Power Conditioners: Audioquest Niagara 5000 or Shunyata Denali 6000S
I’ve been trying to decide which of these two power conditioners might make a better purchase. Do any of you own either, have chosen one over the other, or better yet, gotten to A/B them? I’ve found some, but not a lot, of information online comparing the two. So I thought I’d ask if any of you might know something more.
They both come in at $4000 retail which is my budgetary limit. The Niagara is active, the Denali passive. Some threads compare the Denal a little less favorably to the twice as expensive Audioquest Niagara 7000, for what that’s worth. I heard that the Audioquest Niagara 5000 may hum or buzz under some cirumstances. Anybody have that issue? I’ll probably never get a chance to demo them out here in the hinterlands so I’m hanging on your every word before I drop another wad of cash on one or the other.
There is also an Audio Magic conditioner at the same $4000 price point, but I didn’t quite understand it’s function in comparison to the other two. I’ll have to reread that product description.Someone else recommended a Richard Gray model that confusingly turned out to be a giant-sized surge protector.
Anyway I’d appreciate if any of you have any input on this somewhat obscure topic of power conditioners. I’m looking at one of these two power conditioners as opposed to a regenerator, or pure isolation transformer, or other type of line conditioner. If it’s of any import my equipment is a VPI Classic 2 SE turntable with an Ortofon 2M Black moving magnet cartridge, a Marantz SA8005 CD player, a Luxman 507uX Mark II integrated amp, and Magico A3 speakers all to be on a dedicated line and plugged into the conditioner. I am not interested in purchasing used.
Thanks for any input or advice. I hope someone out there knows something about these two.
I tried both the Denali 6000s with its accompanying top-model fat but flexible powercord, and the Audioquest Niagara 7000 with my own Hi-Diamond 3 power cord for a month each.
The Denali 6000s was good, but music sounded "artificial" to me. And I noticed it only goes well with its own Shunyata cords.
The Niagara 7000 has a faint high frequency whirling sound, like a CPU fan, but I can barely hear it from my listening chair. According to some sources, the humming becomes louder with tube equipment. I dunno. My system is all solid state.
I bought the Niagara 7000 because it played music better... Musicality-Fulfillment! Technically, the Denali was not bad, but it did not make me feel musical enjoyment.
Thanks for the input rzado. I'm hoping my recently purchased Shunyata Denali works well with my new system once my back ordered Magico A3's finally arrive in February, hopefully. I'll post my assessment then. Sounds as if it should fit in well as you usually don't read the Magico's have a warm presentation. The Denali may vary somewhat from the Triton you demoed. so I'll just have to wait and see. How do you like your Purepower 3000 relative to the others. I'm unfamiliar with that make and model. I'll have to look it up.
I have now had enough opportunity listening in my system to provide some comparison thoughts. The below anysis is with respect to the Audioquest 5000 to latest Shunyata Triton only. Please note I have no skin in this game, and ultimately elected to purchase neither product after auditioning both for about 2 months. In fact, I own and use an AQ WEL Signature power cord for my current power conditioner (a Purepower 3000).
In short, the Shunyata substantially outperformed the Audioquest in my system. The Shunyata works well at reducing noise, presenting information with a lot of ease. Instruments have a lot of tonal density and color across the stage. Low level resolution is good. Ultimate stage width and depth is passable, but not remarkable. My biggest issues is in the lower midrange to midbass. The Shuyata is, in my system, notably colored, with a bit of a caramel presentation and warmth in the range of the cello and bass guitar. In many systems, this would work well, but my system is already a touch warm in this range, so the Shunyata is not a good fit.
In view of the above, I would recommend the Shunyata for those in the market for such a product taking into account its characteristics. I would not recommend the Audioquest, which to me sounds like a typical active filtering power conditioner - you can get the same performance for less.
swapping cables and power cords is the best approach until you reach products that compliment your system. Take full advantage of your local AQ dealer, retailer. Have fun!
You can get budget aftermarket power cables that provide over 50% of the improvements that SOTA cables provide at 1/10 of the price. The opposite of diminishing returns.
