Has anyone tried the Shunyata Diamondback PC?

Nico, please e-mail me offline with product questions. I travel and cannot check forums regularly. I also do not want to use forum space for general commercial product info.

The short answer is the Platinum model was a more recent product run that used gold over brass plating rather than the previous silver plate over brass IEC. There was also a wire and extrusion change but nothing that should significantly alter a buying decision.

Regards,

Grant

My system has 5 Shunyata diamondback power cords, 1 copperhead power cord and 1 venom power cord. I find the copperhead and diamondback to be a lot of bang for the buck and that is the most I would spend on cords. I am using the Venom for the turntable motor on my VPI turntable, 2 diamondback cords to connect my Shunyata Guardian 2 and guardian 4 to the wall, a diamondback for my preamp and 2 cd players and copperhead for my power amp.

The noise floor lowered dramatically when I started using the Shunyata products and I find their overall quality to be first class. I am not one to buy into paying as much for a power cord as I did for an expensive piece of equipment so these budget products if you will, suit me just fine.

Bob

I have been using a Diamondback since 2003. At that time, I had been using a Synergistic Master Coupler and ordered the Diamondback along with 3-4 other PCs up to around $350 each to perform a shootout. The Diamondback was the clear winner. The application for all was between a PS audio Ultimate Outlet and a Theta Pro Prime IIa DAC. I have only recently upgraded from the Diamondback to a Python CX, so it was in constant use in my system throughout various changes for over 7 years and I feel it is quite respectable for its retail price, especially for the prices they can be obtained at today.

In my system I tried the Diamondbacks and was not impressed and I gave the cable about 300 hours of break-in. First, though they may have their merits, the connectors were average at best. I tried other cables fro big names and found the Nordost Magus to outperform the Diamondbacks by a significant margin and their about the same price. In fact, I was so taken by the Magus I fitted most of my system with it. At it's price point give the Magus a try, you will be surprised. One issue with the Magus is it takes about 500 hours for total break-in. A source of the Magus is Scott the cable guy, he burns in the cable on a device that delivers you the cable broken-in. Music Direct also sells the Magus.

I have been exclusively using Shunyata PC's for the past 6 or 7 years. I had started with the sidewinder, coperhead and moving up to the Tai Pan, then Python, and, recently, Anaconda. The sidewinders/copperheads were marginally better than my signal cables, with more secure connections, better shielding and build quality. The "marginal" diffference enticed me to move up the line; the Tai Pans were a revelation, exponentially better than the prior, the Pythons were more of an improvement than the TaiPans over the Copperheads and the Anaconda upgrade on my CDP (all into Hydra 8, by the way) has brought my digital playback to a new level. All the while, I always felt the dollars invested were well worth the performance upgrade. You do need a very revealing system to discern the differences in power cables. I would think that the sidewinders (pretty much the low end or the shunyata line) exist(ed) to offer the end user a taste into 3rd party power cables. You really can't expect jaw dropping imporvements (over a Rat Shack $10 cable) for $160 dollars. But, once you see the difference in build quality, secured connections and think that maybe that shielding is doing something (or NOT doing something) one may think that there may be something to PC upgrades, and, if funds permit (you wouldn't put a $2,000 power cord on a $300 CD player) go to the next lever, audition some more, and see if there is something out there that really improves ones systems. Shunyata has done that for me. I would never have thought that I would have $10,000+ in PC cords but once I installed that first $165 PC, it just did enough for me to experiment. Great products. Great Company.