About 8 months ago after reading some positive customer reviews, I ordered a short umbilical cord for my solid state pre. The customer service was courteius and prompt as was delivery. I received the cord and was immediately pleased with the positive difference it made in the system. The sound was more dimensional, and timbres seemed more authentic. I am very pleased and consider it well worth the $250 that I paid. I will also add that it is beautifully made.
Short Review of Revelation Audio Passage Cryo-Silver™ Reference umbilical power cable
First, my system: I have an ARC REF6, a Pass Labs 250.8 amp, Wilson Audio Sabrina X speakers, and since I am fully digital, an MSB Discrete DAC with a Premier Power Base. I stream from a dedicated music server to the DAC. I had upgraded all of my cables to Shunyata Alpha’s. They are excellent cables by the way. The only thing left were two skinny stock power umbilical from the Premier Power Base to the Discrete DAC. After reading about these Revelation Audio Power cables specifically for the MSB power supply to the DAC, and a 30 day money-back guarantee, at $689 shipped, it seemed like a fairly inexpensive tweak. I couldn’t imagine how or why replacing these power cables between the DAC and power supply would make any real difference at all, but I decided to try them. From Order to receipt was five days. Hooked them up and let them run for 24 hours. I am not one to gush, especially over cables, but I have to admit that somehow, for some reason, these made a noticeable positive difference in my system.
First, and most noticeable to me, the soundstage had more depth, more 3 dimensionality. That alone was worth it because I felt that the soundstage had lacked depth. Now it has more. The second thing that I noticed was that the instruments had more defined placement in the soundstage, against a blacker background. On music that I knew intimately and routinely use as test music, such as Patricia Barber’s excellent Companion XRCD, Dark Side of the Moon, Gary Burton/Ralph Towner’s Matchbook, both of these improvements were immediately noticeable. Third, the instruments themselves had better tone, especially the cymbals and bass, and sounded "smoother" but still detailed. Now, I have no idea why these cables work, or what’s in them. I do know that if you are using MSB stock umbilicals, you will love these cables. For $689, it is a very cheap upgrade!
One word about Brad and Revelation Audio. There are several mostly old threads discussing customer service problems, long shipping delays and lack of response. When I first emailed him, I raised these issues and said that I wanted to pay for them COD. No problem. Brad was very responsive, they shipped immediately and even confirmed that they had arrived and that I was happy with them. So whatever problems there may (or may not) have been in 2010-2017, when most of the bad experiences apparently occurred, that is apparently in the past. Brad was a pleasure to deal with, and the product is high quality. In short, I highly recommend these umbilicals!
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I purchased a Revelation Audio Labs Passage Cryo Silver Reference umbilical through Brad's ebay listings. I required a custom length for my Supratek Cabernet and Brad added a new listing on ebay for my specific purchase. All done very promptly and shipped to Canada arriving well before the estimated delivery date. The cords are burned in prior to purchase but they suggest that additional burn in time in your system will occur. Upon inserting into my system there was a noticeable improvement from the stock umbilical. Vocals were more present and 3 dimensional, bass was tighter and textured, treble had a little more sparkle and there was an overall smoothing of the sound without losing detail. In fact there was more clarity and detail. My 23 year old son who listens with me regularly said it was like hearing music for the first time again. All due to this short umbilical. I now want to try out the Precept II power cord. |
I guess my 65 year old ears weren't fooling! Both @rrboogie @roxy54 heard the same thing as I did. Trying to describe these improvements gives me some new respect for reviewers who try to describe such improvements. Would I say that it was like "hearing music for the first time again?" For me, it was not that pronounced, but there was an unmistakable improvement just as both described. As I said, very happy with the result, and given what I have spent on Shunyata cables, these were a startlingly good value. Let's put it this way: going from the Morrow MA7 XLRs to the Shunyata XLR was a much more subtle improvement than from the MSB stock umbilicals to the Revelation Audio umbilicals. For the price that MSB charges for DAC's, these should be included! |
I also read the bad press about significant delays in Revelation Audio cables which gave me pause. I contacted them a few months back asking about an umbilical for my Supratek Chenin, wheter they still made them. Next thing I get an email invoice for the umbilical when I never got close to ordering anything. Then I got a second invoice email making me think the shyster reports on the Gon were accurate. Hoping some more will chime in with positive transactions to make me comfortable with doing business. |
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