Give the cable company your budget and tell them your gear and they may recommend an uneven distribution of costs between cables based on what they think will provide the biggest return. Or look at Pangea cables from AudioAdvisor or Signal Cable as a place to start. You may get the best results with the most expensive power cable on your CD player, difficult to prejudge.
Appreciate the further explanations, Knownothing. I'm definitely going to need to research this subject more, The simplest thing to figure out will probably the interconnect between my relatively, inexpensive CD player, a Marantz SA8005, and the Luxman 507uX II amplifier. I think what I'll do there is purchase a modest Audioquest interconnect that comes in at 20% of the CD players value. We do have an Audioquest dealer in Roanoke who would let me swap out cables if I liked.
That would simplify that matter. That CD player was purchased before I decided to upgrade my whole system, and it's the only component I would consider upgrading down the road if I acquire more CD's. 90% of my source material is vinyl records.
The power cables I'll definitely need to look into further. I'll keep them as far away from the low voltage cabling as possible as you suggest. I'm going to see if there isn't some simple mechanical means to shield them, starting with the shielded hospital grade 12 amp power cords, maybe conduit. I'll need to look into the other variables the cords are designed to deal with, some of which you mentioned. I'd honestly be horrified if I needed to buy a thousand dollar power cord. But you have to do what's necessary, like it or not. Thanks,
The critcal issues for power cables are speed of current rise, current capacity, protection from external EMI and protection from creating excessive EMI. Everything matters in this regard from to connectors to the conductors to the dialectric to the conductor configuration. There are many different designs, and you just need to determine which is highest performing and cost effective solutions for you.
Typically, PCs for amps do not utilize shielding, while PCs for digital sources do.
Shielding is used in digital power cables to effectively reduce RFI/EMI, important for keeping noise out of the cable, but also important to keep noise generated in your digital gear within the cable and harmlessly drained to ground.
Amp power cables typically do not incorporate shielding in order to maintain unrestricted macro and micro dynamics. Complicated geometries are often employed to concentrate the current towards the center of the conductor weave, providing some shielding from external sources, as well as mitigating radiation of RFI/EMI.
Yes, I am referring to EMI. I am not an electrical engineer so have only an audiophile’s interest in the subject and some trial and error experince under my belt including designing, assembling and using a few power cables.
That said I have experienced great benefits from power conditioning with audio in both dirty office environment, and with a relatively “clean” home power setting with dedicated circuit, breaker, 10 guage romex to high quality outlet.
With the former, I could not get any kind of natural sound without separate power conditioners on the amp and then on all digital sources plus the sub.
At home I am running my amp and sub directly to dedicated wall outlets (few electric storms and power surges in my area), and all other analog and digital sources from dedicated outlet to qualty power strip with Shunyata Venom Defender which worked miracles on hum in my analog source and provides inky black backgrounds and good soundfield with no apparent reduction in speed of transients or slam for all sources. My experience with this simple product should bode well for your use of the Denali.
I use a bunch of different cables including Shunyata Diamondback, but am very pleased right now using modestly priced digital and speaker cables from Audioquest and interconnects and power cables from Nanotec. And I try to manage wires in the back to stay away from one another as much as is reasonable. YMMV.
Knownothing, I’m listening to what you’re saying about low voltage cables picking up field effects from high voltage cables nearby, particularly when in close proximity. I’m trying to understand this. Would " field effects" be the same thing as EMI interference or something in addition as well?
Would using shielded power cables prevent them from emanating field effects? I had thought about a using shielded hospital grade 12AWG, 20 amp power cable to the power conditioner instead of the Romex, due to the possible code violation Cleeds brought to my attention. This would be in addition to audiophile quality shielded interconnects and speaker cabling. I don’t know how well shielding alone limits signal and field interaction. I thought about doing the same with the other power cables plugged into the power conditioner. Maybe the shielding is insufficient to do the job. I simply don’t know, but would like to learn. I was hoping with "clean" power I wouldn’t need to venture beyond simple shielded power cables for any device plugged into the power conditioner. Having read that would be sufficient, was a major prompt to acquire a power conditioner. Maybe it's not true.
