Looking For 18awg Audiophile Power Cable Options


Hi Friends,

I'm trying to find some 18awg audiophile power cables and am looking for recommendations. It seems the only ones I can find are of the AudioQuest variety, but I don't like the sound of AudioQuest cables, as they sound too sterile to me (or something, it's hard for me to describe).

I have a music production system and while I use expensive Triode Wire Labs Digital American cables on the DAC, ADC, and production computer/DAW with fantastic and stable results, I've had problems with my other components running on any thicker-gauged cables (powered KRK monitors, microphone power supply, and preamps).

I've tried several different cables on these other components, but I find any cable with a gauge thicker than 18awg results in issues of sound stability. The system needs to run for 12, sometimes 18 hours at a time, and I find that thicker-gauge cables, after about 8 hours, start to render the sound compressed, maybe slightly overloaded, and not as open, which is problematic for mixing and recording.

I started using some 18awg cables with hospital-grade plugs, and while they're definitely a big step up from the stock cables, and the stability of the sound is great, I'm just wondering if there's any 18awg audiophile-type cables out there that would give me improved performance, smoother top end, etc., just from better noise/RFI rejection. The sibilants were smoother when I used the audiophile cables, I think from better shielding, but the stability of the sound of system and vocal chain is of the upmost importance.

It's weird but I guess it has something to do with the digital components handling the thicker gauged cables better for some reason, compared to the analog components.

Any ideas/recs appreciated, thanks for your time!

 

128x128acar83
acar83 OP

4 posts

 

Erm...I thought this was an audiophile forum for people who understand the answer to that question, lol... Did I put this post in the wrong place or something?

Big talk for an "audiophile" wanting 18 ga, power cables.

I think I’m done with my participation in this thread. It was a simple question about whether or not anyone knew of cables that would have the specs of the stock cables that professional audio gear is designed to run with but with higher quality connectors and some kind of RF shielding, but clearly that is too much for people to handle.

But to "secretguy" I will say, being an "audiophile" has nothing to do with needing a gauge or power cord of any specific kind, it’s about getting a certain energetic experience from the system as a whole, whatever it takes to get you there. For me, it was a shift in the way the system felt so that the system kind of disappeared and the music became more real, allowing me to make more objective decisions in the production of music.


Thanks to the few of you who had constructive things to say. Peace.

Yes. Knitting is a good hobby.

 

And @raysmtb1 everything I see here you posting leads me to believe you are a full blown cable hater and denier. Everything you say is a conjecture.

 

By the way, you never answered my question on the fuse

 

oh, and this? 😂😂😂

 

when I retired at 40

Why would youwant awg 18;, for dacs, preamps awg 14 is the most common 

and much better ,for bigger awg lower resistance ,

for little money the Pangea  awg 14 sig mk2 uses Cardas best  6-9s Copper 

for under $250:a very respectable cable.

@thyname i’m not sure what you mean by that everything I say is conjecture…. If you mean, my ideas are based on bad information or incomplete information, this would not be true. i’ll follow the manufacturers recommendations. It doesn’t matter what I think about the fuse, it was put there by an engineer, who knows more than I do about what size fuse belongs there. As far as the power cards, go, I trust underwriters laboratories…. Not some guy who decided to make power cables are on his kitchen table. I can’t believe that people will spend 50 K on a system and then put power cards on their systems that are not. Underwriters laboratories approved. If God forbid something happened and the house burned down,  it would suck if the claim got denied because they found all these aftermarket power cords that weren’t approved. Those are the kind of things that they look for when there’s an accident…. Things that have been altered.