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

Jason Bourne: you sound like you are in distress and / or panic mode. Three consecutive posts in a very short period of time:

The OP did not use blind testing! His opinions/conclusions are highly suspect! If I had a dollar for every "my golden ears tell me it is so" post here on Agon I’d have a million $$$$!

When is the OP going to submit his theory of why power cords sound different to the Noble Prize Committee for Physics? Enquiring minds want to know!

The Emperor really has no clothes on!

I encourage you to not do anything crazy, and calm down.

 

Breaking news to you: people are free to share their impressions here at will. They don’t need to provide any proof, blind tests or otherwise, to be able to share their impressions. On the other hand, please feel free to share your own blind tests, if that is what you are all about. Obviously, all your blind tests needs to be conducted under strict scientific parameters, and certified by an independent third party panel. 

 

+1 @ghdprentice 

I have definitely heard difference’s on my amplifier with different power cords, but little to none on my streamer or either CD player/transports.

All the best.

JD

The OP did not use blind testing! His opinions/conclusions are highly suspect!

So are yours.

I like Synergistic Research cables (and still use some other brands in the mix for power), but like you @lucmichaud1 , certain equipment seems to benefit more than others. Have to experiment and find what works best with your equipment. 

 

Both the OP and another poster a few posts into the thread politely asked the naysayers to refrain from making negative or dissenting comments ... guess what? That's exactly what happened. Kind of exposes their character.

I guess it would be asking too much for them to take a hands off approach and let the conversation go on unimpeded. 

Don't know if this dynamic ^^^ entertains any of our other members to the same degree as it does me, but it cracks me up to see certain members, almost always the same ones, knocking the approach someone else has taken to lower their noise floor or how they've built their own individual system.

I say this with the highest degree of respect for your particular setup, whatever you have, at whatever level you're participating in our shared hobby ... who gives a fly**g fa*t what you think. I think some just feel compelled to give others s**t?

I read one time years ago that someone likened the dynamic that goes on in these forums to the types of roles we all played, individually, in high school from a social standpoint. Like the type of cliques that were formed, whether you're a geek, dork, rich kid, bully, etc.

I'm not going to try to illustrate that point further b/c it's sort of a to each his own kind of thing as far as those perceptions go. But check out that dynamic and see if it doesn't fit. The two roles I'd like to point out are the d***h**d bully and the smart**s punk, because they seem to be the ones that are here to cause dissension. 

The way I've personally come to understand the relevance, for myself, of how power being clean or not affects my system, and the role that wires and cables play in how good my system performs is by listening to what literally everyone has had to share. All respective angles, you might say. By keeping an open mind and listening to other people's experiences ... both good and bad. That's also the reason I'm of the mindset that I think there's too much censorship. It causes so many valuable points and perspectives to be buried. Not disappearing those disruptive posts would also help those of us who're trying to be constructive around here identify the troublemakers.

Like others have pointed out, there are a lot of folks around here that have waaaaay bigger resources to build their systems than I do. I personally get a kick out of some of the absurd spending that goes on around here ... but it doesn't bother me in the least. I've got a little kid bit to share, having beacon bucks doesn't equate with being happy and most of the time works in the opposite direction. Some of those folks with the biggest budgets have taught me some of the best lessons about which direction I want to move next in building my system and refining my sound. The ones that's smart and have good taste, anyway.

I've got some rather revealing speakers, some would say too revealing and they're also rather detailed, again some would say too detailed (Martin Logan, Summit) ... but my own personal experience has been that at the moment I introduced a PS Audio P15 into my system it quite literally brought everything together. It was expensive as hell but I would say worth literally every penny.

My own understanding, from what I've learned from being schooled on this site, is that what that would indicate more than anything is that I have good synergy b/w my components. 

I read a ton of reviews before I bucked up for my Nordost cables b/c they're absurdly expensive, but I would have to agree that one of the best things about them is that they'll let whatever's there shine thru unabated. 

To each his/her own on what it takes to get your individual system to perform at its peak. From what I can tell it's both a science and an art ... and I suppose this issue is kind of like parenting, in that we all (every last one of us) gets to have our own take on the situation. And I believe it's even more true that every one of us will get results that are commensurate with our own individual understanding/mastery of all the different variables involved.

Like I said, I guess it's just asking too much for all of us to be able to get along and play together nicely. 

 

@tunefuldude +1

I ride the city bus to work. That bus has a mixture of people, but typically there are some that just *have* to tell random other people what they think. Sometimes they’re drunk, sometimes not. But for some there is this psychic pressure to let words out of their mouth. Others on the bus glance over at them or ignore them, mostly. They don’t want to get entangled with people who have "issues." Ignoring them is usually the safest course, and it allows civilized people to continue what they’re doing.

On occasion the people uttering random comments are threatening or obstreperous; so, the bus pulls over and the cops show up. Kind of unpleasant, but it’s the price of keeping things decent for everyone else.