So my second Dragon HC cable finally arrived and I’m retesting the Niagara 5000 demo that my local dealer loaned me. They had loaned it to me before and I found it made the sound veiled. At the time I attributed it to the low end NRG-1000 cord they loaned with it, when I was plugging my Diablo 300 amp into it using a Dragon HC.
Turns out I was right. Sounds fantastic now, with a Dragon powering the Niagara 5000 and a Dragon powering my amp. I have Hurricanes connected to the conditioner powering my sources.
Nordost’s support (I have Valhalla 2 speaker cables) warned me that every conditioner, filter, and regenerator alters tonal balance in some way that is unpredictable because the effect is unique to each system. This seems accurate. The Niagara 5000 definitely adds more bass groove, slam, and overall solidity to the rhythm. The midrange may be very slightly brighter. But overall I like the effect vs my amp plugged into the wall. It is possible that it is NOT actually impacting tonal balance and rather the “power correction” is correcting my power and thereby correcting my tone. I guess there is no way to figure out what is actually the baseline tone and whether the Niagara is affecting it, or simply achieving the actual baseline tone through power correction.
Nordost recommended I look into Torus for neutrality. Others report that going Torus leads to a “open, unrestrained mids and upper frequencies”. Torus is different than the Niagara in that it’s just a big isolation transformer (RM20).
While I know I like what the Niagara 5000 does now, my considerations are:
-Buy a Niagara 7000 (is it worth it over the 5000 for significant added cost?)
-Buy a Torus RM20 (I don’t think I can get a demo), which is less cost than a Niagara 5000 and WAY less than a Niagara 7000. And supposedly achieves an open, detailed, free-flowing sound.
I’ve found it’s system dependent but I’ll ask anyways: have people found the Niagara 7000 to perform better than the 5000? If so in what ways? And, does anyone have experience comparing Niagara against Torus, for amps, and/or sources?
