Purist Audio power cords and cables

Inna
Albert, I've been reading your posts for years and have no reason not to believe your hearing and objectivity.
So, those cords are not just cords, they are also sort of power conditioners.Hope to try them one day. Currently using Custom Power Cord Company Top Gun cords, they are very good; I don't have very powerful amps for which they are not quite recommended.
Well, speed stability and dynamics are paramount. Why don't we see more direct drive tables? Too difficult to make them right?
You don't use linear tracking arms with your Technics. Why not? It doesn't work or just not a very good match?

Inna, That’s a lot of ground to cover and difficult to answer. Yes, Purist Limited and 25th Anniversary have a filter network that scrapes off noise, RF and EMI. In some systems this effect can be huge.

I have not tried Custom Power Cord Company Top Gun so it’s not appropriate for me to comment. I have listened to dozens of cables of all types and certainly there are some that stand out. All of this is dependant on the system they are put in.

As for why not more direct drive tables, actually there seem to be a swing back that way but we will have to see. VPI is producing one, Pass Labs frequently shows at audio venues with a Technics and PBN (Peter) is offering restored direct drive tables. They are not so rare as one might think.

As for linear track arms, I’ve owned a good many of them, beginning back in the 1970s with the Rabco and later the ET-2 built by Bruce Thigpen. In the time when CDs were supposed to take over analog I had the Versa Dynamics turntable with it’s linear tracking arm and later I owned several Basis Debut Gold tables and a couple of them had linear trackers including the Air Tangent from Europe.

After that I owned the Walker Proscenium with original arm and later the Black Diamond. Both were linear tracking.

Linear tracking does have lower tracking error but presents other problems at the same time. The worst of these in my mind is bearing coupling. An air bearing is not as stiff as a top notch captured bearing design such as SME, Tri Planar and other similar designs.

In short, the capture bearing designs are typically better bass performance and less likely to be “driven” by the cartridge. This is a general answer and does not cover all arms and certainly not every interaction with various cartridges.

As with cable, all these designs have their own sound and it would take a short novel to describe every variation. I will say that when you are in the presence of each of these as I was, the sense is that you have reached the limit of what is possible.

With time and perspective that changes and you realize there are multiple paths and if you can figure out exactly what you like and why, then choosing the correct gear gets easier.

Albert, thank you for taking the time and informative writing.
Figuring out what you like is easier than why you like what you do.
When I look at the pictures of those $100k turntables and then at the pictures of Studer decks that sound better than any of them, I think..well I just think that it's too bad that there is very limited number of pre-recorded reel tapes available. I don't think that vinyl was supposed to be an audiophile medium. Good for archive though.

Inna - unless you heard the top Wireworld your statement is subjective. I agree...Cardas was the poorest sounding wire I ever had in my system...and I have Ayre electronics who suggests Cardas.

Stringen .....we all get that you don't like Cardas ....you have made your point numerous times here. For 20 years I have had either close to the top of the line Purist or the top of their line cables in my system and have loved them ...PAD is a great company with great products and Jim Aud is great to work with .....However, I am sonically shocked over the ( new ) Cardas Clear and Clear Beyond cables ......change is not always a good thing in this hobby but I am considering the Cardas cables very seriously in MY system. So....why don't you give them a listen NOW because you obviously are basing your opinions.....on the older models of Cardas which were a little dark, fat sounding ....slow but were always '' musical ''.

I only heard older Cardas, that was enough for me to steer clear of it. However, next time I do a major upgrade - not very soon - which, I think, is going to be either a phono stage or cartridge, I might want to try some other brand. I have always wanted to try Echole cables - hard to find used -, but maybe also Wireworld, Stealth and High Fidelity. Unlikely but perhaps even newest Cardas.
Purist are great, but yeah it's not the only brand. Problem is that I usually advocate one brand throughout the entire system approach. Still, I could try different interconnects between phono and integrated amp leaving Purist Colossus speaker cables alone.
In any case, I believe that generating, proccessing and transmitting the signal are equally important. In this sense, cables are components. Power cords are very important too, but this is something different.