thanks

 

Approximately zero. Shielded versus not-shielded is the only thing that will make a difference.

 

If you replace it, the key is to pick one that looks cool and nice.

And I’m not joking. You probably won’t hear a difference. So at least get the appearance sorted out.

best,

Jason

 

Yea, I have a decent mid-fi system that costs a few thousand bucks so I will be able to hear the difference (New Cambridge Audio amp, Marantz CD player, Monitor Audio speakers, Goertz flat speaker wires). Also, I have pretty good hearing so I will be able to hear a difference if there is one.

There are those who are pretty adamant that power cables do nothing but make your wallet lighter. I find it a bit amusing as about 40 years ago, there were a ton of people who said the same thing about speaker cables. That it's a bunch a mumbo jumbo created to lighten your wallets but we all know now that speaker cables make a huge difference. So, are power cables in a similar historical arc? So, I see that only one member @Evitzee here seems to have direct firsthand experience and he thinks that it does. Anyone else?

 

I spent significan time in my college years working on high-end audio and consulting for a local boutique shop here in Milwaukee. There is a lot of good stuff both old and new out there.

You can get to 98% rather easily. Once you pass 98%, a lot of it is personal taste. Me, I'm an imaging freak, and the Nobus/Signature speakers originally designed by Bob Smith (who stole from me, if you ever meet him, punch him in the face for me) are pretty darn special. These are dynamic speakers specifically designed to sound like Quad ESL-63s, except better.

But I got to the point where I was done fixing good designs with bad execution (Mark Dineen's B100 preamp) or bad designs (Counterpoint in the 80s).

I have my Stax DAC-Talent D/A converter with custom chip upgrades and Parasound electronics. The Zdac compares quite favorably with the upgraded Stax. With Parasound, you can easily get to 98% without breaking the bank.

You want to upgrade your system? Clean your connectors. They get cruddy after a while because rarely are they the same material between the cable and the equipment.

Shielded star-quad cabling can make a difference too. There is a lot of RF in the world today from HT wires across the street (I can't get any decent shortwave here) to cell towers and plenty of barely-shielded DC/DC converters.

But all of that stuff doesn't cost a lot of money. Belden star-quad is less than a dollar a foot and many of you can learn to solder.

As a credential or two... I worked as an electronics technician at the university to pay for college. When times were precarious, they opened a position for me, and I had to test for it. No formal training, I was #5 in the state. Alas, they closed the position, and by profession I am a technical writer today.

 

In this system, I could clearly hear changes to any cable. In a lower end system, the changes may not be so evident.

The best way to experiment is to borrow cables from the Cable Co. library and listen for yourself. I'd personally invest in cables once the foundational elements of the system were in place.

 

Actually, I said I couldn't tell if the power conditioner or upgraded cables made the difference that I heard. I tend to lean towards the power conditioner, but since I made the conditioner and cable changes at the same time I can't tell exactly which one made the difference, or maybe it was a combination of them.

 

Yes. I said shielded vs non-shielded can make a difference. Anything else is BS.

Speaker cables are interesting. At one point in the 80s, the fad was making speaker cables out of ribbon cable. I tried it... and it was "different".

Was it "better"? Not in my system.

The things is just about any chunk of wire has RCL associated with it. Those three parameters together plus the stuff on either end will definitely change the frequency response and the phase response. An ideal cable for anything has zero C and zero L and as little R as possible. Since that is impossible, you work with what you have. Maybe it makes a difference. Maybe it's a placebo.

I did an experiment once. I took an otherwise mostly-stock Dynaco amplifier and replaced the feedback resistor with a ten-turn pot. Then I fed it with a square wave on the input into a load of some type on the output. I was able to tune that amplifier just by adjusting the amount of feedback so I got a square wave on the output. Always meant to do that for my own speakers to see what happened... but things can be tweaked, sure. But there are no blanket statements to be made. Try it, and maybe you'll like it. But, if it costs significantly more, it's charlatanism in play.

 

That's interesting. The thing about this hobby is that science doesn't seem to be able to adequately explain what's happening most of the time. Experimentation seems to win out in actually improving the sound. While I'm also skeptical why a power cable should make a difference, there are enough people out there saying that they hear a difference. Of course, as you have already said, there's diminishing returns as you spend more. I care about finding the sweet spot where the best value can be had. I think in power cables that's between $250 and $500 it seems?

 

Power cables have one job. Deliver clean AC. If they're shielded, they can do that better. Anything else is placebo. Sorry.

 

Value is a different issue than detecting differences.
Interestingly both are personal decisions and experiences.

 

Appearance is nice, of course, but a bigger issue is flexibility. Many of these beefy power cables do not like to bend easily, you need to make sure you have enough clearance coming out of the wall and going into your component to accommodate these cables.

 

One thing being a technician taught me is that there is a LOT of stuff that is difficult to measure and then correlate to real-world results for people who can actually hear a difference, and not everyone can.

And once again, things might be different but better is individual choice.

 

I'm not as 'enthusiastic' as you when it comes to this hobby. That looks like a great system. With your own dedicated power too? I have no doubt that you can hear the smallest changes. If I were willing to spend your kind of money, I would get a Luxman L-509X amp and ATC SCM50 speakers...

 

A couple of tweaky things I've done that made a difference...

I had a New York Audio Labs tubed phono preamp. Its power supply had active regulation with 741-style op amps. I replaced them with LF351 high slew rate op amps and the sound improved tremendously... enough that other people could tell.

Another time I rewired a Dynaco Stereo 70 I had with silver-plated and Teflon-coated MIL-spec hookup wire. Suck off the old solder, replace with new. Big difference in sound, probably more from resoldering than the wire.

Either of these things would be very difficult to measure.

 

I must admit that I admired those lit Luxman receivers with the retracting faceplate.

 

Different power cables and/or shielded /non-shielded cables can sound better if you listen closely enough Whatever makes the system sound better to you is what counts. Speaker placement, room acoustics and the best source material in my experience are far more important factors for good sound quality.

(PS regarding power cables, ideally you’d have a separate circuit for your audio system as if your fridge is on the circuit, for example, this can certainly adversely affect your system).

 

A dedicated power circuit in heavy duty cable is a step forward.
For equipment that is not an amplifier I use a industrial auto trasformer.
Sounds good to me.

 

What are the three black column panels ?

 

I need some help out of fellow enthusiasts.

UK based here..

I have been asked to sell a family members Hi-Fi system as he no longer uses it.

I know that Cyrus is a good make, however, I’m trying to gauge if there’s more of a market for the system’s individually or complete?

Any extra information would be appreciated