Power cable Advice...

 Check out my 4 power cords comparison video. Click times (18:53 WTPC),   (4:46 JPS) to hear different cables. More time marks are in comment section.  Alex/WTA

@jaymark how are the Grover Hoffman Pharaoh's on the Atma-Sphere Digitals?

Last week several Monosaudio 902 Power cables arrived for connection to power amps, Electrocompaniet AW250R and Accuphase P-4200 in bi-amp mode.

I made a two outlet receptacle from two Furutech FP-SWS(G) into a PVC box with Furutech inlet cable, internal cables are SPC 10 AWG Teflon.

Cable loom Equitech 1.5Q -> Monosaudio 902 2  x 2m to the above box, then 1m 902 cables to each power amplifier.

By necessity for 230V system, use the euro connectors, since a wide choice is available, rather than the std AU plugs.

Not a night and day difference between Furutech FP-314Ag-II, with some notable exceptions:

- Bass sounded a bit thin, left running for a few days and became 'articulate' with not so much boom and thunder, actually real bass with accuracy to boot.

- Soundstage was a little deeper front to back about 0.5m

- Treble much the same, not too overbearing or in your face. It's easier to hear that high hat ringing.

The Monosaudio 902 cable has two layers of foil, one around each core, and the other around the three cores. This should suppress any noise that the the cables runs adjacent to standard power cabling.

For my climate, copper shielding is not great as it tarnishes with the humidity. The cable size is 5.5 sqmm, about 10AWG conductors, the cable is about 5/8, 17mm diameter, has its own mind where it wants to go, so lay this flat for a day or so to iron out the curves.

They are very well made, the packaging is plain cardboard, so nothing fancy, Made in China that have been around for 17 years or so, at least they have a website. Probably OEM for other cable makers.

I didn't want to spend too much on power cables, for the money made a very good improvement, very happy with them, and recommended to place on the short list.

@steakster

Yes my trip down was very similar… lots of water fights. But we stayed in the boats. That seemed safer.

 and got stuck in an underwater eddy

Eddy currents not good. OP is hoping there are no eddy currents. Especially in the last 5 feet. 

@ghdprentice

Yes, great trip isn’t it. Good memories.

Spectacular in every way! Many long hikes into the side canyons to some very exotic locales. Flipped in Lava Falls - and got stuck in an underwater eddy. A good test to see how long I could hold my breath.

@steakster 

Yes, great trip isn’t it. Good memories.

derekw_hawaii

If you have bad water passing thru rusty municipal pipes which is treated in the last 5 feet of your under sink filter system, is this going to improve your health?

During the two week rafting trip down the Colorado River - through the Grand Canyon - we drank water only from the river - lots of it. No doubt the river was hugely contaminated with viruses, bacteria, protozoa, waste products and who knows what else. Thanks to the last 5 inches of the reverse osmosis pump filter, nobody got sick - ever. I did that paddle trip twice. The power to my audio system is filtered also.

OP,

Great deal. No question great choice. I have no doubts you’ll hear a great improvement. 

@derekw_hawaii  Why yes you are, or the tap water is going to be safer. I also do not want to live where they use iron pipe for drinking water. 

My reasoning is as follows: If you have bad water passing thru rusty municipal pipes which is treated in the last 5 feet of your under sink filter system, is this going to improve your health?

Thank you audphile1 😀

Hey squared80, did you just wake up from a 40 year coma?  The debate about cables making a difference was closed decades ago.  Get out and experience the world and then your comments might become more meaningful.  And watch out for the snake oil salesmen over on ASR.  That guy doesn’t know the difference between a tape measure and a slide rule.

Nice and congrats!!! 

Update: Following countless hours of research, I made a few purchases on the used market all for < 5k

Power amp - AQ 1M HC Dragon

Preamp - AQ 1M HC Hurricane

Digital -    AQ 1M Source Hurricane

This was a great thread!

Shunyata .

Anyone here that tells you it will make a difference is either lying, or willfully ignorant. Put your money towards something that actually makes a difference and matters, and shame on whoever told you otherwise. 

