PS Perfect wave power cord

I just plugged in a brand new AC12 into my system last night. This cable runs between my Furutech wall outlet on a dedicated line 10awg cyro'd romex.

This replaced a DIY VH-Audio Flavor 4 (9awg) cyro'd cable with Furutech Gold connectors.

Even after all these years playing with cables, I cannot get over how different power cords sound.

Plugging in the AC12 from wall to Power plant Premier my system went from rather analytical and spacial to warm and rather full bodied. In fact to much so I thought. So I changed some tubes on my pre to some that dial up the spatial qualities and add a bit of leading edge transients and yes things got much better. Then the AC12's sound started changing. I mean it seemingly changed from cut to cut. We'd replay and scratch our heads not being able to understand what was going on. I should know better but I'm impatient and I also understand break in time but this wasn't subtle at all. The cable was continuously changing last night and by the end of the evening, I needed another tube change as the upper frequency spectrum really started to come around. I asked my wife to leave the system playing today and see if the AC12 doesn't settle down.

I've been listening to 2 particular cuts on Joan Osborne "Relish" St Teresa and Dracula Moon seems like forever. I've always felt that the engineer had miked her too close and her voice would get over-driven at times. That simply wasn't the case last night. We sort of were prepared for the cringe factor but it never happened. I was floored. The highs were there in all their glory but the hardness was gone.

This is not so much a review as it is an observation that I wished to share. The cable is not broken in so a review is sort of useless, just my 2 cents. I did audition the AC10 and AC5 and thought they were OK but not worth changing out my very good DIY'ers until I heard the AC12. Well I bought the AC12. I have NO experience with other high end power cables although I'd love to hear a Shunyata or a LessLoss in my system. Now more than ever as I continue to discover how much power cords play a role in a high end system. Now I need to look for a decent digital cable!

This cable is driving me nuts. It went from smooth to harsh to bright sounding. Now I've got a soft tube setup, the filter on my DAC at 5 to deal with post and preringing and upsampling redbook to 96. It actually sounds quite good in this set. I would guess I'm past the 100 hour mark.

I was, or rather, tried to play Aerosmith "Pump" but it was unlistenable. Just way to aggressive. Just down the list from Aerosmith was Al Dimeola. Now that was amazing. Then I cued up Jennifer Warnes, Blue Coat CD - remastered. With my critical ear the highs are still a bit lacking in texture. The mids lack some in the warmth department as well but at the same time giving great clarity.

I made a change on my 7 nines silver XLR interconnect pair going from Vampire XLR's to the much higher quality Furutech Rhodium's. This seemed to provide a bit more richness for lack of better term and a bit more air but it's difficult to tell honestly as it took me a few hours to perform that change.

Having the AC12 in the system I decided to sink a ground rod in our groundless rental (that didn't prevent "others" from thinking this service is grounded finding ground wires attached to a groundless pipe)and put my dedicated circuits ground to a proper ground. I can't say I noticed any difference (aural memory being what it is) but at least I feel better ;-)

I'll continue to monitor this AC12 and report back. At some point I'll pull it from the system and return my Flavor 4 for comparison.

Last night was a revealation - pun intended. Mid bass came back and the air around instruments took on a 3 dimensional quality I haven't heard in a while. I'm probably at about 175 hrs. Soundstage is growing, Let it Grow as Clapton would sing.

This is exciting. The wife unit just started warming up the stereo and will report back on her classical offerings. She was having a hard time with this cable not wanting to listen to music but now she's all ears. She doesn't understand the "cable sound" but she's learning fast. "Honey, what if we change the power cable betweeen the DAC and the PPP?"

Scary huh?

You're right on Jdub, I gotta be patient.

Some time ago, maybe 5 weeks now I had ordered a Porter Port receptacle. Folks on this forum raved about em' and I thought after some frustration with my Furutech outlet, I'd give the Porter port a try. Well it finally showed up (first one was lost I guess).

So what do you do when you have a new piece of audio gear? You install it. So I did. So what was the change?

Probably another case of too soon to comment but here's my initial impression.