I read a long "white paper" on cable design to try and better understand the issues involved, but can’t say I fully understood it without need for further studying on the subject. I wonder if running the power cables inside conduit would be of any benefit in limiting transmission of field effects? As I similarly mentioned in one of my posts my ignorance on the subject is fairly comprehensive. The subject is interesting though.
I did go ahead and purchase a second-hand Shunyata Denali 6000S last night from a dealer at a price I couldn’t pass up, approaching 50% off retail new, so all major components have now been purchased. Completing cable acquisitions comes next. Thanks for your explanations and advice. I found it helpful in trying to understand this complex subject.
@skyscraper, here are some thoughts on running romex or other rather simple cable directly from your breaker box to your conditioner vs running a high end purpse designed audio power cable from a wall socket to your conditioner. From a current perspective, direct connection would be great. From the perspective of any EMF around that cable that might interfere with other cables in the vicinity, perhaps not the best solution.
Same goes (especially) for using budget power cables from a conditioner to your gear. Why I hear you saying. You just spent $4,000 to tidy up your power, so now its all good, right? Yes and no, and the reason is that a power conditioner cleans up the power from the street, but can’t protect your low voltage/current signals in cables like IC’s and speaker cables from exposure to field effects from nearby high current power cables, even if the power running through those power cables is very “clean”.
As @inna says, good conditioning and good power (and other) cables work together, removing noise and reducing signal and field interactions, especially in crowded spaces near the back of each piece of gear or where low and high current wires come close to each other, cross, or heaven forbid, run in parallel. Sorry to say its all potentially important.
Best way to determine if it’s important enough for you to make additional investments is to try different power and other cables in your system once you select a conditioner. Try the cable company lending library for a low cost way to trh before you buy.
I find that the better my gear gets, the bigger the benefits I hear from good power and other cabling. But frankly, good cables can make some even modest gear sound surprisingly better and good.
The better all your other cables are, the more likely your romex idea is to generate more potential benefits than penalties.
Rzado, to be sure I’m not misreading you, you’re meaning the Audioquest Niagara 5000 aren’t you. I think you got a typo in there. I’m interested in how the two compare when you finished demoing both in your system. That’s good information on the Audioquest you’ve provided. Keep us posted. You’ve done a more thorough job wiring than anybody else I’ve run across. Must have been a fair amount of work. I’ll be watching for your next post. Thanks,
In a week I should be able to provide a more informed comparison that may be of some interest to you on the Shunyata v. Audioquest issue, but right now I have in house both an Audioquest Denali 5000 and the latest Shunyata Triton v3, which I am comparing to my current Purepower 3000+.
As of this time, I have not had enough time to give thoughts on the Shunyata, but I was not impressed by the Audioquest. Like pretty much every serial filtering conditioner I have tried, it presents a mixed bag of audio qualities. In my system, it constrained the soundstage, bringing everything forward towards the plane of the speakers, and produced a more pronounced lower midrange. If one's system is laid back, it may provide the sense of more excitement or jump factor, but I found it fatiguing.
Caveat 1 - I only use power conditioners on front end components, not amps Caveat 2 - my default power setup is pretty good, with all dedicated AC lines wired with Cardas in wall cable and Oyaide R-0 outlets, with an Eritech 10ft chemical grounding rod surrounded in bentonite clay.
Cleeds I’ll take a look at the NEC. I’ve got an older copy. If not, I’ll use a 20 amp, 12awg hospital grade power cord having the C19 plug. I was thinking of being lazy and doing that anyway.
P.S. I looked it up online. At first glance It appears you have to put the Romex in conduit if it’s exposed. Since that would still be odd with the plug exposed. I’ll go with the 12AWG stranded hospital grade power cord instead. That should be about the same difference.
Now I’ll have to go back and put some conduit over an exposed length of Romex connected to my furnace, which did pass inspection years ago. That’s where I took the idea from. I certainly don’t want any code violations that would give my insurance company an excuse to not pay off a claim if the worst was to happen. Thanks cleeds fot the good advice.
I am going to use a
dedicated Romex line straight to the power conditioner from the service
panel, so there will be no power cord to it. It's almost like hard
wiring, except I'll put a C19 12AWG 20 amp hospital grade plug on the
end of the Romex.
