What a long thread........... Just noted that Wolf Audio uses Audience cords for their 12k streamers. I don't own one and can not say anything about its performance but if a company like Wolf uses them to me is common sense that they are good. Im in the market for an AC cord and now Im debating between Audience or Ice audio witch was my first choice by recommendation. Does anyone that have tried both prefers one vs the other?
Any Audience cord is a big improvement over stock power cords. Anyone who says otherwise,either has inferior equipment,or doesn't know what to listen for.
@curiousjim sorry for never getting back to you - life got busy and hifi had to take a back seat for a while. Glad to hear you’re enjoying the Forte so much, including on the DirectStream DAC which I also have. I still have my review samples and really need to get around to breaking them in... I have a fabulous (and expensive) Furutech cable on my DirectStream right now so that’s been discouraging me from doing a lot of swapping. :) But I’ve never met an Audience wire that didn’t sound good so not surprising this one provides great value. I imagine some of the lightness I heard initially will burn off - maybe I’ll hook it up to the surround receiver for a while to get it going. Cheers, TAWW
IME, the best buy in PC's is a used Audience Powerchord. Organic, deep extension, and a spacious soundstage. It leans to the warm side but a great sense of realism. It's an affordable step up in aftermarket PC's.
I enjoy reading all the posts about everything stereo. Back in the early eighties I replaced the utility RCA interconnects between my preamp and amp with some eighty dollar Monster cables. It made a HUGE difference and I’ve been hooked ever since on cabling as well as all things stereo. Now most all of my reading is sound related. My wife yells at me several nights a week to come to bed.
If you like a warm and laidback tone with good amounts of detail, this is probably the best value power cord out there. I bought two of these cords and brought them over to a friend's place. We also had another power cord that cost more than 30x the cost of the Audience. Sure, it was better but the Audience was not embarrassed at all.
I purchased an f3 earlier this week from The Cable Company ($149) and the results (out of the box) are nothing short of astounding! Plugging the F3 directly into my Cayin CS55-a integrated amp, has breathed new life into the system and the cable hasn't even burnt in yet. Most noticeable is the improvement to the low end. Previously, the bass was good, but now it's great! I've compared the F3 to the Cayin's stock power cable, a Signal Cable MagicPower cord and a Nordost Heimdall II power cord, which is 4x the cost. With the other power cords I "thought" I could tell a difference, but with the Forte I "can" tell a difference; it's very noticeable with my system (Cayin and Totem Rainmakers). I'm also using Ohno III speaker cables, which I highly recommend too. The f3 an Ohno cables are outstanding values!
It’s now been almost 7 months, and everything seems to have stabilized and is good as it’s going to get. I’m glad I purchased the F3’s. So all is good until I get the bug again. Might buy another PC for my spinner, an OPPO UDP 93.
The component's stock cords will rob and steal dynamics and clarity.So? If you are going to try a audiophile cable in your system? In able to hear the difference? All the other components that are still using their OEM cables will veil and muffle the benefits of the better cord. You might as well not bother.
I find that typical stock cables choke and veil. You need to find a place that offers a thirty day return and order a power cable for all your system. A good place to start is Audio Advisor Pangea cords. Cords need to burn in for awhile. But, if you can not hear a difference right away (which will keep getting better burning in) ? Then there is no hope.
Even if it sounds lousy at first? It proved the point that power cords effect the sound....
I have been using Pangea for about four years now. With better cables when you try a different audiophile cable? They will allow you to hear the change in sound quality when trying a different cord. I find trying the new cord in a source component shows up the best to test the difference.
I’ve added Audience Forte F3 to my CJ ET5 pre-amp, Auralic Aries G2, and PS Audio DirectStream DAC. Very noteworthy improvements in sound over my older cords, which were between $500-$700 cords. At their $300 MSRP, they are truly one of the most astounding values in all of high end audio. I bought mine for $125 as b-stock, and at that price they are simply a preposterous value. I loved them so much, a bought 4 more for my home theater system (different audio stack than my 2-channel system), with equally remarkable improvements in sound. If you can find any still available at $125 b-stock price, run, don’t walk and snap them up. Even at the full $299 they are worth it. Very highly recommended and I agree very much with the glowing reviews written about them.
