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
jasonbourne52's avatar
jasonbourne52
2,863 posts
 

The Emperor really has no clothes on!

clearthinker's avatar
clearthinker
1,582 posts
 

@jasonbourne52 

I'm with you part of the way.

I certainly hear differences in cables when they are in the signal path but none in power cables and certainly none in fuses - well, I've only tried putting the fuse in the other way but many people say this makes a big difference because wire is directional.

But you are quite right.  All this is massively overdone and it's totally crazy to spend $5000 on a pair of cables when it buys a good amp or turntable, a luxury holiday or even something nice for the wife.

 

lucmichaud1 OP
27 posts
 

Thank you all so much for your responses. Food for thought for sure.

I can add that I do have dedicated lines with PS Audio and Audioquest wall outlets.

In my quest for the new main system, I have listened carefully to over 500,000 $ of high end speakers in the last year, not counting all those at the Montreal Audio show. A long but immensly satisfying journey. Thank you for the Dealers in Montreal , Codell Audio, Art et Son and Éric at Filtronique and in Paris,  Devialet main store and Présence audio. Speakers were Magicos, Wilsons, Paradigm Persona, Audiovector, Rockport, Focal, Sonus faber, Qln and Raidho, just to name the finalists. 

They were all great, but different. I could summarize my findings in another post.

But going back to cables, power in particular, I am quite baffled by the big sonic difference I hear between the Audioquest blizzard, which I would describe as dark, TDR Red Fire, too much detail and brightness for the Q Concepts and Furutech, with good balance but maybe less differentiantion of instruments in orchestral music. 

I know this is all scientifically unexplainable, but I still need to make a choice. 

My wife has better hearing than me, and although she has no interest in all this, she and her daughter immediately notice when I made a change and can describe it in their own terms, which are correct. 

I listen to hours of music every day, often at pretty high volumes. I discover new music with Apple Music and Qobuz reviews. I then buy the hires tracks from Qobuz and store them in the Aurender. Contemporary recordings by ECM, DG, Erased Tapes etc  are incredibly better than last century ones. But in the end, its the music that counts.

Thank you all again for sharing your thoughts with me. 

 

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
4,974 posts
 

it's totally crazy to spend $5000 on a pair of cables when it buys a good amp or turntable, a luxury holiday or even something nice for the wife.

Someone with a lot less money than you would say it's totally crazy to buy Starbucks when they can make instant coffee at home. 

If it gives someone pleasure to buy Starbucks or an expensive power cable, then your opinion as to how they *should* spend their money is almost the same as telling them that they are having the wrong pleasure. But surely you cannot say that.

audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,018 posts
 

Call me crazy, I noticed a difference when I installed my Audioquest Thunder PC....for me, an expensive cable at near a grand. It is connecting my Amp to my AQ Niagara, from there I use a AQ NRG Z3 cable to the wall receptacle, an AQ Edison. You have to wrestle the Thunder cable like a Python, but once in place, it stays put.

More to discover