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!

moto_man

roxy54's avatar

roxy54

6,488 posts

 

@1971gto455ho 

You're making the assumption that you're the majority. I don't think that you are. Aside from that, these cords are far from "magic beans in a wooden box", and since you don't own one, you're in no position to make any judgement about them.

Not the majority. Far from it. But certainly the most noisy ones bunch

 

I am hijacking my own thread. Doesn't it make sense that if cables sound different, they should measure different, or the sound coming out of the speakers can be measured as being different?  I definitely have heard audible improvements with different cables. Many others here have as well.  Some seem to exaggerate the improvements that they have heard "blow me away," "like a new system" and other such hyperbole.  Maybe they're hearing so so finely tuned that it does sound like a new system . . . I don't know.  But shouldn't there be some sort of way of objectively measuring that difference besides a listener saying that it sounds better?

I recently got the cryo silver reference umbilical’s for my Musical Fidelity NuVista M3 and the difference over the stock umbilical’s were huge. Over the course of about a week of 24/7 run it they became more refined yet still very detailed like a first heard when I installed them. Measurements be damned anyone who doesn’t hear a before and after difference would have to be def .

@audiofreak71 

Well, what do you know!  And you actually heard the difference without seeing any scientific measurements! Me too...

As I observed initially, the improvement in sound quality was surprisingly noticeable considering that these are short cables in between the power supply and the DAC. Nonetheless, the improvement was audible and when the cost is considered, a great value.  I still wonder why the changes in sound quality can't be measured in some way, even if its using (or especially when using) REW.  But I am a happy camper.