stabilizing and lowering the noise floor of the stators. Whatever the actually reason, I liked the difference and I’m not switching back (though I did test this to make sure I wasn’t making things up).
You can make up all the reasons you want, but the truth is you heard a difference because you wanted to hear a difference. Just like the people who hear a difference when they "upgrade" the power cord on a turntable. What's next? Upgrading the power cord on your lava lamp?
When I worked for MFA years ago they had some Soundlab A3 electrostats there. I told Scott Franklin that if you replace the very small fuse with a super large value the sound would be much better.......so he went out to the workshop and got a 30 amp fuse and replaced the quarter amp fuse........It sounded way better, expecially the highs.
EVERYTHING MATTERS. Even the power on your lava lamp.....he he.
My first serious A/B of power cords was on a SOTA turntable back in the early 80s. I had built a pre regulator (30V) and then a cable went to the turntable where there was a 12? volt regulator then the motor which turned the belt. The power cord was from the wall to the transformer for the 30V regulator. The best sounding power cord was made using Mogami wire (one of the few serious wires in those days). Every single thing in the 30V pre regulator changed the sound including the transformer (I tried at least 4 transformers and they all made the sound different).
Of course, I am making this all up (not). WE all kNOW that the only thing that matters is the measurements. How dare we listen to things to KNOW what they sound like
An open mind and an open heart = happiness. I wish you much happiness.
Power matters to ESL’s. I have upgraded my Quads’ power supplies to the premium version offered by Electrostatic Solutions, and the difference is startling.
I also upgraded the SUT’s (big improvement) and delay ladder (very small improvement). Perhaps the biggest improvement was removing the protection circuit - which I could do because my amps were designed so that they could not under any circumstances drive the speakers into the danger zone.
ESL’s are the great, but stock versions of all but the best examples can be improved. IMO
But what happens if do not expect to hear a change? Do we then have unexpectation bias? If so what does that prove?
Yes but we have expectations. I expect to receive a paycheck every two weeks. When I get it does that mean it is a false paycheck and not real compensation? Isn’t it funny how we live and order our lives with expectations and yet people like you demean others for having them. Tell me, when you bought your audio equipment did you not have a set of expectations? If so how can anyone believe that your answers of anything audio have any level of validity?
@mrskeptic+1! Yes, the OP heard an improvement - but it had NOTHING to do with the power cord! ESL speakers charge their diaphragms through a 1 Million ohm or greater resistor. This slow charging can take more than one day (24 hours). So the wrong conclusion again by the cable believers!
I use ordinary zip cord to charge my KLH Nine full-range ESL’s. Same for my Quad 57’s. The argument that "everything matters" in audio is just plain BS!
Peter Walker's discovery of the million ohm charging resistor was the breakthrough that made ESL speakers possible! Since ESL's draw so little AC current even a 22 gauge cord will work fine!
Hello guys, I have owned ALL quad ESL speakers and now I own Sound Lab A645. While the difference is not huge, power cables do matter. So... anyone that says it's a BS, shall upgrade other elements in his system, as the difference realy came into focus when all other components of your system are sufficently resolving. You do not have to purchase particularly expensive power cables, but I strongly recommend to test at least a couple of good audiophile-grade power cables. One of my clients is using Fadel Art "Coherence Cables" that are known to work extremely well with electrostats. Mr. Fadel was obsessed with ESL speakers, and was a big admirer of Roger West's work. This cable provides a phenomenally deep soundstage. I use custom built cables made by Mr. Hai from Paris (those are cheaper and to my ear even better sounding). I would recommend any cable that works on Faraday's cage principle. For exemple in France we have WhyNot cables that use that principle, but I'm sure you will find simmilar cables in USA as well. Everything matters, less or more, but that's how audiophile world works. And by the way, your ESL speakers need OTL amplfiers to give their best, as you already know.
@bellemusique-1! OTL tube amps like my Julius Futterman H3aa's are uncomfortable with speaker loads below 8 ohms. ESL speakers drop to 2 ohms or less at high frequencies. OTL amps lose power and are stressed by such low impedances. So not recommended, though they are fine with the capacitive load of ESL's.
1. My CLX Anniversaries came with pretty heavy trick expensive looking power cords. They sound wonderful to my ears. What I say is substitute them with regular 12 gauge and see if you hear any deterioration.
2. OP says he substituted the trick cords and listened. But the big capacitors in the speakers will have stored the 'low quality electricity' and it will last a while before being replaced with the 'high quality' stuff. So if he heard an improvement immediately, he was still listening with electricity from the regular wire. Must have been expectation bias.
3. There is no scientific evidence that power cords can change the nature of electricity.
By the time the OP switched power cords his ESL's were fully charged. So naturally they sounded far better than initial turn on! Nothing to do with the power cords!