Here is another suggestion:

Audio Envy make good power cords that are very flexible and light weight, and I like the results.

https://audioenvy.com/store/

"The Finest In the World. Probably."

My goodness. :)

Oh, and @jaymarkj  I've got some Grover IC's and have used his speaker cables- fine stuff indeed.

Grover Huffman Pharoah is a phenomenal power cable that I have in my reference system on my JC1 monoblocks as well as on my Puritan power conditioner.  They were around 750 bucks each for 6 feet, I think.

Any heavy gauge, well-made power cable will do. Cost is not proportional to sound quality. Don't be suckered.

Well if I had the best amplifier in the world, and matched it with the finest speakers in the world, I would probably just use lamp cord too. 

You got me all wrong. It took me almost 6 months to build my own monoblocks using the finest components possible Probably the finest power amplifier in the world (very "subjective" i know). Pure classA 200w/8ohm/channel, 400w/4ohm, each block weighs 100 pounds. Someone I knew in the field built a pair of speakers for me probably the finest loud speakers in the world. Unlike these oily trolls I'm here to help people stop wasting money...then again i'm not a man on a mission

@classicrockfan we can give you some snake oil before you head back to ASR so you can give Amir a nice rub. 

Well if you are listening with lower end gear then cables will make no difference at all. That is why ASR/Amirs reviews and measurements mean nothing as the gear is all cheap garbage. @classicrockfan you are just here to make trouble, please head on back to ASR with your ilk!

I run a loom of Furutech 4.1 terminated with the Fururtech's best connectors for my power cables.  They are fast, detailed and dynamic.  And I'm not compensating, don't need to.

@rodman99999 👍

Classic nothing but rocks in the head's post got deleted. What a shame. 

"$1500 per cable gets you midfi cables. You a are better off putting that money into a 4500 pair of speaker cables."

The above is just the sort of statement that gives audiophiles a bad reputation

Well he's a football guy, he failed to notice that the OP was using Valhalla's, and he used the word "beat" more than once. It's all about winning in football! You don't win you lose! At least he into hifi, and believes in cables.

I'm sure the other jocks give him a hard time 😉

"$1500 per cable gets you midfi cables. You a are better off putting that money into a 4500 pair of speaker cables."

The above is just the sort of statement that gives audiophiles a bad reputation

It is comforting for some, to know, with certainty, in an uncertain, random, and capricious world.

@audphile1  Great post. 

"The cable denier sleeper cells have been woke. 🤣

@classicrockfan guess if you have junk gear you can feed it with junk cables. "

subjective indeed!!! I am not a denier.. i do believe good audio cables make a significant difference but their price tags don't make them any better all coated by S.O. i don't have junk gear my system probably so much superior than yours since i know how to analyze them and i know how to design them.

The cable denier sleeper cells have been woke. 🤣

@classicrockfan guess if you have junk gear you can feed it with junk cables. 

My reasoning is as follows: If you have a two way rural road which turns into a shiny super highway on the last mile, how is this going to improve your experience?

OP try amazon/ebay you can find nice power cables that certainly please your eyes (your ears won't find an audible difference)

"On a warmer side with plump bass and thick full mids…Audioquest Storm Series Hurricane"

OMG you just unlocked the magic S.O.

OP try amazon/ebay you can find nice power cables that certainly please your eyes (your ears won't find an audible difference)

"On a warmer side with plump bass and thick full mids…Audioquest Storm Series Hurricane"

OMG you just unlocked the magic S.O.

My reasoning is as follows: If you have a two way rural road which turns into a shiny super highway on the last mile, how is this going to improve your experience?

@alarcono I have done both and each made a significant contribution.  I started with the PS 10 and each addition of the power cables made improvements

@pynkfloydd 

+1 

     Back in March 2022: a thread about power cords and break/burn-in was started.

     I hate to type, so: I'm going to copy/paste some of my speculations.

