I had three VD power cords sent here from a friend who lives overseas. We send each other cables at times to try and since VD was on this continent he asked if I would want to try them and then send them off to him. I thought that would be cool. The cords were The Audition, the Power 2 & the Power 3. I already had great cords here. I had the incredible David Elrod EPS Ribbon cable on the amp, the Shunyata Cobra on the Transport, Black Mamba on the DAC, & BMI Whale on the pre amp. I would LOVE to find a cheap cord like the $200 Audition and sell off my cords for a few grand any day.
Well they arrived and first thing I did was unplug the BMI Whale and stick the Audition on the pre amp. Thought that since bothof these cords are made by small direct sales companies that promise to give sensational bang for the buck it would be a great place to start. Plus, the Whale delivers a pretty good sound at the $400 price point. Bass was phenomenal! Very punchy and BIG! That was an immediate in-your-face hook. However, after a few minutes I noticed that now the vocals were pushed WAY out front. Then I noticed that the delicacy of the bells, triangles, and such were just plane veiled in comparison to the Whale. I know about burn in so I took it down to the "B" system in the basement and plugged it on my subwoofer for a couple weeks where it would get lots of use. Bringing it back into the main rig was still not on par w/ what I had here already. I tried it everywhere. It never fell flat on its face, but the concept that this was going to be a giant killer that would beat down $1,000 power cords was just not coming true IN MY SYSTEMS. Dynamics were just not as impactful throughout. Vocals were sort of unnatural in comparison to the cbales mentioned, & the details were just not as well delineated as the other cables. Transients were good, but not lightening fast like I have been experiencing before the VD went in.
One thing is I know that it can be cost effective to use three single solid core 10 awg cables to make a power cord. Lot less labor than hand twisting all those individual strands of copper, silver, and such. Still, most companies learned long time ago the faults of this large single solid core design. That being said, I DID like the Audition better than the PS Audio Mini Lab cable. So at it's $200 price point the VD Audition is a viable alternative that will yield INCREDIBLE results compared to those nasty stock cords manufacturers send w/ their gear. However, I am leaning that most of the time you get what you pay for.
FWIW, I have since replaced the BMI Whale on my pre amp w/ the Mikro Omega power Cord w/ Active Shielding. IMS this PC beat the Whale just about as badly as the Whale beat the Audition. W/ the OM on the system instead of the Whale I actually got BETTER bass, more detail on all frequency ranges, and the wamrest most natural vocals you can imagine. One note here is my Pre is a tube design & many times I hear how tubes take to ribbons like a duck to water. YMMV!!
So is the OM the "best" cord I have heard? NO! The David Elrod EPS line of ribbon power cords is the most transparent & dynamic cable I have ever heard IMS & that INCLUDES interconnects, digital , & speaker cables. It made that kind of a difference. Then again, you certainly can't get one of those for the price of an Audition, Whale, Omega Mikro, or even Cobra. So the VD is a great place to start one's path up the foodchain of PCs. The truely amazing thing though is how does VD sell their one monster cable for $50, the power three I think? That thing is bult like a tank!
