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 !

 

lucmichaud1

@sparkymaui  OCC single crystal is a method of manufacturing. The metal is drawn in very long smooth strands with no breaks and fewer imperfections. A crude example would be a long strand of silk vs a strand of twine.

Yes power cords are crazy. Yes, they can make the biggest change over all the other cables.  Try a Purist Audio Dominus AC cord for your analog components.  Try their Aquila AC cord for Digital sources that output digital signals.  

https://www.puristaudiodesign.com/Data/products/type/type_power.html

Sharing my experience, In 55 years of owning audio equipment, I've never heard a mind-altering difference if you swap out one quality cable with another.  I have heard differences but nothing that ever made me say, "Damn, I just have to have one of those." 

I connected my current system together with Purist Audio products and a couple of other manufacturers of like level and the system sounds fine to me.  The audiologist tells me I have some specific hearing losses (different in each ear) so, at this point, if there is a difference I'm probably not going to hear it.  Makes it a whole lot easier than chasing the ever-changing world of the "best cable for my system." 

I understand people who do it as a hobby, it's never been a hobby for me, I treat it like it's a system to use not futz with trying to find the ultimate sound for the money I have Holy Grail pursuit.   

If you enjoy tweaking your system - and cables are the latest do-dad - have fun doing it.  Just look out for those fuses...

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man, ive had a bit of a learning experience around cables reently. i always used 16 or 14 AWG zip wire/extension cords for spear wire. if its long or higher wattage i use 12/2 landscape cable--pure copper, stranded, 12AWG. been happy. also used 12 AWG speaker cables for high power PA systems in my home stereo as well. 

used some cheap interconnects and used some blue jeans cables. 

bought some morrow audio recently. set up my smaller system entirely with morrow audio level one for components and level 2 between preamp and amp. usin level 2 or 3 speaker cable. the speaers im usin are really midrange foreward with plenty of detail in the upper register to use for nearfield monitors. lately theyve sounded harsh. 

well somethings happened. that hardhness has steadily been going away. im not getting used to it--the sound is getting smoother and sweeter ,and i dont know what the heck it could be other than burn in. 

my brother came over today and said its the best goddam desktop system hes ever heard. 

my source components are 

rega 3 w/ sumiko blue point #3, laptop -> moon audio 100D DAC, cheap DVD player-> moon audio 100D DAC

-> audio by van alstine fet valve RB preamp, stock jj tubes -> adcom GFA-535-> halford loudspeaers margaritas

hey, somethings happened. its defnitely sounding sweter and other folks have, unprompted, noticed.