Been down this road with my dad's system. High end dCS digital stuff, B&W 802 speakers, Transparent Reference level interconnect, power conditioners, the works. One of the more recent changes me made was add a Transparent PLMM with MM1 technology. It is a very expensive power cable. There is no question that it made a difference. Generally speaking I believe in the efficacy of at least that brand power cable after years of tinkering.
Now to my system, I just picked up a Bryston BHA-1 headphone amp and a pair of Grado PS1000 headphones. The DAC is an Ayre QB-9. It is a great setup but the Grado's are unforgiving headphones in that fatiguing, raspy sort of way. Well I purchased them anyway knowing that there is a good chance that some of that rasp could be cured with various tweaks.
The first tweak I tried was a $200 High Performance Powerlink. I put that on the DAC. Immediately my overall enjoyment level went way up. A lot of the fatigue seemed to just disappear. I was not convinced so I returned the demo unit and replaced the stock cord. Sure enough when I listened to my system over the next few weeks something was just not right.
So I tried a better one. At $500 the Premium Power Link adds a Transparent Network Box to the cord. I had this in place on the DAC for two weeks. There is no question that it was an improvement in every way. It changed the whole character of the system. The peakiness of the highs were more pleasant, I could listnen louder, the bass was punchier and had more articulation, and I just got the general sense that the system was more refined and there was less noise and more music. It sounded a lot more like my dad's setup.
I returned the demo unit and now I am simply unhappy with my setup with the stock cords. But before I returned it I did one last experiment. I put the Premium Power Link on the headphone amplifier instead of the DAC. Well all the improvements described above were gone, but now I had a much wider soundstage and better imaging and separation. It was a totally different experience then using it on the DAC.
My conclusion is therefore that I need one high end cord for each component.
Are these products ridiculously marked up? Yes I am sure if I cracked one open what is inside would not be terribly expensive or impressive looking. However, there seems to be something about the geometry of the cable, the materials used, the network box, and the length of the cable--they seem to know how to optimize and build these things and they just work. And they do get better as you go up the line.
So I believe they work, I have heard them and I covet them based on empirical testing. Overpriced, but they work.
