2. cables
  3. 177568-172594

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
lwin's avatar
lwin
572 posts
 

Ignore the wise guys and continue to trust your ears. Personally, I found that power cords had more impact on my digital gear than my amps and speaker cables had more positives and negatives than interconnects but that is just me as all systems are different as well as what we are listening for.

dancarlson10
33 posts
 

@lucmichaud1 

hi

my cable adventure from basic cheap cables has been utterly amazing. In my opinion it is what changed my system so so much from noise to music. The dedicated line followed by power cables (which no dealer told me to start with as they said speaker and interconnects) power cables transformed my listening experience totally. Music just came to life. I added one at a time and upgraded once i heard what they did. I only recently added Odin 2 speaker cable which of course is off the charts great. I went with Nordost after trying a couple different manufacturers including AQ. I liken my experience to power cables are cleaning my house well before a dinner party occurred. Clean house, quiet everything down to where I don’t hear that Muslin, blanket sheen of noise. Then interconnects which in my experience are nice but not even close to what I gained with great power cables. Then the speaker cables which is the party. I would never invite a party to a dirty house (unless in college) which is where i am at. Now the speaker cables add so much in the way of dynamics and energy. Man I love what cables do. I couldn’t imagine a system without them. I did it one step at a time so as not to be duped by sales or other peoples opinion. Nordost is an extraordinary line. Smooth dynamic but always about the music. But i really found that started to really happen around tyre 2 level. Which is expensive. I love tyre 2, but V2 is exceptional in smoothness and dynamics. Just my experience. 

 

dancarlson10
33 posts
 

@lucmichaud1 

i should add that I also have wilson speakers and VTL components. Every system is different.

parker65310
212 posts
 

Plus how clean the power is in your house will play a big role. So many factors that may or may not apply in every system. Two people could have identical systems that sound differently in different houses because of power and the listening space (layout, surface materials, etc). A bit mind blowing and intimidating for many when you think about it.

dancarlson10
33 posts
 

@parker65310 

 

totally accurate! High rises and cities power is so different. Depends on noise levels and interference. That is why in my 2 unit condo I have a dedicated 20 amp line. Cost me about 3k with nice 10-2 cable. Very important to not get cheap ass romex cable for this and don’t bend cable to dedicated line! About 750 for 200 feet. I then bought a great cable (v2) from wall into my qb8 power distributor. Then cables from the components. Hunting down and killing noise is so expensive, but is worth every penny for that hair raising on arm aound as lucmichaud1 said. 

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