2. cables
  3. 189893-189728

ABX testing with AQ Dragon power cords

I was talking to my dealer about how good the system sounds that he sold me. I mentioned that I had tried some new speaker/interconnect cables from a local amp/cable manufacturer & both I and the company boss agreed that there was little discernible sound difference between his cables & mine. He couldn’t understand why. He also told me that my room acoustics were amazing, top notch. He’d like me to bring my cables (& his) to his listening room & we’ll compare there. That’s for next week.

My dealer said that in his 40 years this has never happened & he was ready to rise to the challenge. He said he would send me a couple of AQ Hurricane power cords to try on my amp/pre and I’d be amazed. I said why bother, send some Dragons. He told me to connect them to my amp & preamp & I should be amazed within 10 seconds of comparing. Today I received a Dragon HC & Source power cord. I listened to some music I’m very familiar with through my Lumin T3 playing FLAC files from the attached USB. Then I swapped the amp & pre to the Dragons and listened to the same songs. No difference that I could tell. So I redid the test, one song at a time, switching back & forth. Still no difference.

I invited two neighbors over (separately) and asked them to look at my FLAC library & choose a song that they knew well. I played that for them with both sets of power cords. One said he couldn’t hear any difference between the two. The other said that one (mine) sounded like it had slightly more treble, the other (Dragon) sounded like more bass. I played a third version (turned out it was mine but he didn’t know) and he said that was the bass version. He was wrong & admitted that the differences were so small that he really couldn’t choose between the two.

I called my dealer & he asked if the difference was earth shattering. I told him no & he asked how that was possible when he just sent similar cables to another customer last week with a similarly priced system as mine & that guy said that the SQ improved 50% and was ecstatic. I said that that guy must have decided already that he was going to buy them and determined that for that money they must improve the sound. My dealer said that either my ears are those a near dead 95 year old or his last 40 years experience have been a sham. I suggested that he was selling & demoing a product to people that had a propensity to believe it worked & therefore it worked for them. I offered to have him drive here (4 hour drive) and listen for himself & I’ll swap cables while his mind is blown. We may get there yet.

I hesitate to post a photo of my listening room as experience tells me that those that are strong proponents of cables will pick it apart and blame a myriad of other crap  rather than recognizing that the 3 of us heard no difference on a high resolving system situated in a room would good acoustics... but here goes.

 

McIntosh MC462/C2700, Pure Fidelity Harmony TT, Gold Note PH-10/PSU-10 phono stage, Lumin T3/Sbooster, Sonus Faber Amati G5 speakers, Sonus Faber Gravis V sub.

dwcda
dwcda OP
116 posts
 

I've moved the speakers out & closer a bit. The center of the speaker is now 55" from the back wall. The speaker centers are 82" apart and the listening position is 82" from the center of each speaker. I listened for awhile & I do like the sound so I'll keep it like this for awhile & play some records. Time will tell. 

asctim
479 posts
 

The owner of the amp/cable company heard no difference. He still thinks that there is a reason for it and is working to help me determine why.

Under normal circumstances we shouldn’t expect to hear differences between these cables, so I don’t think looking for a reason is appropriate here. Looking for a reason when a difference is perceived makes more sense. If a way is found to make a perceivable difference happen, then we’d like to know what kinds of things were changed, and it’d be interesting to see if measurements can pick up on something, and maybe we’ll solve a mystery.

Room looks nice! How resolving it actually is I can't say with any confidence by looking at it. You could test that too, using REW. You can also listen to bass and lower midrange clarity using a gated burst test like the MATT:

 

donavabdear's avatar
donavabdear
502 posts
 

In all the cable cable controversy, it is the cable believers who so quickly go to the ad hominem remarks and get upset so quickly. This is no surprise since they are the ones who have fell for the anti-science paycho acoustic depths and spent so much money they could have spent on room acoustics or speakers. 

There is a physics principle that says you can't get more information than the original signal. Your system has cables that are probably better than most recording studios so any differences you hear using super duper cables are outside the limits of what the recording engineer, musician and producer heard in the first place. There is no getting around this argument. 

Another reason you can't hear the difference is because you have well designed power supplies in your components, the argument that the better the system is the more you can hear the cables is backwards.

 

baylinor's avatar
baylinor
1,417 posts
 

Good of you to try!

The equal triangle distance is something that is rebuked by many. The ideal distance between the speakers should be about 83% of the distance between your ears and the speakers. Meaning you would be better off 100" from the speakers since they are 83" apart. The other important component to all that is to have at least 8 feet behind your head to the back wall. If you don't then you would need to shorten the distances between the speakers and yourself. Anyway, once I found this out, I have never had any inclination to change it. Main difference is my speakers have less than a 1/2" of tow in because my acoustic treatments allow for it. The toe in thing is obviously speaker dependant but the room has a lot to do with it. Your speakers look like the kind that could sound best if aimed straight out if your first reflection points are correctly treated. I use high diffusion there with absorption for second reflection points right next to it. Funny how this thing started with cables and moved onto things that will have much bigger impacts. Glad you are keeping an open mind. Enjoy the journey!

Post removed 
More to discover