Here is a review between the AQ and PS. No comparison with the Torus, though.
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Niagara 5000 Vs Torus RM20 or PS Audio Power Plant 12
After upgrading my power cords, speaker wire, and adding a USB Reclocker, my system has become more highly resolving and I’ve become extremely sensitive to fluctuations in the quality of power. After midnight, my system becomes insanely revealing, holographic, and unconstrained. During the day, not so much. I am wanting my system to sound like it does after midnight, all the time!
My dealer loaned me their Niagara 5000, along with an older NRG-1000 20A cord to power it. Remember I’m using a Dragon high current to my amp.
Results - love what it does to bass and overall drive, but compared to that “after midnight” totally unconstrained free-flowing sound with my amp plugged into the wall, with the Niagara 5000 powered by the old NRG-1000 cord, I found the mids and upper frequencies to be constrained. Not terrible, but not like that glorious sound I get late at night.
I’m thinking / hoping that if I were to power the Niagara 5000 with a Dragon High Current, then maybe the mids and uppers won’t be so constrained? Any thoughts on this? The NRG-1000 is a far lower end cord vs the Dragon.
Also wondering how a Torus RM 20 or a PS Audio Power Plant 20 would compare. Not sure if I would be able to demo either of these however…
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@gdnrbob , thanks for this! Hoping to at least be able to do a bake-off between Torus and Niagara. I obviously can easily get the Audioquest demo from my local dealer, but I’ll need to check with a different dealer to see if a Torus demo is an option. If not, I’m almost willing to do a blind purchase IF the Niagara 5000 doesn’t do everything I want. These products are in high demand; worst case scenario I’ve paid a premium to rule out conditioners in my system (still leaves an option for PS regenerators though). |
@gwng8 , maybe you have good clean power, making conditioning unnecessary, and making the Torus do nothing? I can tell my power is clean after midnight, my system becomes downright holographic. If adding a Torus did nothing to my sound when the power is clean, I’d be fine with that. I’m trying to get to a point where I get that post-midnight sound any time of day… Seriously, the sound I get at night just makes me want to listen to stuff endlessly - everything I throw at my system sounds so detailed and engaging, and the soundstage just unfurls in every direction. I can even hear the difference at lower volumes, which is needed in those hours. It’s amazing but also I will be disappointed if I can’t find a way to make my system perform like this consistently! As someone else said, this is the price of upgrading my system to be this resolving. I definitely didn’t notice this difference until I got my Valhalla 2 speaker cables. At first, I thought that maybe my first impressions of the Valhalla 2’s were overblown when I listened to them a second time. But quickly realized the pattern of increased performance late at night. By far the worst time is just before and during dinner time. |
- 26 posts total