Most Beneficial Cable Upgrade

Great thread. I myself had been somewhat of a power cable skeptic until recently. I had bought a Pangea AC-9 after hearing that it may smooth out harshness in some amps. It did that to a small degree in my proceed AMP 3. When I finally got my hands on a used Rowland Model 1 I transferred the AC-9 to that amplifier. As time passed I kept thinking that the Rowland sounded dark and sluggish. So I decided to try an experiment. I had some old (25 years) Carol THHN 10awg cable in my basement. Not OCC pure. I cut it into four 10 foot lengths and used a drill to spin it into a starquad configuration. I wrapped it tightly with PVC tape and put a cheap Lowes 10AWG ground wire (counter wound) around the outside. Terminated with cheap Pass & Seymore plug and Marinco IEC. The though was that I would hear something (probably for the worse).

So I plugged in the DIY PC and fired up the Rowland. I sat there stunned as the whole sound stage opened up and became much more clear and detailed. Two nights later my Wife (who only tolerates my audio addiction) said "how does the new PC sound". I instead, asked her what she thought. W/O hesitation she said it was much clearer. You have to relalize that she never comments on this stuff. It has now been a week, and I am not going back to the Pangea. In this case my DIY cord is better (much better).

Just thought I would share my personal experience on PCs.

Regards,

Craig

That is very interesting Craig. Maybe you should market your new PC.

It is interesting, but I wonder if it is more that the Pangea is wrong for the Rowland than it is that my PC is something special. More experimentation is needed.

Matjet - Update?

The power cord question has me wondering to the extent that I have designed my own experiment for this Saturday. The goal is to understand the potential magnitude of a power cord change. Since adding expensive, high-end, state-of-the-art power cords without knowing whether or not there will be improvement is impractical, I've decided on an alternative, low-end, approach.

I have received 21 power cords in 14, 16 and 18 gauges and lengths of 1, 2 and 3 feet from Monoprice.com. The total cost, including tax and deliver, is less than $30, definitely low end. The plan is to replace all the power cords in my system with the shortest possible length between my components and my very recently acquired Audience Response aR12.

Unfortunately, the complexity of changing all power cords makes blind testing overly difficult but since all power cords are changed at the same time, sonic differences should be clearly audible. I am keeping an open mind on the test and will report my findings.

Cheers,

Greg

It is like everyone has said for eons on the Gon. System matching is everything. The Pangea AC-9 sounded great on my Proceed AMP 3 and awful on my Rowland Model 1. Who knows what impact the rest of the chain had (pre, speakers, cable, etc.).

My next step is to see if I can duplicate the magic of my first DIY cord by ordering some more THHN and better terminations.

Craig