@clearthinker: what is 'low quality' electricity? Why do you say that it fills a capacitor first before 'high quality' electricity. So you've invented a new phenomenon for the "golden ears" crowd to obsess over!
Re your first post, most of us keep our ESLs connected to power full-time. So when OP switched cords the speakers were already fully powered with electricity supplied via the low quality cord.
The low quality electricity is what comes through the low quality wire. OK my tongue is a little way into my cheek. The high quality comes through the allegedly high quality wire. LIke in your book, wire is wire in my book, when it comes to power cords.
The capacitor starts full of 'low quality' electricity because that is already in there via the low quality wire. The high quality electricity arrives only after the high quality wire is connected and replaces the low quality electricity over a period of time, related to the capacitor's storage capacity. This is quite large on the CLXs at least, demonstrable by disconnecting the power while the music is playing. So at the start of his AB on the trick cord, OP was still listening mainly via the low quality juice and was tricked by expectation bias.
I'm just going out to buy a £3000 power cord to run my record player... NOT.
But I might get one to power the lamp that lights the player. It will surely sound better under better light.
@ricevs Did you seriously replace a quarter amp fuse with a 30 amp fuse? Classic audiophile idiocy! And feeding a 12V regulator with 30V means it has to burn off a lot of current, markedly shortening it's lifespan. But safety does not seem to be your primary concern. As for hearing a difference between power cables to your pre-reg, I say nonsense.
@clearthinker+1! Unfortunately there are many here that do believe in the 'good' vs. 'bad' electricity fallacy, even to the extent that one needs an 'audiophile' wall outlet for purer voltage transfer.
Indeed! But what about the 400 yards of cable from the local 8kV transformer to your home? And the 10 miles or whatever to the power station?
You can't change those. Why these people think six feet of cable, or a wall outlet, or even a fuse, is going to change all that bad electricity is a mystery to me. Maybe one day one of them will explain.
So I have Acoustat Model X’s. (They’re the ones that came with the servo amps built in.) Anyway, As part of the Mods I did or had done, was to remove the hard wired power cord and add a IEC receiver. I tried a well broken in pc from an old computer and it sounded the same as the factory setup, but when I plugged in a Audience F3 pc and there was very noticeable improvement.
I’m not sure if this helps with what you have, it it’s definitely worth a try.
I agree with you both that there is no logical scientifically valid reason to believe that it will make a positive sonic difference, and yet it does. Some things can't be explained with current knowledge.
Don't mean to be condescending but you and some others perceive that it does.
The only way of being sure is a properly staged double blind listening test. These are difficult but not impossible to arrange. Just changing a power cord is not hard or slow, but with powered speakers is the residue of 'old' electricity remaining in the speakers' capacitors will not allow a clean quick changeover.
Just for the record, have you experienced sound differences from changing the power cord to a turntable motor?
As an update. The stock ML cords have been installed on my subwoofers. So I let the system play all night on a playlist. I sat down for a bit before heading out to work. I was able to swap cables between subs and the ML. Small differences between the stock and the Pi ones. Small enough that a new sweep of the DSP program could conceivably minimize those differences even more. I will try that this evening.
But at this point it does not seem plausible that this is a good place to invest any significant money.
I've been following with interest this dialogue. When everyone is referring to "audiophile" level cables, exactly what is it that constitutes such quality? That is, I'm not interested in a brand name, but what is the technology? The composition? Is it a single solid copper cable or a dozen strands twisted, or hundreds of very fine strands, or copper-coated aluminum, or what? 18 gauge vs 12g? Shielded? Surely anyone can replicate quality if there's a sound basis for it, and there must be an explanation for the arguments I've been reading above.
No, I don't use a turntable and I don't have electrostatic speakers. I am speaking from my experience with aftermarket power cords and wall outlets used with all of my components as wee as my power strip. You are correct: it is my perception, and that is what this hobby is about.
This is so great.....the handfull of "it cannot make a sonic difference because I think so" objectivists.......come out in full force about power cords and fuses. There are thousands and thousands of posts all over the world about the sonic differences in AC plugs, power cords, getting cords off the floor, fuses, fuse directionality, etc. All these people must be deaf or deluded.....only you handfull of objectivists are correct.......because you will not listen. You clearly know that listening is biased. You correctly know that measuring a power cord results in no difference in measured THD or resistance.....and that this is the only thing that matters. Please people, do not listen to your stereo to know anything about sound. Just listen to the objectivists who do not listen. THEY KNOW WHAT SOMETHING SOUNDS LIKE......because, THEY DO NOT LISTEN.
... the handfull of "it cannot make a sonic difference because I think so" objectivists.......come out in full force about power cords and fuses. There are thousands and thousands of posts all over the world about the sonic differences in AC plugs, power cords, getting cords off the floor, fuses, fuse directionality, etc. All these people must be deaf or deluded ...
Just to be clear, the people you describe aren’t really objectivists. They are measurementalists. A true objectivist does not routinely dismiss empirical evidence.
