Most amusing post i read this week. First i thouht that the post was about Inter connect. When i realized it was about how a String og silver IN A POWER CABLE could chance the sound, I was chocked.
Must admit, I'd be pretty shocked if they did in a country that has a good reliable power supply. I ran Russ Andrews and JPS Labs mains cables for a few years. These days, I have two generic cables in their place and for good reason. The RA and JPS Labs were sold off. These days, most people can assemble a "resolving" system pretty easily, the equipment available is that good. Gone are the days when you needed to spend vast sums to get great audio. I daresay there's a place for a special cable but I'm not convinced precisely that for general use for most audiophiles boutique accessories primarily serve one purpose but I'm not sure it's the customer benefiting. FWIW I live in an area with excellent power supply. I plug in straight to the wall sockets mostly. I've used a mains condition unit before (BT MCU) and it made zero difference. I'm a picky listener. I know what I'm listening for. The most considerable difference I've heard outwith the actual main components used, is to adjust the position of the speakers a few inches either way.
I don't totally disagree with you. This is just a general observation based on about 20 years on audio forums. There seem to be far fewer users who have positive experiences with power cords in the UK than perhaps anywhere else. It may well have something to do with quality of power there.
You think thats weird....the cable also has a hollow center....go figure! And his silver Apex cables have a hollow center around a hollow center...wrap your thoughts around that one.
It's pretty stable; I can put almost 100% faith in it. The exceptions are storms (Storm Arwen in November took us out for 4 days but that's a real rarity) and otherwise we're pretty good. I've gone through any number of interconnects, mains cables and one (aforesaid) mains conditioning unit over the last 16 years and I've yet to hear the kind of changes others claim. I *do* think, however, that our descritive abilities influence much of what we claim in what we report. There was a thread above somewhere, where the poster said he hadn't had an upgrade where the change wasn't jaw-dropping (or words to that effect). I tend to think that's great for the guy, but not so helpful for the rest of us. What does jaw dropping mean? What's the terms of reference here? What said poster thought as jaw dropping I, or someone else, might find minimal. I think much of what we hear, or claim to hear, is down to our abilities to express what we mean (or think we hear) accurately.
Alright, when I am wrong I am wrong. Holy crap! The bass is now exciting resonances in the room which sucks, but wow!! they are the real deal. The soundstage moved forward. I'm listening to a Netherlands Closet mix of VU eponymous and the tambourine on Pale Blue Eyes is like nothing I have heard in this room. Can't wait to check out the sax at the end of Walk on the wild Side. Peace.
This is from a previous post but its a long thread... To accurately discern between two cables, you need to have your own system, with your own source playing material you know well. I like to use Ringo screaming "I've got blisters on my fingers" on my German The Beatles. The clarity, distance from listening position, his height, 'Thickness" and decay of that last hit are all very useful for evaluating differences in presentation among cables. How much I enjoy the preceding few minutes is clearly the most important factor. Jaw dropping is when you have been listening to your new VU record everyday for a month and you install a new freaking outlet and all the sudden Lou is 2 feet higher and 2-3 feet closer to me. The tambourine in Pale Blue Eyes is in the room with you in a way you never experienced. Now sometimes you get blinded by the shine so see the beginning of my post. I have two circuits, so I have one PS Audio left to compare in a few weeks. One important thing to remember is improvements to your system can show the weaknesses in your sources. More sibilance on the last track than you every noticed before. Or peak distortions that may be on tape or from worn vinyl. To be clear there was a time I couldn't hear what cables were DOING to the signal. Now I can readily hear the difference between an outlet apparently When I change from the stock outlet to a PS Audio I did it to better hold my to big power cable. I heard no sound difference at that time. I also chose NAIM because they used their own standard cabling for "their sound". Ultimately Chord Company superceded their efforts to maximize their own component connections. To each their own, for me once my system reached a certain point, I could hear changes clearly, not always a blessing. Sometimes it is much better sounding with most of what you listen too, but worse on other discs. Sometimes the transients and presence snap into focus, but so does sibilance. It is a balance and more about system matching. That being said, Vibration control, Power/Signal/Speaker/Ethernet cables all drastically effect sound in my system. It's up to each audiophile to decide what price/performance ratio they want.
There is a fundamental problem in any communication. There is the thought. Then there is what you actually say to convey that. Then there is what the recipient interprets what they think that means. They then think of what they will say in reply, and what they actually say etc etc. Even verbal conversation suffers from that problem - written communication is even worse. There is every risk of misinterpretation. And in this forum we are just discussing a hobby. In international politics it can mean the difference between stepping back or pushing the button.
I have a question, why there is a PS Audio print on the front? You know there are many counterfeited Furutech products in the market, right?
I'm fascinated they "dont" make a difference. But perhaps someone - (and I know someone will try ) - be able to explain why Shunyata has the confidence of several medical facilities that need to be able to monitor patients' heartbeats and whatever else it is they measure, to the point that Shunyata has established a medical branch that provides equipment to medical facilities, called Clear Image Scientific. DELTA v2 NR - Shunyata Research Technology - Shunyata Research Aside from the ususal disbelieving comments ("Shunyata paid them to do this")- how do you think this seems to be a reality)? Although, in music, low noise does not guarantee better tonal quality or rhythm. But in this case? Fascinating, to be sure!