You might want to check with NEC and your local electrical code. What you describe doesn't sound compliant because Romex isn't intended for that use.
Inna I demoed the Magico's with vinyl records only, so I'm fairly confident that analog should be okay. Perhaps the cd player will work even better.
I left out a word in my post above. I am going to use a dedicated Romex line straight to the power conditioner from the service panel, so there will be no power cord to it. It's almost like hard wiring, except I'll put a C19 12AWG 20 amp hospital grade plug on the end of the Romex. We'll see how that works. I honestly don't understand in what way a power cord could improve the function of a power conditioner. I'm not saying it doesn't, I just don't understand how it might. I do understand how an inferior cord, or zip cord, could degrade the signal from the wall outlet to the power conditioner, but I'm eliminating that cord completely by running the 12AWG Romex straight to the power conditioner, so there should be no signal degradation other than what the hospital grade plug might provide.
Somewhere along the line I'll try an experiment and insert a audiophile quality cord between the Romex and the conditioner and see if there is any improvement, or change, in the sound of the system. And don't worry, I always accept responsibility for whatever decisions I make. I was only trying to throw you a compliment for taking the time to reply to my posts and helping me figure things out.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention it. Since you are going to buy fancy conditioner you will definitely need fancy power cord between it and wall outlet. $1200 Shunyata Alpha NR ? Conditioners are not substitutes for power cords, they work together.
Mike , thank you. But I will only share responsibility for Luxman, not cables and power conditioners. One final thought. It's a guess of mine not knowledge. I believe, most of Magico users have digital source as the only or main source, though there are members here with Magico who have both analog and digital sources. Magico people know it and gear the sound to the liking of that crowd. Acceptable set-up for digital may not be best for analog. This includes cables and cords. Anyway, you'll find out.
Twoleft ears, yes the proof is in the pudding. Whatever I get it may or may not work or buzz, or do my laundry for me. I’ll hane to find out the old fashioned way and return the item if need be. I know they’ll stick me with the return shipping so I’ll have to make a good a choice as I can right out of the gate.
Lp2cd, sorry your post disappeared. I would have liked to have read it. I’ve had a few of mine go up in smoke too. A number of times Audiogon said my posts had not taken, but there they were when I checked. You never know. But you say both the Audioquest and Shunyata are are silent, so that’s encouraging. I’ve had two reports of the Audioquest Niagara 5000 buzzing, but none of the Shunyata making any noise, which is swaying me in that direction, I’ve a couple more models to research more now though. Thanks anyway for the short version.
Inna, nothing to do with this post, but I am going to get the Audioquest Rockets 88’s speaker cables that Magico recommended. I tied my brain in a knot trying to figure cabling out, and finally figured second guessing Magico on a subject I did not fully comprehend after hours and hours of studying, was a mistake.
I am going to approximate wiring by connecting my 20amp dedicated circuit’s 12awg Romex with a hospital grade 20amp C19 plug (I think that’s the correct number) to plug directly into the power conditioner. The power cord that came with amp will have to do until I get some other non-audio projects completed. Hopefully the power conditioner will clean up the signal so much, fancy power cords from it to the amp, cd player or turntable will be unnecessary. Only the interconnect from the CD player to the amp remains unaccounted for at present.
I am going to get a $4000 or thereabouts power conditioner, so I feel I’ve given my system a good shot at functioning up to it’s capacity. Also I want to feel that I have not cheaped out, which inevitably costs you more in the end. Once I get all my other non-audio projects completed, I may revisit my stereo system for tweaks and a turntable balanced supply device. Thanks again for your help, consideration and ideas.I actually have followed some, and you are responsible for my getting the Luxman amp. If you ever come over you can autograph it for me.
Since everyone is making recommendations I will too. To begin with, I would get $130 Furman surge protector/ kind of conditioner and listen for a few months while trying to figure out what is not quite right if anything. Then tell us what happened and we would try to advise. There is absolutely no need to begin with fancy and very expensive units, whatever they are. Mike, I might just have saved you thousands of dollars. On the other hand, saving too much on speaker cables would be a wrong thing to do. Cables for your set up should be both high resolution and slightly on the warm side of neutral, to be schematic. That's not easy to accomplish and should cost. Power cord for the amp is another matter but again - not $200 piece of junk.
