@mgrif104 Dual PHDs? Wow, that kid must really love school. In what? I teach in the Bschool on the UM-Dearborn campus, although I also have an appointment on the Ann Arbor campus where I live. Next time you come to town to visit her, schedule a little extra time and bring some cables. I'll provide the stereo, the beverage of your choice, and someone to swap power cords so we didn't know what we were listening to. It would be fun to see if we could hear a difference.
Some observations from a former skeptic - and a question
I had been firmly in the camp that power cables made little difference. A few years ago, I purchased an AQ Niagara 5000 (very nice improvement by itself BTW) and had auditioned various power cables with it. Nothing too fancy but I found differences difficult to perceive so I just used AQ Monsoon cables. However, I continued to read how others felt power cables had the most impact which I found curious.
I recently decided to move the Niagara to a system in another home and was planning on getting another Niagara 5000. My local dealer (who carries both AQ and Nordost) suggested I try the Nordost QB 8 MK III which he claimed to be a notable improvement over the MK II variant.
I compared the Nordost and Niagara in home and found them different but not dramatically so. The Nordost I thought a bit more dynamic, the Niagara a bit “blacker” in background.
The same dealer was surprised and suggested we do an In-store demo of power cables going into the QB 8 (great move by the local dealer!).
And there it was. The benefit was clearly there in improved spatial cues - the better cables were more “open”. I tried the same thing in my system - and same result. Unfortunately, power cables do matter. I will note that the AQ Niagara - as much as I liked it (and it was the first conditioner that I heard that made a big difference) - was somewhat negating the impact of the higher end power cables (a nice benefit in hindsight).
Power cables don’t make as much a difference as interconnects or high quality digital cables (to my ears, in my system) but the benefits are there depending on your budget and appetite for going down the proverbial rabbit hole.
As an aside, despite Nordost’s claim otherwise, the dealer and I both found the cable from the wall to the QB8 the least impactful and the cable(s) from the QB8 to the amp and source most impactful.
My system now is mostly Valhalla 2s (interconnects and A/C from QB 8 to components. I never expected to get here given my previous experiences.
I need one more A/C cable to complete my loom - for my processor (part of my digital stack). I auditioned a Tyr 2 and it made a notable difference. Unfortunately.
My total expenditure in cables is now equal to the cost of the rest of my system which seems crazy on the surface, but the results have been really rewarding - and more audible than most component upgrades.
Which leads me to a question:
How does this group think an Odin 1 (several available on this website) would match with my Valhalla 2 loom? I’m gathering many users feel that Valhalla 2s are > Odin 1s.
I could just stick w/ Tyr 2 on that unit though the cost differentials are not that great between new Tyr 2 and used Odin 1, but Valhalla 2s are up there.
Thoughts?
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Her degrees will be in biomedical engineering and computational analytics. Yes, she’s a nerd, but our entire family is as well - she wears it well. I’d enjoy connecting and will keep that in mind. I can just imagine my daughter’s eye roll when I suggest I’m going to meet up with another audio buff to compare power cables. Then again, perhaps the curious engineer in her would come to the fore. But I would take a fair amount of good natured abuse from her and my wife… If I recall correctly, there is a pretty nice audio dealer in AA. You might casually wander in there and see if they would perform a blind demo for you. It would be in their interest to do so. You might come away reinforced in your viewpoint, or not. Best, |
@mgrif104 Very impressive. We're all proud nerds at our house too. I think the phrase "nerdy audiophile" may be redundant. Excellent idea about the audio shop. The audio dealer you are talking about is probably Paragon Sound. I was in there a few months ago listening to their million-dollar rig, which sounded astonishing. He's offered to lend me some power cords to try at home. I think I'll take him up on his offer and do a little blind trial on my own. Something in my gut tells me that it's unwise to post me email here. Not sure why this would be any better, but I have a contact form on my speaking website https://brandlovecentral.com/contact/ If you send me a message there, I'll get it. |
@ahuvia ossicle2brain writes that I am “not open to doing the work.”
I didn’t write that. Just to set the record straight. I can only speak about how lazy I am, which is very. :)
****************** The flip switch concept is interesting as a aid in this - I never thought of that. Of course, there would still be a sizable pause between cables as equipment should be shut off to avoid the big pulse. Further, my digital gear reboots after losing power.
It could be made so there is no pause. Briefly both would be in use before the changeover. It’s so easy to do that one wonders why they don’t and get super wealthy. What I would do if I had a super great cable: Set up a room at an audio show. Switch the cables every say 20 seconds or so and flash a light when changing. The golden ears walking around would pop in to the room and vote on which sounded better. They would just hit a button whenever that happened. Eventually the super great cable would have the vast majority of votes and the CEO would get super rich from selling this great cable.
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@mgrif104 , as to your original question...I have tryed all Valhalla and all Odin wires loop, except for the speaker cables, on all Burmester set up and Odin has far less of 'signature' than Valhalla (which in my experience can give somewhat clinical overall sond). Also, imho, new Nordost series have a different voicing than previous ones and aldo one can seldom read that, for example 'Tyr2 is old Valhala and Valhalla2 is the old Odin' I found that not to be true (heard tyr2 and valhala2, but not in my system) Nordost had its own house sound and its changed, again, imho. I Would say that old Odin is 'better' cable than V2, but also I would not make such investment to put it on NAD (please don get me wrong, its just that I think that such amount of money invested in another amp would be better used) |
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