That is an older PS Audio Power Port Premier duplex receptacle in a Furutech GTX-D box. I am pretty sure that Hubbell built the outlet for PS audio. (Only thing different from the stock Hubbell outlet is the face plate PS Audio logo) The actual outlet is an old style, (out of production for quite a few years), Hubbell Isolated Ground 8300H Hospital Grade outlet. .
I have a handful of tracks I pick for testing. Known them for years. The most recent was added around a decade ago. If it's that apparent, it'll show up in one or more of those tracks.
Yes, the point of the photo and post was to show I swapped out the PSA outlet for Furutech, that's the old outlet in the box . Authorized dealer. Thanks for looking out. Jeff
I don't see any vertical scale on those heart monitor graphs, so it is impossible to verify whether or not they are an equal comparison. But on the "before" graph which claims to show electrical noise, the waveform of the heartbeats is going way off the scale and getting badly clipped, while on the "after" graph it's registering normally. So either their product is drastically reducing the amplitude of the heartbeat waveform when it's in use, or they did some trickery by cranking up the gain to the maximum to make the electrical noise more visible on the "before" graph, and reduced the gain to a normal level on the "after" graph, which would've made that noise much less visible even if their product was not in use. "Before": "After":
That all sound different, the character changes. Im rolling through an Audience Hidden Treasure Outlet and an Audioquest NRG Edison outlet. They sound different. The Audioquest NRG sounds solid from bottom to top. Nice soundstage and focus. The Audience is sharper and a bit more extended. Bit Larger soundstage and reach. Tighter bass and a bit less of it compared to the Audioquest. Horrible break-in period - painful and aggravating. I seem to constantly end up using the Audioquest NRG for the Amp/Pre. The Audience is better for Sources (DAC, CDP, MediaPlayer/PC) in my opinion. However the Synergistic Research SE Tesla outlet at $99 is maybe better than them both in terms of soundstage and air with tight bass and speed. The Orange model is definitely better than all of them in all ways. Its some type of voodoo magic they do, I dont know. They always sounds the best. Im finding the Mac Mini with the SR SE Tesla is best with (2) Harmonic tech power cords. The SE Outlet is in a PS Audio Juicebar. The Marantz Intergraded sounds best in the Audioquest NRG, adds more body and weight. Im surprised that im finding the Audioquest is again best for the DAC which previously sounded better in the Audience outlet. I was using a different Marantz Intergraded. All about synergy. Im anxious to try the Synergistic Research Orange Outlet but its rather aggressive and revealing and Very different than ALL the others. Great for Sources!
Yeah, as a physician this pisses me off too. These are two different tracings, with different qrs morphologies and heart rates. The other thing is all the diagonal movements and zig zag on the first 3-4 strips, is from MOVEMENT(motion artifact to be fancy) of the leads , NOT electrical interference. Make no mistake, electrical filtering makes a huge difference on ECG's and our machines, actually have an "electrical filtering" button which makes it much easier in some case to discern P-waves, and other subtle features like heart blocks. The ad copy sucks, it should be same strip, back to back in same room. One plugged into shunyata, one plugged into standard. The science and utility is very real IMO.
So, are you saying the labs using these power cords are being taken for a ride? Or just that the ad copy sucks?
The £400 JPS Labs "The Analog" was equalled by a £10 plug from China. I used the JPS for 12 months. Maybe a little more. The Russ Andrews Powerkord 100 I had for a few years. I used both in my speakers (as they're actives) and in various source components. I bought a couple of backup cheapo mains plugs from Amazon about 18 months back as stand-ins in case the regular ones split (I don't like to run the risk of a split cable or the live/earth/neutral wires showing through). Thought I'd give them a bash in the AVIs and the CD player and what do you know. 18 months on, the cheapos are still here, still in place and the RA and JPS are things of memory. I tend to think that this is down to two things mainly - we enjoy a good power supply, for the most part, in the UK and the cables performed to spec. I understand in the US (and maybe elsewhere) that power supply can be an issue. But I really have to admit, I'd have expected two boutique mains cables to have exceeded performance on two generic, off the shelf mains wires. It should've been blatantly obvious. And I'm a very picky listener.
I lost (misplaced) a few power cables when I moved in 2017. I also mixed up a couple of wall wart power supplies. When I set up the tunes it really mattered (to me at least)...
I've found the Synergistic outlets are rather bright in the upper midrange. Their interconnect/speaker cables, however, are a bit softer. So, the outlets compensate(s) for the softness of the cables. That, however, was around 2015 or prior to that. Manufacturers frequently do this, Shunyata's original interconnect was a bit bright in the upper midrange, while the Andromeda speaker cable was a bit sucked out in that range. So, the interconnect "fixed" what was missing in the speaker cable. The Synergistic Red outlet in my room has considerable detail, but the upper midrange also has an edge (which it sounds as though you've identified also). I don't use that outlet much, but I keep it in the wall as I have several dedicated lines in my music room that allow me to swap outlets in and out. But I don't do much outlet-swapping anymore. Sounds as though you "got" the sound of the Synergistic outlets right, unless they've changed their tack, so to speak. I found the same thing with their fuses. Also, their early outlets (of which I have one around here somewhere) had a different metal up the middle in the back. After Denney read comments about how it should be another material, he listened to the criticisms and changed it. (I can't remember what the original material was.) It got cleaner and less murky, but the upper midrange of the outlet over a generation or two became "hot." QUITE easily heard. But that outlet was, as I said, manufactured around 2015.
