2. cables
  3. 177568-172594

Sharing my experience with cables

Almost 40 years ago, a dealer in Montreal loaned me a pair of MIT cables. My scientific background refused the idea that cables would have any impact on electrons propagating at the seed of light.

The impact on the soud was so evident that I bought them. Since, I have tried many cables of all kinds and spent over 20 K on cable for two systems, one in Montreal and the other on the lake.

My criteria for all my components is physical:  if my arms and neck hair are raised by the music, it works for me. The other critical aspect I discovered over the years is distortion, which I think has a lot to do with crossovers. I beleive that crossovers are powerful filters whose job is to kill music.  Electrostatics are clean because they don't use such filters. But i still prefer normal drivers, , 2.5 ways because somehow the roll off frequencies are away from most of the music is. 

My latest speaker are Wilson Sophia 3, Raidho X3 and Q Concept 500 .

The Transparent speaker cables work fine with Wilson and Q Concept. For the Raidho I use  Luna Red for speakers and usb from the Aurender to the Devialet amp.

All of this just to give you context on what I a m about to say.

The cables I foud to have the most impact is the Power cable to the power amps (solid state)!  Here are my recent experiments:

Audioquest Blizzard makes the Raidhos sound dark, as if the riboon tweeter were dead !  

My most expensive cable is a DR Acoustics Red fire ultra ( 5K).  It makes  the Qconcepts too bright.   

Custom made Furutech are  much better with the Q Concepts.

I will try the DR power cable with the Raidhos next week.

They are all way better than the 5$ cords supplied with electronics. 

Finally, I have found litthe effect of cables on Aurender streamers and Dacs. This is aanother subject though.

 

Thank you for any suggestions. This is my first post here, so be indulgent !

 

lucmichaud1
chenaudiolab
9 posts
 

@lucmichaud1. Your insights on audio cables are accurate. There is an article that supports your claim technically.

lucmichaud1 OP
27 posts
 

I keep experimenting with cables, as there are no measurements to helps us in this quest.

I live in the country where power is unstable, blowing up led lights occasionnaly.

So I started to look for a surge protector which would not choke the amplifier, as the ifi powercenter did. I got a Niagara 1200 really cheap at the Montreal audiofest.

I only wanted a surge protection. But I wanted to verify those claims about sq improvement. S I made a playlist of well recorded music files on my Aurender disk.

I asked my wife to sit with me during this AB test.  Well, to my surprise, she also noticed clear changes. The trumpets in Leonard Cohen My Oh My were more metallic.  And the separation of instruments in Mahler 3rd 1st movement by Michael Tilson Thomas was mauch better. 

But the biggest change we both noticed was that the volume was much louder, although the level in the amplifier was exactly the same. A big change, more like adding 3-5 db to the amplifier.

Now that was a surprise. The Niagara does the same as getting a amplifier with twice the power, a very expensive option.

Just wanted to share this.

On a completely different subject, I head the MOFI 10 speaker again, in a smaller room with Hegel amp. Amazing image and depth. What an incredible bargain.

mgrif104
351 posts
 

@lucmichaud1 

I’ve enjoyed reading this thread of your journey. I had a somewhat similar path, starting as a complete skeptic (because i hadn’t heard the differences in initial experimentation) to now having a significant investment in every cable category (power, interconnect, digital and speaker). I never expected to get here.

On your most recent post detailing experience with the Niagara adding volume. I can speculate a bit on why that might be the case. But, you might also consider that the Niagara unit is quite effective at reducing the noise floor such that any given volume seems higher because the background is now “blacker”. 

That was certainly my experience when I first installed a Niagara 5000. That unit is now in a lake home system replaced by a Nordost QB8 in my primary, but the effectiveness of the noise reduction circuitry in the Niagara was startling when I first heard it. 

Kind regards,

mgrif104

lucmichaud1 OP
27 posts
 

Thank you for your posts, very helpful.

Over the last two years I continued my power cables experiments for my Raidho and Devialet 220 Expert Pro.  The best solution so far was a Siltech classic 680 .  Very good match with the Raidho ribbon tweeters. Very clean highs, no edginess and no fatigue. Adding a Niagara 1200 for surge protection ( wild power fuctuations during thunderstroms here ), I was baffled by the unexpected increase in volume and details.  

Replacing the Z3 with a Tornado PC gave a further increase in dynamics, but somhow the separation and details were adversy affected, as if you put an entire symphonic orchestra in a two door garage. I am exxagerating of course, but its the general idea.  Also, the barely audible decorations in My Secret Life of Leonard Cohen were... no longer audible.

AQ suggests I go with all Blizzard , for synergy reasons. I will try that and also a Silver coated cable from AQ.  But maybe there is another solution ? Going back to the Z3 ?  Getting Another Siltech ? Soimeting else ? 

I would like to hear your thoughts on this. 

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