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

@lucmichaud1 

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

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.

@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. 

if you buy OCC single crystal wire you don't have to do all this BS anymore, OCC single Crystal has been proven now for over 50 years to be the best wire for audio that is out there far superior to anything ofc at any price. and that MIT and transparent stuff is terrible those boxes just screw up everything.

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 $$$$!