I noticed a softening across the entire dynamic range. Best to describe as there was less snap or a diminished quality to the leading edge transients. The upper frequency range seemed a bit rolled off. This affected the sound-stage and the tight focus of instruments was somewhat lessoned. Decay seemed to suffer as well. I spun some Radiohead "In Rainbows" Nude was first up. There is a great amount of decay in Tom Yorke's voice that usually trails off for a long time and gives you great sense of the size of the room he's singing in. This was a bit closed in with the Porter Port. I spun Paranoid Android from OK Computer a very rough number that will generally test your ability to stay in the room if your system has issues. I found this cut easy to listen too and sounding quite good. Nothing jumped out and bit you but rather played in a relaxed fashion. But this isn't a relaxed song. Moving to 3 Guitars, a 96kbps Cd now down-sampled to 48, (Squeezebox 3 digital coax to PWD dammit) the transients again were slightly diminished compared to the Furutech outlet. My wife likes the outlet but admits something is missing in a holographic sense compared to the Furutech.

I think I just hijacked this thread.?

Bottom line, this outlet needs more time. I'm moving it to where my sub outlet resides and returning the magic of the Furutech outlet. So far as I can tell, the Furutech and the AC12 are making magic.

This magic came through late the night before with a play of Sarah Mclachlan Surfacing CD playing Sweet Surrender - there was a true Goose-Bump factor going on. She was solidly standing in front of us as a 3 dimensional image and the sound stage around her went well beyond the speakers. Frickin amazing. I've heard this cut a million times but never, ever this good. It's why we do this, why we spend WAY too much money, and way too much time.

I think the cable is breaking in.

Looks like I got some receptacles to review. the Teslaplex has been on my radar as I already enyoy the Tesla speaker cables (and I got 1 for sale on AG ;-)

Think I'll gice the CableCo a call.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Now that my AC12 is fully broken in I find my system in a most amazing place. I'm constantly surprised at how much the incoming AC affects the sound.

I had the AC10 on loan and liked it a lot but wouldn't pull the trigger until I heard the AC12. The AC12 proves to be a winner in my system. Additionally, I have a Furutech receptacle which I've been enjoying then recently picked up a Porter Port receptacle since so much positive feedback was written about this low cost alternative. I really didn't warm up to it. It seemed to rob my system of its snap and focus. I may not have been patient enough to leave it in the system so now it's burning in on my sub circuit. Discovering that these damn receptacles have such a significant sound of their own I bought a Tesla Plex.

Wo-ah!

It was almost spooky how it further unraveled the musical event what I thought was already considerably unraveled. More 3 dimensionality, more air, and the soundstage moved forward which on my MBL's I would have thought impossible. Not just that but the definition of the bass which has been a bit of an issue did indeed improve.

With regards to AC I think have a winning combination.

Dedicated circuit;
20amp breaker
10awg cryo'd romex
Dedicated ground
Tesla Plex
PS Audio AC12
Power Plant Premier

Thought I'd chime in again. Now I've logged a goodly number of hours on the AC12. Unfortunately, to the folks who are looking at the AC12, I had added the Teslaplex outlet which would skew my observations.

This cord seemed to change a lot during breaking. I might have 4 weeks on it now which in this house is a LOT of hours. It has really become a lot warmer than what I would have expected. What this meant in my system is that for the first time, my tube preamp is no longer adding to the musicality, subjective of course. For our ears it's too warm. With the PS Audio PW DAC feeding the Pass 350.5 directly through the Power Plant Premier I'll say this. Glare, stridency, fatigue, gripping the remote, being fidgety, lowering the volume, are no longer in the sonic picture. The more I turn up the volume , the better it sounds. And it sounds amazing. Not the last word in transparency. Soundstage as good as I've heard in my room to be sure. How much the AC12 sets the stage on this is unknown until I further study with another really good cable. Anyone want to drop by with a Shunyata Python?

I have a dedicated 20amp cyro'd line feeding a Teslaplex outlet for which the AC12 takes power to the Power plant Premier. The Pass gets fed a VH-Audio flavor 4 with Furutech connectors.

It would be interesting to hear a high end commercial grade cable such as another AC12 or Shunyata series cable to feed the Pass. But then again I haven't any complaints with what I'm hearing.

I'm due the PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport today. I had it for 1.5 days before it decided it didn't like a disc it was fed and kept it. No way to get it out that I knew at the time nor did PS Audio have an answer. So off it went for repair for a faulty display and a unresponsive remote. Here's the really disturbing part. The PS Audio techs fix for not ejecting the disc was "don't feed it offending discs". "you must be one of those guys with multi media formats".

My head is still spinning from that conversation.