Best Power Cord
As the owner of several of the brands mentioned here, and a plethora of others, there is one constant I am aware of. 300 dollar cords don't compare to 2000 dollar ones.-- Not even 600 dollar ones do. Mix & match; that way this won't sound like an infomercial thread--If you only had sucess with just 1 or 2 cord brands. |
Natalie: Would you care to name all the up to $1000 cords you've used that have been bested by the Asylum Cord? In my experience, both the Blue Circle BC 62 and Cardas Golden (available used in the $100 to $200 range) easily outperformed the Asylum Cord (not that it is a decent improvement over stock cords at a reasonable price). Then there's Bob's TG Audio cords (sorry I don't have any experience with those); I doubt Bob would be selling many of those between $250 and $500 a pop (or even making them) if the Asylum Cord outperformed them. |
Hi: In my experience (King Cobra, Fat Man, FIM Gold etc) the best BY FAR power cords are of Elrod Power Systems, EPS; new company established by David Elrod, formerly of Electraglide. He has patent for his totally new design. You can find EPS in Manufacterer List. Beware, he has many months waiting list. I wated for my first order 6 weeks, for second 8 or 9 weeks and I am still waiting for the latest order. The difference between EPS and other power cords is in its ability to strip away layer and layers of veil between you and the music, which gives me "spooky" feeling of musicians playing in my room. Scary... At any rate, David is extraordinary nice person and I am sure if you will not like his cords you will be able to retutn them to him. Whatever you choose, good luck! |
The Sonoran Plateau is the best power cord I have ever experienced in my system.Much quieter backround,much more dynamic and never forward or etched sounding.I have never experienced the Virtual Dynamics power cord but I did hear the Nite interconnects in my system and one other I am very familiar with.They were second best to the Sonoran Plateau interconects.The Nites were very dynamic,very explosive and very large.The Sonoran Plateau was much quieter,with a much blacker backround with infinitly more dynamic shadings and subtle contrasts.MY listening experience tells me the Sonoran Plateau cables are the real thing! |
Hdm, I have sold a few of the TG power cords, about 7,000 in the past 18 years :-).....I think Natalie's point is well taken though as that 20 year old recipe cord still beats up the bulk of the aftermarket cords out there....Conversely, one is always better off getting a better component than any fancy wires as the wires really should be the icing on the cake.... |
Hey guys! I've heard/owned the Whale Elite, Wireworld Electra, Black Mamba, and most recently Virtual Dynamics "Audition". The Acoustic Zen "Krakatoa" had the slight edge, in all parameters, at least in MY system. But hey, they were ALL pretty darn good -- are we splitting copper hairs yet?? Having fun & driving my wife crazy in Ohio... |
Natalie: I've never really had to get over that "need" as I've never spent more than $200 on a power cord or $150 on an interconnect. But that doesn't really qualify me to make a statement that the cords I own are as good as any $1000 cable out there, as I haven't (and suspect you haven't either) tried them all. |
Have tried a number of cords on my Wadia 850. Ended up liking the new TG Audio SLVR best. Made everything more transparent and focused without glare or harshness. If you like the direction that TG HSR-I (genII) goes in your system, you'll probably like the SLVR even more. By the way, the SLVR is much smoother than TG HSR-A, at least in my system. |
I've had my TGA SLVR cord for five months and I'm delighted with it. Retail $500 (!). I curently have it on my preamp (Joule Electra) but I'm getting another one for my CDP, and possibly my amps. (Hi Bob!) I haven't tried that many other cords (Coincident, Shunyata Black Mamba & King Cobra, Blue Circle), but now I don't feel I need to. BTW, I also use the Nordost interconnects. So what does it sound like???? Very open, big soundtsage, huge, solid image... smooth, focused, transparent, no brightness or glare. Balanced. I don't have dedicated lines or a power conditioner. The SLVR is plugged straight into the wall of my crappy circa 1961 wiring. I didn't think a power cord would make this much difference considering my old house electrical system...but it most assuredly did. You should email Bob and ask him anything you want...he really knows wire and he' a straight shooter. Try him at [email protected] and he'll hook you up with a local dealer. The SLVR does take 30 days to completely break-in. Sorry if you don't believe in break-in, but it's true. This cord performed *exactly* as Bob told me it would. My system: Cary 303 CDp, Accuphase T109 tuner, Joule Electra LA100 MkIII preamp, Meitner MTR101 MkII mono amps, Alon V MkII speakers, Nordost Quattro Fil ICs, Coincident tri-wire speaker cables. |
I just want to reiterate Avguy's advice. Don't accept anyone's recommendation of a single cord without trying some others. I keep a decent quantity of four different brands of power cables around, simply because they all sound different (not necessarily better or worse) from each other. To give you an example - I was helping a friend put a system together and we had a Res Audio CD50 driving a Plinius 8200P driving Thiel 1.5 speakers. With this combination, power cord (let's call it A) sounded much better than cord B, and we wondered why anyone would ever buy cord B since it sounded so bad compared with A. Once the system ran in we decided the stage size and weight were not quite what we wanted so we inserted a Plinius CD-LAD into the system and it took off (ie we heard it, and it was good). But the sound was not quite balanced so we tried a few things and eventually ended up using power cord B, and wondered why anyone would buy cord A since B sounded so much better. |
Mark: Just wondering if you ever did any experimenting with the OTA wire as a power cord? I've been using a DIY OTA power cord on my CD player (can't really imagine anyone using such a thing with amps as described in the OTA thread) with very good results for the past few months. I don't have any experience with the megabuck cords, but the OTA replaced a pretty decent cord (IMO) that retails around the $350 mark. |
The points made by AVGuy and RedKiwi are well taken. As a general rule, I never buy anything for my system without listening to it first in my system. Nonetheless, these forums are excellent places to get starting points for items to audition and a good complement to magazine reviews. To that end, I just completed my audition of the new Shunyata Python and I am sad to report that it did not work well in my system. There was a distinct loss in soundstage and overall the sound was muffled with both my Wadia 850 and Pass X-150. To my ear, I liked the sound of the S/R A/C Master Coupler better and it is about a fifth of the price. Given my success with other X-Series S/R products, I think I will audition the new S/R Res. Ref. (X Series) power cord. |
