This is kind of a random way to approach this. I was looking at the Audioquest price book and noticed that their most expensive subwoofer cable retails for $340 for 2m. Contrast this with their most expensive interconnect that retails for $2,750 for 0.5m. Maybe it's an indicator for the amount that cable can impact the subwoofer signal.
What Power Cords for Rel S510 Subs?
I’m considering a pair of Rel S510s to go with my Diablo 300 and B&W 802 D2’s. I’ve invested quite a bit in cabling: Audioquest Dragon for my amp, Hurricanes for my source equipment, and Nordost Valhalla 2 for my speaker wire. I can clearly hear the difference between a Hurricane and a Dragon cord when powering my amp. The Dragon puts space and air around vocals and instruments with front to back depth.
There is no way I can afford anything better than two 3m Hurricanes for the Rel S510’s but my question is, how much do power cords matter for subs? Sadly for my wallet, I’ve found that higher grade cords do make a considerable difference for all my other components, verified through blind tests. Not as much as speaker cables, but still a big difference.
I also have a Innuos network isolation switch and also an Innuos USB reclocker, to support my Innuos Zenith Mk 3 streamer.
Does power cord quality matter less with subs than with everything else?
For the record I’ve seen other threads on this subject, with what seems to be consensus that power cords don’t matter with subs, but I was hoping others who, like me, appreciate the difference a top tier power cord can make, can comment on whether there truly is no benefit to using one when it comes to subs. Has anyone compared a Hurricane grade (or better) cord with a stock cord, connected to a high end sub?
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@mceljo Interesting you noticed that in the Audioquest price list too…. As I am also an ultra-geek I’ve perused that guide many times, often with a sinking feeling when I see where the prices can go (Dragon Zero + Bass biwire holy crap…). That said, I noticed a few pricing discrepancies like you noted with the much lower priced sub cable. Also of note is where their RCA interconnect and USB and digital cords top out, which is thousands less than their top power cords and an order of magnitude lower than their top speaker cables. I actually can’t believe that their top USB cord costs less than $1k. In comparison, Nordost has USB and RCA cables that cost many, many thousands more. I believe Transparent digital cables also top out at a “reasonable” price too. But you may be on to something. I tested the $6k Nordost Valhalla 2 USB against my $650 Audioquest top of the line Diamond USB. The Nordost was better, slightly but noticeably, in the mid and upper ranges. A bit more solid, confident and well formed. Bass was super clean, but there was less of it with the Nordost. Ultimately for that cost, I felt I could get further with other upgrades per dollar spent, and I am now perfectly happy with my Audioquest Diamond USB cables. And this is coming from someone who owns Nordost Valhalla 2 speaker cables and jumpers, and two Audioquest Dragon high current power cords (each of which I feel individually made a worthy difference). Long story short, maybe Audioquest doesn’t bother with ultra mega costly cables when there are not sufficient benefits.
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Probably overkill but I'm using Anticable power cables for my REL S510's. I think they're great cables for the money, especially when found used or on their clearance page. I also had customer high level cables made by schmidt customer audio cables, which I think made a bigger difference than the power cable. I like having banana plugs on the cables but make sure if you're running dual subs that may need to have the red and yellow cable terminated together. |
@kingharold - Boring! Actually, I mostly started dabbling with cables out of a curiosity to see if I could hear a difference with my own ears and my own system. The end result was yes and a very nice improvement in my system. The experience didn't convince me to chase a unicorn as that's not my style.
@nyev - Most audiophile cables are beyond anything that I'd consider reasonable. I started with the $100 Chicago interconnect and proved to myself that interconnects did make a difference in my system. The result of pleasing enough that I opted to see what difference there might from jumping up the lineup a bit. I needed out over the price sheet and decided that the $200 Yukon was the best value as the next level up in the same series was $500 and more than I'd ever spend and in the other series the Red River and Mackenzie are both triple balanced cables that are not optimized for RCA, so it seemed silly to pay for a design that was intended for XLR cables. Audioquest confirmed that double balanced is better for RCA and triple balanced is better for XLR and that all lines will be switching over time to like Yukon to use difference cables for each type. |
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