Sharing my experience with cables

No I mean just the power cords for streamers and Dacs. Didn't hear any meanigful differences. They are all connected through power treament ( PS audio and ifi), which does make a difference ( cleaner, less distortion)

The interconnects make a difference:  more space around the instruments. I have tried a few usb cables and the Luna was the best for around 1 K.  

Thank you all so much for your responses. Food for thought for sure.

I can add that I do have dedicated lines with PS Audio and Audioquest wall outlets.

In my quest for the new main system, I have listened carefully to over 500,000 $ of high end speakers in the last year, not counting all those at the Montreal Audio show. A long but immensly satisfying journey. Thank you for the Dealers in Montreal , Codell Audio, Art et Son and Éric at Filtronique and in Paris,  Devialet main store and Présence audio. Speakers were Magicos, Wilsons, Paradigm Persona, Audiovector, Rockport, Focal, Sonus faber, Qln and Raidho, just to name the finalists. 

They were all great, but different. I could summarize my findings in another post.

But going back to cables, power in particular, I am quite baffled by the big sonic difference I hear between the Audioquest blizzard, which I would describe as dark, TDR Red Fire, too much detail and brightness for the Q Concepts and Furutech, with good balance but maybe less differentiantion of instruments in orchestral music. 

I know this is all scientifically unexplainable, but I still need to make a choice. 

My wife has better hearing than me, and although she has no interest in all this, she and her daughter immediately notice when I made a change and can describe it in their own terms, which are correct. 

I listen to hours of music every day, often at pretty high volumes. I discover new music with Apple Music and Qobuz reviews. I then buy the hires tracks from Qobuz and store them in the Aurender. Contemporary recordings by ECM, DG, Erased Tapes etc  are incredibly better than last century ones. But in the end, its the music that counts.

Thank you all again for sharing your thoughts with me. 

Thank you for sharing your experiences with me. I really appreciate.

I want to keep you posted on the pursuit of my experiments.

I now have two high end sound systems now, over 100 K invested, of which 10 K in cables.  In Montreal I have mostly Transparent speaker and interconnects with a Simaudio amp and recently Q concept 500 speakers.   In the chalet, now our main home, I have new Raidho X3 with Devialet amp and Luna Red usb and speaker cables. 

My problem here is with power cords. Here are my findings:

The Audioquest Blizzard with the Raidhos make them sound less lively than a cheaper power cord.  The same setup with the Q concept worked fine ( I had them at the chalet for a month)

The Q concepts back in Montreal  replace Wilsons Sophia 3 . Now the sound is too bright. No distortion, but too bright nevertheless.  So I took out the DR Acoustics Red fire ( 5 K) and swapped home made Furutech heavy gauge. ( 200 $). And guess what: the balance of the speakers was back to normal. Could have more separation in instruments, but at least you can listen to the music and not the equipment.

I am not an engeneer, bus I said to myself: if the DR are more revealing, why noy try them with the Raidhos.  Well, I just did and ....   it works !!  The Raidhos are now as good as they were in the store.

In tis swap, the impact of the power cord was as big as one qurter turn in the old treble knobs. Much bigger impact than interconnects , digital and even speaker cables.

Finally, I want to point out that I went to a lot of live concerts in my life: Pink Floyd, ELP, Police, Sade etc, as weel as many symphonies in Montreal, Paris, Vienna, Milano, Carenigie hall etc.  

My criteria for any music, live or reproduced is: does it make my hair raise on my arms and the top: on my neck.

My exprience with 4 power cables fron 50 to 5000 $ made that happen in both systems.  

Conclusion: experiment with power cords. If your hair stays down, do not buy.

Have fun.

Classé  power amps come with 800 $ DR Acoustics cables.  I think most manufacturers presume that customers have their own preferences. They just thorw in a basix cable just in case. Also, the final impact of this cable depends on the rest of the system. IE if the speakers are bright, a more revealing cable may be bad. 

I keep experimenting with cables, as there are no measurements to helps us in this quest.

I live in the country where power is unstable, blowing up led lights occasionnaly.

So I started to look for a surge protector which would not choke the amplifier, as the ifi powercenter did. I got a Niagara 1200 really cheap at the Montreal audiofest.

I only wanted a surge protection. But I wanted to verify those claims about sq improvement. S I made a playlist of well recorded music files on my Aurender disk.

I asked my wife to sit with me during this AB test.  Well, to my surprise, she also noticed clear changes. The trumpets in Leonard Cohen My Oh My were more metallic.  And the separation of instruments in Mahler 3rd 1st movement by Michael Tilson Thomas was mauch better. 

But the biggest change we both noticed was that the volume was much louder, although the level in the amplifier was exactly the same. A big change, more like adding 3-5 db to the amplifier.

Now that was a surprise. The Niagara does the same as getting a amplifier with twice the power, a very expensive option.

Just wanted to share this.

On a completely different subject, I head the MOFI 10 speaker again, in a smaller room with Hegel amp. Amazing image and depth. What an incredible bargain.

Thank you for your posts, very helpful.

Over the last two years I continued my power cables experiments for my Raidho and Devialet 220 Expert Pro.  The best solution so far was a Siltech classic 680 .  Very good match with the Raidho ribbon tweeters. Very clean highs, no edginess and no fatigue. Adding a Niagara 1200 for surge protection ( wild power fuctuations during thunderstroms here ), I was baffled by the unexpected increase in volume and details.  

Replacing the Z3 with a Tornado PC gave a further increase in dynamics, but somhow the separation and details were adversy affected, as if you put an entire symphonic orchestra in a two door garage. I am exxagerating of course, but its the general idea.  Also, the barely audible decorations in My Secret Life of Leonard Cohen were... no longer audible.

AQ suggests I go with all Blizzard , for synergy reasons. I will try that and also a Silver coated cable from AQ.  But maybe there is another solution ? Going back to the Z3 ?  Getting Another Siltech ? Soimeting else ? 

I would like to hear your thoughts on this.