There’s a Youtuber on another A’gon thread who is aggressively promoting his videos and website. He’s exceptionally proud of the measurements he makes, but he admits that he doesn’t listen to everything he tests. Somehow, he just "knows" how things sound. For him, listening is a waste of time.
My understanding is that people used to think electricity was electrons moving down a wire. More recently people have begun to realize apparently that it's the energy from one electron being transferred down the wire not the electrons themselves. Even if it's gone miles from a power station wouldn't that last yard matter if it's on wire that has filtered out interference and has low inductance?
There are dozens of variables involved in audiophile cable construction. Companies like Cardas, Transparent, Nordost, etc. have decades of research and development into making the very best.
Because there are so many variables, almost anything you can think of has been tried. Copper: solid, highly pure, single crystal, many small conductors, different sized, single solid wire, square, spiral wound, parallel. Then dielectric types and geometries, ribbons… then there are silver coated copper… and all silver with all the differences I mentioned. There are hundreds of dielectrics available and used. So, major companies put methodical evaluation of design, materials and construction.
But systems are all different. I bought really high quality wires on my early systems and they sounded terrible because they were so good at transmitting the signal… and the signal from my components was really bright… copper cables that attenuated the signal sounded better. So, this leaves lots of room for folks introducing cables that don’t sound fantastic except under certain circumstances. The confusion allows lots of opportunities since anyone can make cables cheaply.
Look at the Cardas site. It is a reputable company that bases its products on high quality copper and geometery. Their low end products are tuned to typical low end component problems (harsh sound)… and they become “clearer” and more transparent as they go up in range. Their color glossies do a great job of showing the kind of thought that goes into their cables. I have a very good system, I use Transparent, and an AudioQuest power cord for my amp. Lots of auditioning got me here.
Thank you @ghdprentice. This is the best explanation I’ve heard. I will certainly go to the Cardas site right now. This about transparency strikes me because I am planning on investing into a number of AMT-2560 (NEO-10) Planar Ribbon drivers, and so I want their transparency to come through. And I suppose that the same thing also applies to crossover networks - that they’ve also come a long ways since the 1960s when I last looked into them? So much has changed since then it is bewildering. What I got from the time I was a kid was to go with 10 gauge copper wire to avoid impedance, so I’ve just stuck with that ever since, but that was over 55 years ago.
I wholeheartedly agree with audioman58, noodlyarm, bellemusique and quite a few others on these points: 1) while there are exceptions (and they are usually at the highest price points, because they have the profit-margin to do it), certainly for commercial speakers (and quite often audio equipment in general), the innards -- capacitors, resistors, wire, etc. -- is very often below par to achieve a cost/price point target. Major gains are possible by upgrading these. 2) cables -- power, speaker wire, interconnects do matter -- the degree can vary, and 3) you can indeed hear real differences. It is not expectation bias, at least in my experience. On average, I critically listen to music probably ~15-20 hrs/week on average, all genres (I do like to do other things, too), have done a lot of A/B testing (on a rare occasion or three even had friends make the changes while I left the room) and you can hear differences. My experience. If your mileage varies, so be it. Live and let live.
An always gratifying maintenance tweak for power cables - spray their blades once in awhile with Deoxit. On my Anticables all copper power cables this is mandatory for sound quality.
Let me add some detail. The time I had to go out and find warmer cable was when I had AMT and ribbon speakers. They were too, well let’s say, too good, in the upper frequencies. They reproduced the deficiencies in high frequencies of my components really well, producing a very fatiguing and unpleasant experience. I would not worry about loosing that “transparency”. This is why cables and interconnects need to be chosen last. You need your final system…. With all your components that sound absolutely spectacular. Then, you start looking for wire.
I spent well over thirty years with planar speakers (electrostatic, AMT, and ribbon). The magic comes from great midrange and really great high frequency response… the same thing that super tweeters do. It is the harmonics above what you can hear that affects what you can hear. This can be magical, if not quite real. I gave up on them and went to traditional dynamic speakers. I am not suggesting you do this. But, don’t worry about losing the transparency. Get your components perfect… then go looking for wire.
@ghdprentice What you wrote about Planars above and returning to more traditional drivers is most interesting to me because I was about to make the investment this very evening in about 18-36 planars at, what would be for me, a very substantial investment. (I had planed on building a stereo system for each of our children.) I have heard almost uniform praise of the transparency of planars, the lower distortion, the flatness of response, the tightness of transients. Now your comment has baffled me because you obviously have much audio experience, esp. with AMT planars. Could you please advise us further or share more detail?
@hsbrock If you haven't heard the specific speaker you were going to buy, with the electronics and source that you will use, do so before you make a decision.
I have used planars almost exclusively for 50 years. Every time I slide into cones, I have to replace them, with the exception of my isobaric subs, which make no sound on most music.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