They sound good out of the box, but like many power cords, need 300 hours to fully burn in.
It’s my first experience with Audience, and I was so blown away, I picked up an Au 24 SE+ USB cable from them on discount from a trade show, and after about 300 hours burnin, I’m flabbergasted at the improvement in sound from my Auralic Aries G2 and PS Audio DSD. I’m becoming a big fan of Audience as a result...
Yep, mine are numbers 502 and 504. They were made in 1978 or maybe 1979. I replaced some of the caps and the Opamp chip thirty years ago. They were mostly stock until late last year when I got the bug to update. I replaced the input jacks and added tube risers last year. I had the the fuses replaced with hydraulic circuit breakers, the auto on circuit was removed and replaced with switches, and a few odds and ends replaced. So while I was at it I replace the power cords and even got a set of new tubes for them!
The 3’s now have about 250-300 hours of use. The difference between the 40 year old stock cords is noticeable mostly in the base. I have Acoustat Model X’s the have a really great midrange, a very good upper end and a somewhat weak bottom end. While nothing will give them the punch of an (your speaker here), the definition and clarity is definitely better.
taww I had it on a Hagerman Fry Corder for a few (more) days and tried it with a tube preamp. Better than the first trial on a solid state DAC. Still a slight "brightness" or something like that - but not objectionable or attention grabbing in a negative way.
I'll leave it in for a while; it has some potential.
@maxima95 who knows about the $1200 cord, but I don’t think it matters all that much. Price-quality correlation is largely a crapshoot with these things. :) If it’s a highly-regarded cable that many people can vouch for, that’s a different matter.
Good call about the brass. My friend is playing with different connectors and was shocked how different they sound, e.g. Wattgate vs. Cardas copper/rhodium, with the same wire.
And apologies to JOHN McDonald for getting his name wrong... it’s been a long week at work. :)
Hi Jim - I have 2 of the Forte F3's in my house. Jim McDonald sent them to me a couple months ago and unfortunately I just haven't had the time to listen to them extensively. I'll try to do that this weekend and get back to you.
I've been using some of the older Audience powerChords for years, and lately have been using the powerChord SE-i which is superb (review also pending). My first impression of the Forte was that it wasn't as full, refined and harmonically complete as the powerChord, which is to be expected at 1/4th the price, but it was pretty nice, much much better than an $80 Pangea I have lying around, or an expensive older Cardas cord for that matter. For an Audience cord, it is a little brighter and airier-sounding. However it is not broken in yet so I expect that to change a bit.
Not meaning to shamelessly plug, but if you follow my page on Facebook, you'll see when I post updates and reviews.
I can't speak to the new Forte F3, but I have a few Audience PC's and they do have a house sound; organic but tend to be rather warm, spacious. But their greatest design element is the incredibly low noise floor.
Maybe Jim is not in the market for speakers or any other gear, he is looking into power cable, Jim call cable company they can send you one for audition.Its better to hear it, in your own system...
I read the review on the Forte F3 and I am wondering what the review on the $1200 power cord was like? I agree with roberjerman, spend your money on something that makes a real difference. I recently purchased a Bryston BP26 preamp to replace my 32 year old Bryston .5 preamp. The person that sold it to me was local and he had not been using the preamp for a few years, and did not have a power cord for it. He let me use one of his Pangea power cords until I was able to get a cord of my own. It was a Pangea Audio AC 9SE MKII three meter cable that I priced online at $349. I just bought a $10 power cord on Amazon. I can tell you that I heard absolutely NO difference in audio quality when doing A/B comparisons of these two power cords. However, I really heard a substantial change in my system when going from the 32 year old Bryston .5 preamp to the BP26.
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.
