Some observations from a former skeptic - and a question

@mgrif104

 

 

My total expenditure in cables is now equal to the cost of the rest of my system which seems crazy on the surface, but the results have been really rewarding - and more audible than most component upgrades.

My sense of things, especially with components associated with power is that it takes an expensive and intelligently selected set of power components designed to function as a system to have power components make a major impact upon what we hear. Some Ops want to add one super Amazon PC to one component and expect to hear a difference. I found it to be very difficult to spend large amounts of money on power and I only did so because my salesperson encouraged me to return everything if it didn’t make a major improvement to my system. I never expected to hear a major improvement and I felt guilty for spending so much money on items that I previously ignored.

It’s great to hear of your positive experience, but spending a lot on power is a big step for many of us.

Good post. Confirms my thinking. Any part in of system has an impact on sound. Some impacts are too minute to be noticed, depending on the 'noise level' or 'quality' of the system. On a high quality system like mine ($4,000 including room($0)) and low quaity ears (came with my head) , the most noticeable impacts are repeatably found from the room and speaker side, followed by speaker cables, then the rest of analog signal chain. The rest more or less disappears in the 'noise level', i.e. the system does not have sufficient 'resolution' to let smaller differences become noticeable. 

I am convinced that increasing the resolution by using a factor of 10 ($40,000) or 100 ($400,000) for the system cost will bring out differences even in the digital path and even the power soruce/cables.

Maybe some time in the future I will get a chance to verify the above (on someone elses system, most certainly not mine) in an A/B test of for example power cable (or even a FLAC vs xxx file). 

When I lived in a large city 20+ years ago a power conditioner was a must.I didn't realize how much noise was on the line until it was eliminated. Now being out in the boonies good surge protection is all that is needed now as there's no noise I can perceive. I did upgrade all of the pcs several years ago with well built shielded cables that seemed to have a bit blacker backgrounds,until I got to the amp.That's where there were really noticeable differences. "The one" ended up being a silver pc from ZenWave. One of those OMG moments.

I am lucky to be friends with dealers that do a lot of trade-ins, so I get to test more things than I would be able to experience normally. I am not in the USA, and I am not trying to sell anything. My personal experience is as follows:

1. Cables matter a lot, including power cables.

2. Each electrical installation can be different; hence, the cable or conditioner that works in one place, may not be required in another. Testing is a must.

3. If you use excellent-quality cables for the electrical installation, it is very significant because it begins to improve things even before the power gets to your power cables. It adds up; almost everything matters.

4. Among the power cables I have tested (a lot), the ones that are so good that the sound improvement is significantly better than any other brand are the Tara Labs (including the ultra-expensive ones) and Crystal Cables. The Tara Labs are more expensive, too thick, and rigid, so this makes the result from the thin (in comparison) Crystal cables more impressive. They are much easier to manage, and they are pretty. Also, they are not cheap either, but they make a big enough difference in the sound quality to persuade me to migrate to them in stages, as finances allow, including the electrical wiring for the audio setup.

@soix 

glad you’re still here and posting!

For those of you who have done a dedicated circuit -something I’m considering despite the hassle - what did you put in the wall?  Standard 14/2 wire or ?

And, what upgrade, if anything, did you use for the receptacle?

Best,