Audiogon just trashed my lengthy reply, and I'm not redoing it. Sorry. In short, both units are completely silent both in operation and the effect on the system. VERY worth it.
I too was put off by not infrequent reports of transformer hum in several models, including Equitech and Torus, who are another industry staple. I was able to try out (with full return privileges) a Furman IT Ref 15, and it was completely quiet, but didn't do anything noticeable for my sound. The problem is that until you install product X in *your* room with *your" mains electrical supply, you can't 100% forecast what it will do, or not do.
lp2cd, thanks for the explanation I have read up on the Furman IT Reference 20i. and will have to revisit the Equitech. I started researching the Equitech the another night but never finished. How much noise or humming does the transformer produce in either of your power conditioners? Noise is the problem I’ve been running up against with the isolation transformer type power conditioners. If I could find a quiet one I’d be much more inclined to go that route.
Allow me to third the recommendation of Equi=Tech *balanced* power conditioners. https://www.equitech.com/ They are the original, and still the best. Equi=Tech is mostly focused on the professional/studio market and does not promote itself or cater to the consumer market, so their products can be a bit challenging, and pricey, to obtain. Other *balanced* conditioners are fine, I use a Furman IT Reference 20i power conditioner very successfully with my "living room system," but I have Equi=Tech for my studio. I can’t point to any real differences.
The KEY aspect of any high-end power conditioning for any audio system is that the output AC voltage should be *balanced* between the two conductor legs, using a huge and heavy toroidal transformer. This will be naturally noise cancelling as well as surge protecting, and will result in a very noticeable improvement in your system's sound. Your wall outlet power is unbalanced, with a "hot" (black) and a "neutral" (white) leg. Fine, and easier and safer, for most purposes, but not for audio/video. I find it odd that most high-end power conditioners don’t well explain this and are coy about whether or not their output is balanced. One often has to read between the lines in their promotional literature. So happy hunting. Beyond balancing the power with plenty of reserve, the differences between the various high-end conditioners are minimal.
For me it came down to a choice between the Isotek and an Audience Adept Response AR6, and the Isotek won out. Still, I'm surprised to see no recommendations of the Audience here.
Twoleftears, I read the positive review from Absolute Sound of the Isotek EVO3 Sigmas AC Power Conditioner. I asked Audiotroy, as you suggested, if he might post his opinion on the unit here for all to share. Thanks. I’ll have to find something on their Synchro unit to read although adding that in combination to the Evo3 Sigma would doubtless put my over budget .
Easygoing, I wish you the best dealing with your heart issues. I know from the loss of a loved one how difficult that may be. Take good care of yourself and thank you for your advice. I'll be thinking a good thought for you.
I have the AQ 7000, it didn't do anything for me until i bought their Tornado power cord 20amp, then everything just open up, i haven't spent much time listening lately will be going back into hospital soon, heart problems, so you buy AQ or just go n listen make sure you have one of their new power cords connected to it.
Biketech, I looked up your Equitech 1.5 RQ model. Sounds interesting I’ll have to do some more research on it. If it was powered by The Force I would have purchased it immediately.
Audiofool. . Thanks for sharing your experience with all three of those conditioners. I'll read up on the Ansuz power conditioners today. I'm not familiar with them.
Leotis, do you have a link to your old thread. I'd like to read it. If not, I'll find it. I'll look up the Equitech line too. I have heard their products mentioned.
Inna, if it doesn't sound good I'll suck up the shipping and send it back. Appreciate the warning.
The reason I'm concerned about companies remaining viable comes from maintaining my late seventies components for so many years. Sourcing Bang and Olusfen parts or finding knowledgeable service techs has been a bear. Phase Linear preamp repairs were a bit easier to come by as generic caps could be used. Dahlquist parts are still available fortunately.
