One other thing for your evaluation…best listening experience is usually after 11pm when you have lowest noise on the lines (even with dedicated circuit it still appears to be the case) and the house is quiet. Spend some quality time listening and making notes. As I said a few days minimum. Let it all settle. Before you switch back. And no surge protector. Direct to wall.
in that system with properly set up and positioned speakers in relation to the listening chair (start with equilateral triangle toed in then make a slight adjustment by moving the chair further away by half a foot or so and correcting the toe in for the new chair location) you should begin to hear changes however subtle they may be. It will most likely be increased clarity, more focus and position of instruments in the soundstage will be more clearly defined.
Make sure you are listening to at least the redbook 16/44 and higher res files.
The few days of listening hard and alone without someone talking at the same time music is playing, should begin training your ear to be able to discern changes.
No guarantee that the final results will be any different than your initial assessment but at least you have given it all a fair shot at showing you what it’s capable of. I’m familiar with McIntosh amplifiers and they react to power cord changes and the AQ Dragon is one of the power cords that should take these components further towards more refined presentation. If at the end you hear no difference then it is what it is.
ABX testing with AQ Dragon power cords
I was talking to my dealer about how good the system sounds that he sold me. I mentioned that I had tried some new speaker/interconnect cables from a local amp/cable manufacturer & both I and the company boss agreed that there was little discernible sound difference between his cables & mine. He couldn’t understand why. He also told me that my room acoustics were amazing, top notch. He’d like me to bring my cables (& his) to his listening room & we’ll compare there. That’s for next week.
My dealer said that in his 40 years this has never happened & he was ready to rise to the challenge. He said he would send me a couple of AQ Hurricane power cords to try on my amp/pre and I’d be amazed. I said why bother, send some Dragons. He told me to connect them to my amp & preamp & I should be amazed within 10 seconds of comparing. Today I received a Dragon HC & Source power cord. I listened to some music I’m very familiar with through my Lumin T3 playing FLAC files from the attached USB. Then I swapped the amp & pre to the Dragons and listened to the same songs. No difference that I could tell. So I redid the test, one song at a time, switching back & forth. Still no difference.
I invited two neighbors over (separately) and asked them to look at my FLAC library & choose a song that they knew well. I played that for them with both sets of power cords. One said he couldn’t hear any difference between the two. The other said that one (mine) sounded like it had slightly more treble, the other (Dragon) sounded like more bass. I played a third version (turned out it was mine but he didn’t know) and he said that was the bass version. He was wrong & admitted that the differences were so small that he really couldn’t choose between the two.
I called my dealer & he asked if the difference was earth shattering. I told him no & he asked how that was possible when he just sent similar cables to another customer last week with a similarly priced system as mine & that guy said that the SQ improved 50% and was ecstatic. I said that that guy must have decided already that he was going to buy them and determined that for that money they must improve the sound. My dealer said that either my ears are those a near dead 95 year old or his last 40 years experience have been a sham. I suggested that he was selling & demoing a product to people that had a propensity to believe it worked & therefore it worked for them. I offered to have him drive here (4 hour drive) and listen for himself & I’ll swap cables while his mind is blown. We may get there yet.
I hesitate to post a photo of my listening room as experience tells me that those that are strong proponents of cables will pick it apart and blame a myriad of other crap rather than recognizing that the 3 of us heard no difference on a high resolving system situated in a room would good acoustics... but here goes.
McIntosh MC462/C2700, Pure Fidelity Harmony TT, Gold Note PH-10/PSU-10 phono stage, Lumin T3/Sbooster, Sonus Faber Amati G5 speakers, Sonus Faber Gravis V sub.
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There have been so many Internet discussions about cables and interconnects. I think it’s important one to acknowledge that we don’t know hear the same. For example, or recent hearing test for me Shows That I am a couple decibels down and hearing in the mid range may be a bit more, depending on the frequency, but my ears are still very sensitive to super high frequencies So my hearing is a response curve is basically the shape which means I don’t know what it’s all the mid range detail, but I love so much. Anyway, power cables for me I have certainly made a difference, but not under all conditions, even in the same room with the same equipment. I have found the cables make the biggest difference for sensitive digital sources, like a dac and a streamer. I have a proceed power amp that always sounds better when plugged into the wall. If we try a cable and you think it makes a difference maybe you can hear a difference it’s your money and your time. If you try a cable and you cannot hear a difference, then you have either reach the limits of your hearing or the cable is crap. So I think there are a lot of factors that influence your sound even if it’s in the same room and the room is treated well and some components have better supplies sources and are less affected by power cables Example that is the external power supply for DACs. anyway, have fun arguing. I’m gonna go get a beer.
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@roxy54 lol |
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