No one talks about Purist Audio Design cables.

@inna 

I was waiting to put some hours on my PAD Neptune Diamond version. I have about 30 hours on them. When I got it, I installed it on the power supply of my audio server and let it burn-in for 5 hours before installing it on the power amplifier.

The first thing I noticed was that the vocals jumped out of the speakers, in a good way. Initially it sounded slightly congested, but I know from experience that new cables can sound such. Initially I also thought that the treble was slightly truncated. So I inserted the stock cord and listened to a song that I am familiar with. It was then that I realized that it was slightly rounding the treble and hence I was missing the glare; so no complaints at all. After 20 hours the soundstage and depth are so huge; I have never experienced this much breadth and depth in my system before.

PAD suggests 250 hours of burn-in time. But coming from a stock cord (and Cullen before that), the improvements were obvious and whatever improvements happen after this are going to be bonus for me. I like this cable so much that I will be getting another PAD for the DAC and preamp. My dealer recommends getting Aqueous for those 2.

One thing that I did not expect was the size of the Neptune. In all honesty, my garden hose diameter is smaller than this power cable. Time to upgrade my garden hose!

Right ! About the garden hose.!

I bought my Neptune Luminist RCAs new and if I remember correctly, yes, it took about 250 hours to fully burn them in. I don't know about their power cords, maybe even longer. I never tried Aqueous except for the very first original fluid RCAs. I still keep them in the closet as a piece of history, they have almost no fluid and sound terrible empty.

One of the first phono cable auditions I did 35 years ago included PAD Elementa. I kept them.

I kept Maximus and Colossus fluid RCAs, Colossus being much better, until they ran out of fluid and Purist stopped refilling them with fluid, only with Ferox. I did it and didn't like the result at all, sold them. They were designed to be fluid cables, that was absolutely clear to me.

One could criticize Neptune fluid for not being exactly neutral cable and for softening the sound a little too much but it is very seductive and powerful with incredible soundstage.