You're right though, any company can disappear at any time, but to my mind it's hedging your bets to try and buy from the ones most likely to stay in business. I'd rather have a product a little less good, than purchase one from a more esoteric company. I mean, try and find parts for my old Burwen TNE Transient Noise Eliminator if you can. That's been taking up space in my storeroom for three decades. On the other hand you can still get source parts for an old Ford or Chevy, but try the same for an old MG. I've been to that well and I'm not going again if I can possibly avoid it.
Rbyington, I agree with you about the reviews not being able to be relied on exclusively. That's why I'm asking questions here and have read as many other threads on other forums as I could find from actual owners and listeners. Not to mention calling one products designer and techs at the other company, plus consulting dealers to ferret out information. Some will tell you all kinds of drawbacks to products they don't carry, even some they do if you get to know them a little.
I'll read on the PS Power Plant 15 you suggest. That is a PS Audio product I'd assume, but maybe not? The cable business you refer to is appears altogether over-hyped to me too and really hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff in, even doing listening test at dealers. It would be nice to have access to all these products to try out at home, but so it goes.
Skyscraper , I want to second what leotis said about the Equitech balanced power supply . My 1.5 RQ model is all you'll need and available factory-direct in your price range . It even makes the picture on my TV look better . Skywalker Studio uses their products for mastering movies, so it has to be good enough .
I started a "Do I need a Conditioner" thread a while back and looked into all the suggestions. Decided on Equitech balanced power transformer. Had used older Shunyata and PS Power Plant. Equitech is much better. Shunyata cleaned it up but sucked some of the life out of it. PS could only run the front end and didn't make much of a difference that I could tell. I think maybe Niagra 7000 is also balanced power, not sure. Of the two I would take the AudioQuest. But do yourself a favor and check out
Equitech. It is money well spent. Makes the rest of your system sound like it cost twice as much.
Mike, I have recently done an extended test of 3 power conditioners side-by-side. They consisted of the Niagara 5000, Denali 6000 and the Ansuz power conditioners. As you mentioned, I did experience a hum in the Niagara 5000, which I found disturbing. While it did improve dynamics and bass extension, to me it seemed to veil the music a bit. The Denali was more transparent and did not seem to cloud the presentation as much as the Niagara. Ultimately, I chose the Ansuz line as it presented the cleanest, most transparent sound. It is worth mentioning that I use a Hegel SS amp and my speakers are fairly efficient at 93db. I started with the entry level Ansuz X series conditioner and an Alum power cord from my outlet and an X cable from the conditioner to my amp. The Ansuz line seems to perform best when you use their cables. I started with the entry level as I wanted to limit my investment and live with it long term to ensure that I was on the right path. I have been using it now for a few months and very pleased. I can see myself upgrading to their higher end models in the future. I hope this was helpful.
PS audio Power Plant 15 Hands Down. Helps remove THD Total Harmonic Distortion. I owned a Niagara 5000 for about 90 days thought it was over hyped. You cannot trust most reviewers they don’t get paid to write negative reviews.
For example a reviewer that states that an Audioquest HDMI cable that cost $2,500 is much better than an Audioquest HDMI cable that cost $400 both 3.5 M
additionally people that drink the cool aid and say that that can hear a difference between two very high end Audioquest speaker cables a $5,000 cable and a $7,000 cable
By the way, I never read any review of anything that would tell the whole story. Another point, since it's important to you, absolutely any company can disappear at any moment, don't count on any service long term.
Mike, you are about to spend $4000 on you don’t know what. It is unknown how it will work in your set up, by itself and in comparison with other devices. And it doesn’t stabilize voltage. I just felt that I had to warn you.
I think I’m going to go with the Shunyata Denali 6000S. I found a place to get it for less than retail, and only slightly more than the Audioquest Niagara 5000.
If repairs are ever needed, Shunyata seems like a big enough concern to be around for years to come. It’s less big than Audioquest, but certainly not a boutique operation. Reviews for it are consistently good, as were those I found on the 5000.
