Sharing my experience with cables
Almost 40 years ago, a dealer in Montreal loaned me a pair of MIT cables. My scientific background refused the idea that cables would have any impact on electrons propagating at the seed of light.
The impact on the soud was so evident that I bought them. Since, I have tried many cables of all kinds and spent over 20 K on cable for two systems, one in Montreal and the other on the lake.
My criteria for all my components is physical: if my arms and neck hair are raised by the music, it works for me. The other critical aspect I discovered over the years is distortion, which I think has a lot to do with crossovers. I beleive that crossovers are powerful filters whose job is to kill music. Electrostatics are clean because they don't use such filters. But i still prefer normal drivers, , 2.5 ways because somehow the roll off frequencies are away from most of the music is.
My latest speaker are Wilson Sophia 3, Raidho X3 and Q Concept 500 .
The Transparent speaker cables work fine with Wilson and Q Concept. For the Raidho I use Luna Red for speakers and usb from the Aurender to the Devialet amp.
All of this just to give you context on what I a m about to say.
The cables I foud to have the most impact is the Power cable to the power amps (solid state)! Here are my recent experiments:
Audioquest Blizzard makes the Raidhos sound dark, as if the riboon tweeter were dead !
My most expensive cable is a DR Acoustics Red fire ultra ( 5K). It makes the Qconcepts too bright.
Custom made Furutech are much better with the Q Concepts.
I will try the DR power cable with the Raidhos next week.
They are all way better than the 5$ cords supplied with electronics.
Finally, I have found litthe effect of cables on Aurender streamers and Dacs. This is aanother subject though.
Thank you for any suggestions. This is my first post here, so be indulgent !
Power cords, interconnects and cables do make a big difference, one thing I have learned that new cables or used cables that have not been in use will need some time to break in, I had retired a pair of speaker cables that sounded just as good as the pair I'm using but of course I thought I would compare them again and the difference was night and day, the cables that had been out of use sounded nothing like they did before but after a few days of normal listening they sounded much better.. It's weird that what sounds good with someones gear might sound bad with your gear.If your like me sitting in the sweet spot wanting the best sound you can afford then you will have try a lot of combinations of cables, cords and interconnects but if you are happy with the way it sounds best to leave it alone and enjoy it. Instead of upgrading a preamp or power amp try different interconnects and you might be surprised how good it can sound and a lot cheaper than upgrading your preamp and less you go for the really expensive gear, and this is my thinking but most of us know if you have a high end or ultra high end system to get the most out of it you will need cabling to match that gear, basically match your cables to what your system needs, don't put high end cables on modest gear and don't put modest cables on high end gear, that is my advise to the newcomers of this hobby but for us old farts we know all that and let your ears decide what sounds the best on YOUR system and let the cabling break in but if the cable you just put in sounds better than what you have been using it should keep sounding better as it breaks but if sounds worst give it sometime of normal use then make your decision. |
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. |
Too much to read through all the previous posts, but the one thing that has never been explained to me (satisfactorily) is if PCs make such a profound difference, and if matching is so critical, why don't Amp (and any component) manufacturers help us out by providing the best cable for 'their' products?! I am not suggesting that cables do or do not make a difference, I'm simply asking a question from a practical/logical perspective. Manufactures spend countless hours and invest countless dollars to have their product stand out from the crowd, why would they leave something as simple as a PC on the sound-quality table?!.... |
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. |
@lucmichaud1. Your insights on audio cables are accurate. There is an article that supports your claim technically. |
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. |
I’ve enjoyed reading this thread of your journey. I had a somewhat similar path, starting as a complete skeptic (because i hadn’t heard the differences in initial experimentation) to now having a significant investment in every cable category (power, interconnect, digital and speaker). I never expected to get here. On your most recent post detailing experience with the Niagara adding volume. I can speculate a bit on why that might be the case. But, you might also consider that the Niagara unit is quite effective at reducing the noise floor such that any given volume seems higher because the background is now “blacker”. That was certainly my experience when I first installed a Niagara 5000. That unit is now in a lake home system replaced by a Nordost QB8 in my primary, but the effectiveness of the noise reduction circuitry in the Niagara was startling when I first heard it. Kind regards, mgrif104 |