     That a highly complex musical signal, MIGHT affect Poynting vectors and signal speeds*, in interconnects, in a much more profound manner than a simple AC (ie: a fixed 60/50 Hz) signal, in a PC, seems likely (at least) to me, as; in EVERY formula regarding *those two, a signal's frequency (frequencies) always factors in greatly.

     Further: the above and what I'll c/p (seems to me) lends credence to how the application of a stronger, DC voltage/field, outside a dielectric (ala Synergistic MPC and Audioquest DBS systems), might stabilize those vectors and signal speeds, PERHAPS eliminating some time smear and, "burn-in". 

rodman99999 5,456 posts 03-31-2022 at 12:13am    @holmz-       Bear with me a minute, in my folly, far as a possibility on why a power cord might make a difference.       Based on some of the theories on how electricity works, simplified:       The conductor acts as a waveguide for the signal/voltage.       Within the conductor: when excited by an AC current, electrons oscillate, generating photons/electromagnetic waves that travel, always from the source, to the load.        Keep in mind: all signals (ie: music, AC) are sinusoidal  waves        Those photons/electromagnetic waves travel through and outside the dielectric, which (according to it's permittivity/Poynting vectors) will have various effects on those waves.    One of the most obvious is the dielectric's effect on the speed of the signal.       The better designers of printed circuit boards, even take the above into account, when choosing materials for their products.        I posted a link on the first page that included data on the manufacture of semiconductor chips and what was observed when materials were cryo'd, during the process.     Short version: better contact/lowered resistance between layers.           Under the scanning microscope: much smoother surfaces observed.        I would hope, by now, it's a given that various cable constructions, twists, braids, etc, can make for a cleaner transmission of signals (ie: Litz, etc).                     Just seems to me (a hypothesis): given the above (some theories and some things established/measured/proven), it's not a big stretch to believe a power cord, built of the best conductor (ie: Ohno CC silver), wrapped in a very low dielectric coefficient dielectric (ie: Teflon), cryo'd for the smoothest transfer of those photons/magnetic waves and twisted in some crazy way, might not smooth out some of perturbations/noise, from the crap an AC waveform had to go through, back to it's generator.  (run-on, much?)        I haven't tested this, actually comparing two circuits, but: it wouldn't surprise me, if a power supply that used a choke, would be less affected by a better power cord, as the former can eliminate a lot of the high freq garbage, etc, that's either created by, or makes it through all the big converting/filtering stuff, before.        Never thought about PCs before the good stuff hit the market, but: the Physics/QED made sense.             I tried 'em, I like 'em and the science makes my head feel better.                               Don't care WHAT it does to anyone else's!

rodman99999 5,456 posts 03-31-2022 at 12:27am         OH, and: it takes some time for the dielectric to form, take a charge, polarize, or however one chooses to define the process, when a dielectric is subjected to electromagnetic waves, which affects the Poynting vectors, measurably/predictably.                                             The lower the material’s dielectric constant: the longer that takes.                                                               PC (interconnect/etc)  burn-in?    Maybe?

                                                                                         Happy listening! 

I would rather use the money to buy a power re generator and keep the original cables.

Nordost states in it's packaging that the "Power Cord is the most critical cable in your loom".  I was running Ansuz cords which was my first upgrade over stock cables.  Big difference.  Upgraded to Shunyata sigma v2's.  A huge difference.  I gifted my Ansuz cables to my brother, who replaced his stock cables on his Mac gear with them.  He called me so excited, saying he couldn't believe the sonic difference the upgrade made. 

@squared80 Newsflash-It DOES matter.  I have a very revealing system.  If yours isn't, perhaps you can't hear the difference or perhaps you never tried.  If so you are depriving yourself.  The Cable Co has a library of loaner cables, give it a try. You have absolutely nothing to lose. Then please report back with your findings.

I'm thinking of going from Mackenzie interconnects to Earth between my amp and pre. Do you honestly believe it is all snake oil and any difference I hear is the placebo effect? But then we are talking about audio and not medicine so isn't the placebo effect worth it?