PS Audio AC-5 question

Nasaman, Iam 70% music and 30% HT. If you were to identify the weak gear for my music listening between Anthem AVM-20 pre and Parasound HCA 1205A amp, which one will that be.

Lake11,
I was exactly in your shoes, going 80% music and 20% movies/TV. The AC-5 did bring me smiles when compared with other cords. Before I'm pointing out your weakest link, allow me to write few more things about the AC-5.
My Anthem's gear did appreciate the AC-5. The AC-5 gave me what I was looking for in that application, 80/20, detailed, classed and clean sound. Very fast respond for movies. It covered up weakness and flaws of Anthem's gear. But right when I took a big step and moved to a dedicated 2-ch gear (Jeff Rowland), I found that the AC-5 went a bit away from my 2-ch listening- musicality and warmness.
But as time goes by, I now do miss the AC-5. As matter of fact, I'm looking to buy a used one again right now, but there's so many fakes ones out there that I'm just tired of looking, searching, and investigating.
Read here and chat directly with PS-audio's CEO:
http://www.psaudio.com/ps/forum/viewthread/774/

About your weakest link, I lived with my Anthem's gear for about 4 years and I thought I was in heaven each time I played it -reliable, fun, and friendly user... until, yup, until I took the risk and bought the seperate JRDG. My current JRDG 102 amp is only 100w D-class but gets much more clarity and class when compared with 225wpc Anthem A5. The pre-amp Anthem AVM-30 was not even close when put side-by-side with the JR Capri. How much diff? like a $100-unit compared with $2K one.
I kept the Anthem for awhile to try diff combos & mix it up and I felt that the Capri preamp mated with A5 amp sounded cleaner than the AVM30 mated with JR 102 amp. Though I've never owned your Parasound, I think I'd still pick the Anthem AVM20 as for my first replacement.
Great luck.
Best,

Hi Nasaman and Lake like you guys I too am 80 music 20 movies, and have tried to strike a balance accordinly.I also like to extract the full potential from my gear before moving up.here are the changes i made to get my money's worth from my Anthem avm 20. improvements came from moving up from a Parasound HCA 2003A 220 watts x3 to a Halo A21 and from Boston Acoustics VR40 to E100 mains (breath taking speakers)swithiching from mostly AQ cables to Morrow Sp3 bi-wire and Ps audio Ac-3's thoughout and some wall treatments to get rid of first reflections and 2 corner bass traps. Mind you this was all nice to get started and yeilded great results , next I looked at powerconditioners and wanted to get my 5yr old Monster hts 2600mk2 off the system, This led me to Ps Audio and decided to Purchase an Quintet for everything but the A21. I read some where else someone had great results with Jc-1 mono blocks on the Ps audio Soloist Premier in wall power conditioner so why not Ithought the idea of being able to protect my amps and not loose power delievery sounded compelling, before I was in the straight to the wall amp camp.now mind you I already had 2 dedicated 20amp lines one for the rest and one for my A21 and Soloist and gosh the doors to High fidelity swung wide open. so in my humble opiniion I would adress power first and you'll really see what your avm 20 can do after that of course sure an dedicated preamp would be nice but only if needed you have already begun to get better sound from it trust me theres more and for not alot of money the 8 pannels and 2 bass traps in coustom colors ran me about $400 and the power upgrade Quintet, Soloist Premier and Premier outlet about $700 I now have the best of both killer 2 channel setup and a theater that rocks!

As of now, I have 'Monster HTS-3500 MKII' feeding
- Parasound amp thru PS Audio AC-10
- AVM 20 preamp thru PS Audio AC-5
- Velodyne Sub (stock cable)
- other players and TV

Monster power conditioner is connected to wall thru stock cable, I dont think the cable is changeable.

Not sure where to start the power cleanup!.

The Ps audio Quintet can be had for around $320-350 at music direct,The captive cord can be a limitation on the Monster. Cool thing is you won't believe how much impact the Powercord has on the overall sound of the conditioner after switching from the Monster which I loved for years, the Quintet had first noticiable deeper blacks on Hdtv and blu-ray movies and a more 3d look as well as richer colors Inoticed this first because after instalation I turned on the tv first(lol)! after that for music and HTsound, dead quitet soundstage, deeper bass and what one would precieve as increased dynamics it seemed louder? Now the benifit of changing the powercord is another ball game as this will effect the rest of your gear you get to see where what works best as you did with your amp and preamp and get even more out of your gear. (Imop) I would sell the Monster down the road and put the cash towards the Quintet you wont be sorry you did and like I did you'll see why power is truly is the foundation of your sound.