What Power Cords for Rel S510 Subs?


I’m considering a pair of Rel S510s to go with my Diablo 300 and B&W 802 D2’s. I’ve invested quite a bit in cabling: Audioquest Dragon for my amp, Hurricanes for my source equipment, and Nordost Valhalla 2 for my speaker wire. I can clearly hear the difference between a Hurricane and a Dragon cord when powering my amp. The Dragon puts space and air around vocals and instruments with front to back depth.

There is no way I can afford anything better than two 3m Hurricanes for the Rel S510’s but my question is, how much do power cords matter for subs? Sadly for my wallet, I’ve found that higher grade cords do make a considerable difference for all my other components, verified through blind tests. Not as much as speaker cables, but still a big difference.

I also have a Innuos network isolation switch and also an Innuos USB reclocker, to support my Innuos Zenith Mk 3 streamer.

Does power cord quality matter less with subs than with everything else?

For the record I’ve seen other threads on this subject, with what seems to be consensus that power cords don’t matter with subs, but I was hoping others who, like me, appreciate the difference a top tier power cord can make, can comment on whether there truly is no benefit to using one when it comes to subs. Has anyone compared a Hurricane grade (or better) cord with a stock cord, connected to a high end sub?

 

nyev

Showing 3 responses by mceljo

@1971gto455ho - I assume that you believe that every audible difference can be easily measured.  I was a cable skeptic for the most part until a few months ago.  I got the itch dabble in the voodoo that is all things audiophile and opted to start with a pair of Waudio power cables that I picked up on Amazon for under $50 each.  I honestly didn't have high expectations and figured that the 10 awg cables would maximize whatever current capacity was available audible or not.  I put one on my Pathos Classic One MkIII and the other on my SACD player.  I immediately noticed a significant difference and then realized that I was listening using my DAC so the only change was the power cord on my amplifier.  I honestly had mixed feelings about the change because it was far more realistic sounding, but also was more sterile.  I considered the change to be objectively better, but part of me did miss the more full sound.  As a side note, I immediately didn't like the results with my SACD player and moved the power cord to the DAC where I've never noticed any difference from the power cord even after getting a more expensive Pangea for it.  My experience with the power cord on my amplifier convinced me to try a lower end Audioquest interconnect (DAC to amplifier) to replace my Blue Jeans Cable LC-1 and the result was that I kept the realistic sound but gained back the full/smooth sound that I felt had been lost.  The improvement was significant enough that I moved up the line (Chicago to Sydney) and again noticed an improvement in clarity with the tone remaining essentially the same.  I tried an Audioquest digital cable (Cinnamon) and didn't hear any difference compared to the Blue Jeans Cable that it replaced.

What have you heard (or not heard) that has you so convinced that cables cannot result in an audible difference?

This is kind of a random way to approach this.  I was looking at the Audioquest price book and noticed that their most expensive subwoofer cable retails for $340 for 2m.  Contrast this with their most expensive interconnect that retails for $2,750 for 0.5m.  Maybe it's an indicator for the amount that cable can impact the subwoofer signal.  

@kingharold - Boring!  Actually, I mostly started dabbling with cables out of a curiosity to see if I could hear a difference with my own ears and my own system.  The end result was yes and a very nice improvement in my system.  The experience didn't convince me to chase a unicorn as that's not my style.

 

@nyev - Most audiophile cables are beyond anything that I'd consider reasonable.  I started with the $100 Chicago interconnect and proved to myself that interconnects did make a difference in my system.  The result of pleasing enough that I opted to see what difference there might from jumping up the lineup a bit.  I needed out over the price sheet and decided that the $200 Yukon was the best value as the next level up in the same series was $500 and more than I'd ever spend and in the other series the Red River and Mackenzie are both triple balanced cables that are not optimized for RCA, so it seemed silly to pay for a design that was intended for XLR cables.  Audioquest confirmed that double balanced is better for RCA and triple balanced is better for XLR and that all lines will be switching over time to like Yukon to use difference cables for each type.