@richmon, I hear you. I read the same stuff, most of it years ago. All I can tell you is that Brad was a perfect seller with me, and the cables really are excellent and an excellent value. If you are really interested, just mention the issues and say you would like to pay for them COD. I am very pleased with mine, and even seemed to open up more last night (with about 60 hours on them since I got them).
Short Review of Revelation Audio Passage Cryo-Silver™ Reference umbilical power cable
First, my system: I have an ARC REF6, a Pass Labs 250.8 amp, Wilson Audio Sabrina X speakers, and since I am fully digital, an MSB Discrete DAC with a Premier Power Base. I stream from a dedicated music server to the DAC. I had upgraded all of my cables to Shunyata Alpha’s. They are excellent cables by the way. The only thing left were two skinny stock power umbilical from the Premier Power Base to the Discrete DAC. After reading about these Revelation Audio Power cables specifically for the MSB power supply to the DAC, and a 30 day money-back guarantee, at $689 shipped, it seemed like a fairly inexpensive tweak. I couldn’t imagine how or why replacing these power cables between the DAC and power supply would make any real difference at all, but I decided to try them. From Order to receipt was five days. Hooked them up and let them run for 24 hours. I am not one to gush, especially over cables, but I have to admit that somehow, for some reason, these made a noticeable positive difference in my system.
First, and most noticeable to me, the soundstage had more depth, more 3 dimensionality. That alone was worth it because I felt that the soundstage had lacked depth. Now it has more. The second thing that I noticed was that the instruments had more defined placement in the soundstage, against a blacker background. On music that I knew intimately and routinely use as test music, such as Patricia Barber’s excellent Companion XRCD, Dark Side of the Moon, Gary Burton/Ralph Towner’s Matchbook, both of these improvements were immediately noticeable. Third, the instruments themselves had better tone, especially the cymbals and bass, and sounded "smoother" but still detailed. Now, I have no idea why these cables work, or what’s in them. I do know that if you are using MSB stock umbilicals, you will love these cables. For $689, it is a very cheap upgrade!
One word about Brad and Revelation Audio. There are several mostly old threads discussing customer service problems, long shipping delays and lack of response. When I first emailed him, I raised these issues and said that I wanted to pay for them COD. No problem. Brad was very responsive, they shipped immediately and even confirmed that they had arrived and that I was happy with them. So whatever problems there may (or may not) have been in 2010-2017, when most of the bad experiences apparently occurred, that is apparently in the past. Brad was a pleasure to deal with, and the product is high quality. In short, I highly recommend these umbilicals!
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Why don’t these companies give data, active material, research, with facts, to back up their claims ? I know…. Can’t be done !! You’re holding a well made pretty, mucho cable that was insanely priced.. of course it’s going to sound better. Then the sales lore, $500 is good $1000 is better. Heck spend more than the equipment cost.. da that makes sense. Doesn’t matter how old or young your ears are you’ve got to hear the improvement.. you’ve been Told. |
It's pretty simple. If you don't like it or don't believe it, don't buy it! Nobody is twisting your arm. I bought it and I clearly heard the improvement. I don't need scientific studies to confirm it. That's what I paid the designer for. As far as the experience of dealing with him, he was very responsive, and even emailed me to ask if I was satisfied with the cable.
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@1971gto455ho , I don’t want this to turn into a cables do/dont make any audible difference discussion, but I agree with you that logically, if something sounds different, there should be a way to measure that difference, either with REW and a high quality mic, or some other way. I figure that if it’s audible, it should be measurable too. But I am open to the possibility that perhaps a deeper soundstage or a better timbre is not measurable in terms of frequency response or by oscilloscope because the frequency response is still the same. I still think that the gold standard is being able to switch back and forth in an A/B test, but barring that, if it sounds better to ME, even if it is confirmation bias, it still sounds better to ME. I am not saying that cable differences are placebo effect, but the placebo effect is a real medical phenomenon. But I also agree that spending stupid money on cables does not necessarily get better sound. I find it hard to believe that a $30K cable costs more than $1k to make (just guessing). That all being said, these cables are $689 shipped. That is not a “break the bank” expense. If they make an audible improvement and have a 30 day money back guarantee, try them and see. |
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