I wouldn't say that it works as well without the Tesla cords, but I would say that the Powercell 10SE and the Audience aR6-T are the best power conditioners out there with thatever cords you use.
To quote Jack Roberts in his review of the Powercell 10SE for dagogo:
"The PowerCell using my Shindo power cords sounded just wonderful. The bass fleshed out without any boominess, the soundstage was deeper, yet still coherent and whole, the top-end was prettier, and the midrange was faster and more transparent. If youre worried about plugging a power amp into it, all I can tell you is that my system sounded slightly more powerful and had even greater dynamics and micro-dynamics with the Wavac plugged into the PowerCell then it did before.
The best power conditioners I have used in the past make a fundamental difference in the musicality of my system. They have had the ability to improve the overall detail, transparency and clarity of the sound. The two best that I've used can even do this without inhibiting dynamics, micro-dynamics; or even obscuring the natural rhythm and pace of music. Now, the Tesla PowerCell does all this, but in a more complete way. For example, the PowerCell does more than just not inhibiting dynamics and micro-dynamics, it furnishes your system with the power that can actually increases them. The PowerCell also increased the musical flow of my system and significantly augmented the system's overall PRaT.
If you are a regular reader of my reviews, you know that holographic soundstaging isn't my highest priority, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate a good soundstage and there is no doubt that the Synergistic products release your system to produce a very lifelike soundstage. There is no doubt in my mind that the Tesla PowerCell 10 SE is a cutting edge power conditioner that sets your system free to reproduce recorded music in a way that sound more dimensionally lifelike and more musically alive.
As good as I thought the PowerCell was with my power cords, you really need to hear what the complete PowerCell and Active power cord system sounds like. When you add Synergistic's active power cords to the PowerCell, it's a whole new ball game. I need to take a moment and explain a couple of things. Yes, it will help your system to add one or two of the Tesla active power cords, but the real magic comes when you put in the last one.
I have played around with taking different cords in and out, if the last cable to go in is the turntable's power cord, then it seems to be the one that makes the biggest difference by far, but if it's the amp's or preamp's power cord then it seems that's the one that makes the biggest difference. Maybe it's because the PowerCell not only treats the current going out to each piece of equipment, but also the current that flows back the other way. Whatever the reason, when you get a complete Active Tesla PowerCell System, it is something very special, so let's get busy talking about it."
Then to quote Jack's comparison of the Powercell 10se with the Audience aR6-T:
"If you have now read both reviews, I know you want me to tell you which one is best, but I can't do that. I especially cant tell you which one you will like best, because I haven't heard them both in your system. The best I can do is to tell where they sound different from one another in my system. Let me start by saying they sound similar in more ways than they sound different despite their very different technologies.
They both brought about an incredible improvement to my system's transparency, though with the Audience my system was more immediate and with the Tesla PowerCell it was a little warmer and fuller sounding. They both also improved my system's bottom-end albeit in different ways. Through the PowerCell, my system has more mid-bass, and more natural mid-bass warmth. Through the Audience aR6-T, the bass in my system was deeper, tighter, and has somehow still had more air around it. In the midrange the PowerCell was smoother and more liquid sounding in the very best way. The midrange of my system through the Audience was so clear it's almost disconcerting at times. With the Audience, the ability to hear both attack and decay is simply amazing.
When it came to the effect on my system's soundstaging, there was a clear difference. The Tesla PowerCell did something that allowed my system to produce a more cavernous, holographic and palpable soundstage. The Audience, on the other hand, produced a soundstage with the most lifelike scale I have ever heard. It also let my system unravel the acoustical space on a recording in a way I've never heard before. It was in the area of soundstaging that there was a fundamental difference in how the two power conditioners affected my system.
The PowerCells effects on the soundstage of my system are pretty much there with every recording. Of course, the soundstage varies somewhat from recording to recording, but my system basically produced a more holographic soundstage than it did before, and I would think that for the majority of audiophiles that's a good thing. Your systems soundstaging, of course, is dependent on your room, equipment, and speaker placement. Still, I have now heard the PowerCell in four different rooms each with different systems, yet every time it brought out a consistently more holographic soundstage.
By contrast the, Audience aR6-T's effect on my system's soundstage was as I described earlier: It has a very coherent, whole soundstage. It is a soundstage that is more like you are at the event than the event is in your room, and as I said above what really made this soundstage so real is the way it handles the vertical dimension of the soundstage. Another difference is that the soundstage varies tremendously from recording to recording. That too can be a little disconcerting for some listeners. Still, I expect that through the Audience the system is just letting you hear the differences from recording to recording. The Audience also has an uncanny ability to let the system reveal the different size of different instruments in the soundstage.
I've tried so many power conditioners that I wont try to list all of them. With most of them I could hear a difference, but most of what I heard from them were incremental refinements. Not so with the last two remarkable power conditioners to come this way; the Synergistic Research Tesla PowerCell and the Audience aR6-T. No, with these two conditioners the improvement is dramatic, very dramatic, and the result is to make music come to life in ways I have not heard before.
I want to close by saying that I don't know of anything at anywhere near the price that has improved my system like either of these two power conditioners. In the end, I am a firm believer in the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle when it comes to audio design. Just look at my system, it only has three power cords, and one pair of interconnects plus the tonearm cable. That combined with the value I place on transparency makes the Audience a clear choice in my book; but if I valued more warmth, and a huge, cavernous soundstage then I would go with the PowerCell. Either way it is obvious that with the Audience aR6-T or aR12-T we really have a great breakthrough in Power Conditioning."
