Power Cords - what's your favorite?

I've used many different brands of cords over the years. As I have downsized, I've gone back to the old classics, Elrod EPS-2/3S. These cords are amongst the best bang for the buck on the used market that I know of. They are still competitive today. The best that I have heard in my system, cost no object, was when I had 5 Stealth Dreams running in their star grounding technique.
 
The picture fro posted is actually a high fidelity cable made near me in Dallas or McKinney Tx. Definitely on the high end side, their top cable for a 1m is 13,500
 
i had always enjoyed Shunyata power cables in my system but recently tried some voodoo cables.
they are new so will give them some time and see how i find them.

i grabbed 2 voodoo platinum, one for the pre amp and the other for my phono stage
 

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I have been using a Marigo Labs power cord on my Jeff Rowland model 5 solid state amp and two generic computer grade power cords on my Ray Lumley M-100 tube mono blocks. I have in the mail two Black Cat Dragon Warlord power cords that I got for a great price from the After Hours Audio (A.H.A.) website as an opening special to go on the tube amps. They should be a nice upgrade.
 
I just started exploring power cords. So far I've found it to be a difficult and frustrating game, with differences every time but not always one clearly superior to the other. I also found that it depends a lot on the system in the larger sense: not only the audio devices but the whole electrical wiring of the house and the other machines plugged there. One thing I am confident of is that simple filters on electrical pollutants such as washing machines, routers, go a long way to having clear power in your stereo and matter more than what you put directly on the machine.

Last friday, there was a Nordost power cable demo at Audio Synthèse in Paris and it was impressive and enlightning. A reatively modest system (Moon CD + Naim integrated on Raidho C2.1) went through several transformation from basic, 3c Chinese cable to 8.500€ Odin cable ad other devices (QX4, QBase8, Qk1, QV2).

While every upgrade sounded better, to me the Tyr and the Odin clearly stood out as bringing something musically significant -- others brought better sound but not, to me, musical added value. The Odin was really something, and it should be at the price.

The thing that convinced me the most however, and made plenty of sense, was their QBase and its "primary earth" plugs, i.e. plugs with lower impedence earth for the amplifier and pre. This to me was the single most important improvement brought to the system -- channeling ground currents.
 
I agree with Julot , that the whole electrical wiring in the house can have an influence in the way power cords behave and make wonders.

I have had several Nordost pc´s and the Tyr made good things in my setup.

However, when I for a year ago shifted to Ansuz, it really gave me a big smile on my face :)
Today, I have complete Ansuz cabling and for the pc´s , I use the Ceramic to my Nordost QB4 and then Ansuz Alu´s for feeding every component in system.
When upgrading the "first" pc from Alu to Ceramic gave quite a lot more bass output and resolution in the bottom. As well as overall improvement.

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I find the Ansuz really musical and at the same time also very detailed, organic, soundstage impressive and has total black background. Have a really hard time to give some negative feedback.. do not know what to say :)
Haha, only thing is that they are addictive... and can ruin you :)
Heard so much about their Mains conditioners, so even I am so fund of the QB4, I need to give the Ansuz´s a try soon :)
 

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You sound like a HiFi Huset customer ;-)

Sonny there seems to mostly use Ansuz cable (power and audio) with very good results indeed.
 
Well, it was a bit by coincident (thought I had a defect speaker cable and a longer story :), that I got introduced to the Ansuz cables at first and at that time there were no dealers yet in Denmark.
But Sonny has some very interesting products/brands and is a nice person.
I am sure he is capable of getting some nice sounding setups.

Have not seen those Antipodes streaming products before.. seems very interesting :)
 
Wow, the price of some of these power cords make my Wireworld Stratus 7 power cords look like absolute audio bargins. :woot:
 
My own home-made recipe for cable lust:
1. First of all, find out what cable brand sounds better in your system (not an easy thing to do but still possible). For me, the end result was Siltech.
2. Call the dealer to examine your system, then call him again with a full loom of cables.
3. Change all cables with your favorite brand and listen (caution: you may find out you have to reposition your speakers).
4. Take out the cables - one at a time - and replace them with your old cables. Listen again for losses and figure out which wire is most important for the sound.
5. Buy the new cables according to what you heard and learned during the previous step.

Caution: sometimes certain cables might not give you any advantage unless some other cables are in the system (I heard a pair of Siltech 188iL speaker cables sound like "miss Piggy" unless I also used a Siltech Ruby Hill power cord on the DAC). It's all about the system, folks!
 
Drrsutliff said:
Audience on all my kit. After auditioning a number of different PCs these worked best completing a total Audience cable loom.
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I have Audience AU24SE power cords in my system and I love their sound or lack thereof. Silky smooth, transparent, dynamic and an ultra-low noise floor. The cable just disappears.

Ken
 
HiDiamond P4 and their 4VRC technology from Italy for me. Emotionally involving and has a relaxing nature.
 
Audio 1 said:
Mike I see in your signature that you are using some of the Kimber power cables now.
would love to know which models you evaluated and how they compare to others you have used.
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I only purchased the PK14 Palladian model. I use them throughout both my systems, except for the Shunyata Alpha Digital cable which remains in play on my Lumin.

I didn't try any of the other lower model Kimber power cords since the price is not too bad.

They have an active filtration on the signal, which according to my measuring equipment, does indeed reduce line noise by a considerable amount, without affecting sonics.

As a side, a friend brought over a pile of different power cords to try the other day and the Kimber faired very well. That being said, there was something special about the Valhalla and Valhalla 2 that we liked. But the Kimber was right up there and seemed to add nothing or take nothing away from the sound.
 
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