2. cables
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Does anyone have advice on power cables?

I am looking to upgrade the power cables for my home theater and was wondering if anyone has good advice as to where to start. I currently have a Cambridge Audio Azur 640R, Dynaudio Audience 82 front, 52 sides, 122 back and 122c center with an Earthquake Supernova sub. The components are ran through a Monster Reference 3500 mkII and a Monster UPS. The current power cables that I am using are the stock cables on the receiver and sub, but have Monster cable 300 power cables on the power conditioner and ups. I am using Monster m2.2s speaker cables for the fronts and center and XPHP CI in-wall for the sides and back. I was considering trying the Anticables for the front and center, but that is for another thread.

I guess my question is should I upgrade all power cables to see a difference, or is it most important to upgrade the receiver, or the power conditioner, or the ups? And does anyone have advice on good power cables that won't break the bank. I don't want to put a $1000 Cardas Golden reference cable on a $1500 receiver. Any help would be greatly appreciated. One other thing, I might be upgrading to a Marantz processor with an 8 channel amp setup, not that that impacts my question here.
nthlyt2
rnrmf1971
82 posts
 
I just posted about them in another thread here. The Pangea AC14 made such an upgrade to my system, i couldn't believe it.
Check it out here:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?fcabl&1260194207&read&keyw&zzpangea
jdub39
497 posts
 
I'll second the Ps Audio Ac-3, Ac-5 and Ac-10 truly remarkable!
nthlyt2 OP
8 posts
 
Hey guys, thanks for all the advice. For the money I think I'll try the Pangea cords, cause they're dirt cheap. I'll post to let you all know the results. I thought about the PS Audio cables, but to put AC-5's on everything would run about a grand. I'm not so sure I want to gamble that much money on potentially marginal gains. With that much money I would be halfway to upgrading my receiver to a separate processor/amp combo.
sakahara
181 posts
 
There's always used power cords.... PSA AC3 is fine, even the Jewel is decent enough (12 AWG, but smaller dia jacket/dialectric, no PE and different connectors). Either way, with the money saved, consider another PC (Furman,..etc), also fuses (HiFi Tuning), and speaker cable (you missed my Anti-Cables. Only have center speaker half-set now). These will make marked improvements.
pdn
438 posts
 
I went with an Audioquest NRG 1.5 for my Marantz SACD/DVD player with a C7 connection. The factory supplied power cord is crappy. Very reasonable and great sound.
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