I won’t have to worry about the Denali 6000S humming, or dealing with having it modified, so it won’t hum if that problem crops up. Audioquest indicated that a simple modification could be easily be done for their Niagara 5000, if the utilities transformer is not up to snuff and causing that problem. But ten years from now the utilities transformer on the pole behind the house may not be up to snuff any more after routinely electrocuting overly venturesome squirrels two- three times a year. Then what? The Shunyata Denali uses passive technology hopefully obviating that potential issue,
This doen’t make sense, but I also got to thinking the Audioquest Niagara 5000 admittedly is only a poor mans version of their 7000, so its going to be comparatively lacking in some regard from that model. I didn’t get that sense about the Denali 6000S and their higher models. Some said they’re comparable with the Shunyata Triton, and not so much lacking, as sounding a different compared to the Audioquest Niagara 7000,
Stupidly, if I got the Niagara 5000, I’d feel aggravated I couldn’t afford the Niagara 7000, even if the 7000 does have a low hum from it’s isolation transformers. However, if browndt were to send me his wonderful sounding Audioquest Niagara 7000 for Christmas there would be no further sour grapes or jealousy to be mentioned.
So this decision to get the Shunyata is at least partially, but not completely sensible. If it were possible, running an A/B comparison at home would have made this choice less of a crap shoot. But it didn’t sound like from what I read there is all that much difference between the two in any event.
That leaves only an interconnect from my Marantz SA 8005 CD player to the Luxman 507uX Mark II amp yet to be determined, before I’m operational when those Magico A3's finally arrive. Got to run down to Salem and pick up some vibrapods and cones too. I’m going to start constructing new built in shelves for my relocated components tomorrow. Picked up the wood and some simple damping materials for the shelves today.
Thanks again for everyone’s input as I pull into the home stretch on my new system.
Back in the day I had a color darkroom with a voltage stabilizer to keep the line voltage from shifting color balance with fluctuations common in line voltage. I wonder how one of these would work with audio gear as they seem to perform same function.
Browndt, I wish I could afford your more expensive Niagara model, and am understandably jealous. Good to hear your enthusiasm for the 7000. I'm looking forward to the quiet noise free background. What kind of, and wattage, amps are you powering? That power surge capacity of the Audioquest models is a real selling point. How much humming do you get out of the 7000's isolation transformers? Is it noticeable? Thanks for your post.
I own the Audioquest Niagara 7000. It stabilized my voltage, cleaner up my noise problems and provided endless power for my amps which are quite power hungry. It is probably the best single purchase I have made. It also is a fine power surge protection system. But the real beauty is in the change you will experience in the sound coming from your system. I would call it pristine compared to a wall plug in my area.
I didn’t realize it was a fairly new development that power conditioners can fully power amps without current limiting ...
It isn’t a new concept at all. For example, Tice was doing this with the Power Block/Titan combo decades ago.
Sometimes, the biggest problem with current limiting rests not with the power conditioner or isolation transformer, but with the electric utility itself.
Mike, I don't exactly have to measure it, I use PS Audio regenerator and it shows me voltage in real time. People often plug directly into the wall their power amps with robust power supplies. Your Luxman integrated is three components in one box - phono stage, preamp and stereo amp. By the way, think of a power cord as an extension of power supply not as an extension of wall wiring, this is a more correct view.
Whart, thanks for replying. I didn't realize it was a fairly new development that power conditioners can fully power amps without current limiting I think there are plenty of people around who've been plugging their amps into the wall, rather than the power conditioner to this day, judging from how frequently that topic comes up.
Both Shunyata, and especially Audioquest , address in their literature they don't limit current to amplifiers. Audioquest advertises their Niagara models have a substantial power reserve for transient peaks, if I'm saying that correctly. It's interesting to know it wasn't always that way.
Inna what kind of device do you use to measure that. I saw something being used on a Shunyata youtube video that played out loud the line distortion, and provided a measurement.
That I think is easy to measure with a simple device. Each piece of equipment will react differently to voltage fluctuations, and of course it will also depend on the degree of fluctuations. My turntable doesn't have much tolerance for it, nor does my integrated amp. The tape deck doesn't care much unless it is totally out of control. Your amps power supply should be quite good. But it is not Lamm amps that Whart has, those power supplies probably cost more that your entire integrated. That's why he abandoned even best conditioners of the time.
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