Question about Shunyata Power Conditioners
Hi, I recently purchased a couple of cables from Shunyata. First one is the Venom-X speaker cable, and the other is the Venom-X power cable. These are my first Shunyata products, and I am very impressed with them.
I’ve always been a fan of Kimber Kable, Most of my IC are Kimber Select & Hero lines, and I was using a pair of Kimber 12TC speaker cables, before replacing them with the Shunyata. I was actually comparing the Shunyata Venom-X to a pair of Kimber Bifocal XL, which is $1000 more expensive, and I like the Shunyata better especially in the bass department. The Shunyata really adds a nice slam and punchiness to the bass, I returned the Bifocal and kept the Shunyata.
Anyway I’m now thinking about adding a power conditioner from Shunyata. I’m considering either the Hydra Delta D6 or their reference line Denali 6000/s V2.
Has anyone had experience with either or both of these 2 conditioners, and be able to provide some feedbacks on their performance. The Denali is almost twice as expensive as the Hydra Delta, so I want to make sure I’m spending my hard earned dollars wisely.
Also FYI, I have not had heard much improvement of sound when it comes to power cables or conditioners. I currently own a Furman Elite 15i, and mostly Pangea power cables. The Pangea are very affordable comparing to many other brands of power cables. That’s one of the reasons why I purchased them. Mostly for my peace of mind. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard much improvement over stock cables. The Forman Elite is also reasonably priced with a lot of outlets.
I always think that I must have very decent power source in my home already, and therefore I don’t hear much improvement. I’m not a skeptic when it comes to power cables and conditioners, I just simply don’t have many positive experiences with them.
One more thing I want to mention is that I do my own noise test by cranking up my volume control on my preamp to max, with my digital source turned on but not playing anything (of course). I put my ear right again my speakers and hardly hear any hum or noise at all. So I concluded that I don't have any noise issue in my system. This is hardly a scientific experiment and please tell me if this is a stupid test. 😀
Anyway, any comments and shared experiences will be appreciated. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for all the comments so far. I don’t dislike my Furman Elite, it seems to just do its job and get out of the way. I am just very curious if higher end conditioners combined with higher end power cords will make an audible improvement to my system. All comments I read so far about Shunyata’s power products are mostly positive. So I am assuming and hoping the Shunyata Hydra Delta or Denali will perform noticeably better than my Furman. There’s currently a pretty good discount on the Hydra Delta D6, and that’s what got me thinking about upgrading my entire power system. My head is telling me to go for the Hydra at a lower price point, but my heart is telling me to go for the higher end Denali. What would you do if you were me? 😀 The Everest is a bit over my budget, plus it only comes in a tower form factor which doesn’t work for me. Hey @vonhelmholtz, may I ask you which Shunyata cable are you using for your Everest conditioner? I am currently thinking to pair the Hydra with the Alpha XC power cord, and the Sigma XC for the Denali, if I decide to go for either one of these conditioners. Thanks! Hey @overthemoon, the Kimber Bifocal is a very nice cable over the 12TC. It has much better and spacious sound stage and deeper bass. One thing I don’t like about it are the WBT connectors. I went for the banana version and it’s a real pain to insert or remove from the connectors in my amp and my speakers. It beats the Venom-X on the sound stage, but a bit less articulated in the bass. I also got a pretty good open box discount on the Venom-X from Music Direct. It came out to be about $1500 cheaper than the Bifocal. so It was hard to resist on the price. |
I own the Everest and it’s great. I have incredible power cables too. But honestly the significance in cable sound is much much more heard with speaker cables, then in interconnects. If you have your dream speaker cables and interconnects then I’d upgrade power afterwards because they will reward your ears the least. |
