AQ Hurricane-- any hands on non-believers ?
- Thread starter mintakax
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Jack
Active member
You mean this month right?
Rnrmf
Member
Earlier this year, I auditioned it against top tier Furutech models, Siltech, the latest Audience model, and 1 or 2 others that slip my mind, at the moment.
The Hurricane offers sound quality and refinement I haven't heard from a power cable at this price range, before. It's good enough that in some systems, it's probably down to a matter of taste as to whether it fits in. Performance-wise, it had no glaring area that I thought needed to be improved. At its price, that's the first time I think I've had that impression.
I didn't purchase one (I still like my references better in my system) but I will audition it, again, along with the Dragon and whatever their other forthcoming model is called vs the Furutech and Siltech models that I own.
The Hurricane offers sound quality and refinement I haven't heard from a power cable at this price range, before. It's good enough that in some systems, it's probably down to a matter of taste as to whether it fits in. Performance-wise, it had no glaring area that I thought needed to be improved. At its price, that's the first time I think I've had that impression.
I didn't purchase one (I still like my references better in my system) but I will audition it, again, along with the Dragon and whatever their other forthcoming model is called vs the Furutech and Siltech models that I own.
I received the first bunch of new AQ Storm Series power cords in December (Tornado, Hurricane and Dragon). We held a power cable shootout in January (Rance was there). The Tornado beat power cords costing 20 times as much and many costing many multiples of the Tornado.
Only one cable beat the Tornado. It was the Hurricane. The Dragon wasn’t in the shootout, but when we’ve compared in the store, it’s clearly better than the Hurricane. There were rain drops in this one particular song that became so much more present and vivid with the dragon. Truly amazing.
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Only one cable beat the Tornado. It was the Hurricane. The Dragon wasn’t in the shootout, but when we’ve compared in the store, it’s clearly better than the Hurricane. There were rain drops in this one particular song that became so much more present and vivid with the dragon. Truly amazing.
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kzhtoo
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I will probably be called “uncle” again with this post, but here it is.
I demoed a couple of Hurricane a few months back (15mA and 20mA one each) from Mike who couldn’t have been more gracious.
First, 15mA one was going up against Siltech Ruby Hill II on my integrated amp. 20mA one replaced Siltech Ruby Mountain with Furutech NCF connectors from wall to Denali. I changed them one by one and gave settling time of one day before listening critically (after Mike confirmed the cables were fully broken in). To my surprise, I didn’t find much improvement at all esp. the 20mA one, which, to be fair, Ruby Mountain + Furutech NCF is 3x more expensive. It just sounded slightly different. 15mA one with Ruby Hill II also aren’t night and day difference to my ears.
Then, before I was about to ship them back to Mike, I tried the 15mA one on my DAC, replacing Shunyata Alpha Digital (older model now) and I found out what people are raving about the Hurricane. The soundstage became very open left to right, front to back and everything just all snapped into place and performed like a well-oiled machine. Very musical and pleasant to listen to for hours, even with less than stellar recordings. One other important thing to note here is that I have previously tried replacing Alpha Digital with Ruby Hill II and I didn’t find this level of improvement. If you ask me why, I really don’t know. So I came away with the conclusion that Hurricane on DAC is quite good in my system with the cables I have.
I didn’t order one at the time because there was rumors AQ was coming out with “new” Hurricane with improvement and blue color. I wanted blue color to match with Siltech cables that I have. Mike also confirmed later with AQ people that there was no improvement, but only the color change.
I got my first blue Hurricane last week Thursday and currently it has logged around 130 hours. From last night listening session, the experience is probably even better than what I remember. I’m not sure if it is because of more break-in/settling time but now I’m thinking it’ll be worthwhile to try it on the integrated amp again. Don’t know when that will happen because this time I want Hurricane on both the DAC and integrated amp.
From my experience, cables are very system dependent and there’s just no getting around from trial and error experimentation (that’s where dealers like Mike are very valuable).
I demoed a couple of Hurricane a few months back (15mA and 20mA one each) from Mike who couldn’t have been more gracious.
First, 15mA one was going up against Siltech Ruby Hill II on my integrated amp. 20mA one replaced Siltech Ruby Mountain with Furutech NCF connectors from wall to Denali. I changed them one by one and gave settling time of one day before listening critically (after Mike confirmed the cables were fully broken in). To my surprise, I didn’t find much improvement at all esp. the 20mA one, which, to be fair, Ruby Mountain + Furutech NCF is 3x more expensive. It just sounded slightly different. 15mA one with Ruby Hill II also aren’t night and day difference to my ears.
Then, before I was about to ship them back to Mike, I tried the 15mA one on my DAC, replacing Shunyata Alpha Digital (older model now) and I found out what people are raving about the Hurricane. The soundstage became very open left to right, front to back and everything just all snapped into place and performed like a well-oiled machine. Very musical and pleasant to listen to for hours, even with less than stellar recordings. One other important thing to note here is that I have previously tried replacing Alpha Digital with Ruby Hill II and I didn’t find this level of improvement. If you ask me why, I really don’t know. So I came away with the conclusion that Hurricane on DAC is quite good in my system with the cables I have.
I didn’t order one at the time because there was rumors AQ was coming out with “new” Hurricane with improvement and blue color. I wanted blue color to match with Siltech cables that I have. Mike also confirmed later with AQ people that there was no improvement, but only the color change.
I got my first blue Hurricane last week Thursday and currently it has logged around 130 hours. From last night listening session, the experience is probably even better than what I remember. I’m not sure if it is because of more break-in/settling time but now I’m thinking it’ll be worthwhile to try it on the integrated amp again. Don’t know when that will happen because this time I want Hurricane on both the DAC and integrated amp.
From my experience, cables are very system dependent and there’s just no getting around from trial and error experimentation (that’s where dealers like Mike are very valuable).
vortrex
New member
Are these braided cables a pain to manage? They look so unwieldy in the pictures.
kzhtoo
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Somewhat but not impossible.
SoundRebels
Active member
When I had to sell my reference system that included all Shunyata sigma power cords and speaker cables, after some time I started to build a new system and following rave reviews and opinions bought all Tornado power cords. I burned them for about 200 hours and started critical listening. What I heard was relatively balanced sound with slight emphasis on higher frequencies. Another few weeks came buy and I was presented with opportunity to try and demo Triode Wire Labs High Power digital cord. With 30 days return I did not have anything to loose. To my surprise, right after installing the high power digital on my cd player ( esoteric k-03xs) I noticed that sound became more relaxing and natural without sacrificing any details. Long story short, currently I have all Triode Wire labs Obsession power cords that in compare with Tornados elevated my system to the more natural and refined sound. I think its all about synergy and what one like to hear from the system. My reference is always the live sound that I hear often attending different venues.