Where to put my new power cable?

TBG,

Ha, I mean 'consensus' quite loosely. I know what you mean about not finding it. I own a pair of Zu Essence speakers. Just look up the comments on them; people either hate them or love them, there is no middle ground. I only bought mine once I'd actually heard them at home. There was no way to come to some sort of general understanding based on opinions expressed... Like Lou Reed said, "believe nothing that you hear, and only half of what you see..."

Cheers,

Ivan

Ivan - as people have said it can be a "touchy subject" but I'll wade in anyway, since I have just finished playing with all of my PC's!

I have, what I consider my best cable, on my amp. A DIY Furutech 10 awg cable
- why there, because as I upgraded the other cables I wanted to be able to easily hear any improvements
- plus - it gave me the most noticeable results
- plus the benefits were heard no matter what source played

I then had funds for other cable choices, so I next upgraded the power cable on my power conditioner to a DIY 12 awg DH Labs Power Plus, which powers only my source components
- why there, because when I upgraded the cables on the source components I was able to easily hear any improvements
- again - the benefits were heard no matter what source played
- however I did try it on the amp just to see how it would perform
- it performed as well as the Furutech 10 awg which was 5 times the price
- It's not built to the same "TANK-like" standards as the furutech is,
- but it performs like it! - I wish I'd found the DH Labs cables first!

Finally I upgraded my source PC to a DIY Furutech 15 awg screened cable
- another outstanding upgrade
- the differences were immediately noticeable and what a difference all the upgrades made!
- why back to Furutech? - well, it was previously on the power conditioner :-)

Now all PC upgrades are complete and the system sounds amazing.

Some source upgrades were incremental, but taking this approach allowed me to hear the differences each incremental upgrade made immediately.

During this process I read lots of info on PC's and the reason why PC's work is...
- even though the outlet voltage is constant at 120v...
- the current drawn from the outlet is as dynamic as the audio signal itself
- therefore you need great quality conductors in the mains cable to handle those dynamics
- just like you have good interconnects and speaker cables to handle audio dynamics
- in fact, interconnect, speaker and power cables in a system should all be of the same quality levels
- otherwise the benefits from money you spent on those good quality components/cables is not being realized
- and those that are of a lessor quality become the "weakest link" and
- drags the whole system performance down to that level.

Hope this helps and Good Luck

Well, I received the new power cords yesterday. I ended up getting three of them. I decided to plug one to each Manley 300b amp and one into my Shrimp pre. I got home relatively late last night, so I only listened for a short while and at very low listening levels 64db avg. I put on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, an album that I've been playing a lot lately. The improvements were readily apparent. Normally, it would take a lot more juice to get the soundstage to be so precisely defined and so stark in appearance, but there it was. The noise floor has clearly dropped lower than I've yet to experience; so, instrumental separation, side to side, and especially front to back, really stands out. Most importantly, however, is the astounding clarity of tone that I perceived. Every instrument sounds more like itself rather than a reproduction. I guess that the most intense change is in micro-dynamics and tonal accuracy. These are just my preliminary perceptions, right out of the box. I am very impressed with the Zu Bok cables. I hardly expected a power cable to have such a positive effect on my components...

Cheers,

Ivan

But Ivan - it's just a power cable! :-)

Despite all of the positive comments from people that have experienced improvements, there is still a large body of people who choose to believe they DO NOT make a difference.

Welcome to the power cable club!

If you are interested I have place an explanation on my blog at
http://www.image99.net/blog/files/category-you-need-good-power-cords.html

Happy Listening

I currently run Silnote power cords . I just replaced the 20 amp cord on my Power unit with a Syunyata Venom HC , I could immediately tell a difference . So I purchased 2 new cords from Mike Morrow . They are better than my Silnotes . But I needed 5 . Mike recommended replacing the Pre and Power amp cords . He said he recently changed HIS PHILOSOPHY on placement of cords . The cords had 240 hours burn in when shipped . I placed them as he suggested, and let my system IDLE for 24 hours . There is a noticeable improvement. Had I not asked, I would have done the DAC and the Pre. I think it’s a crap shoot , but I’ve had improved SQ with the more expensive cords . FWIW, I spent a whole day 3 weeks ago cleaning and treating all connections for all cables on all devices . I also have Hubble outlets . If I didn’t have an improvement, I would have returned the cords . Cheers, Mike.