Hello fellow forum members,
Has anyone compared Audioquest Niagara 5000/7000 to any PS Audio AC REGENERATORS?
If so I’d love to hear what you prefer and what you have heard. I know their is a comparison on positive feedback between the P20 and the AQ 5000 but I’d like to read about what you the forum member has experienced with your power products. If you have other power devices like Shunyata or any other brand power conditioner/regenerator I’d love to read about those comparisons also!
I owned the Niagara 5000 for a while. The AC coming into my house with about 8-10% distortion. The 5000 had a horrendous hum that could be heard in the adjacent room. Audioquest blamed the dirty AC and even offered to replace the unit. I bought a P20 and finally silence. The hum from the 5000 cast a pall over any good it was doing.
An amazing reduction in THD.
What is your output THD? It is too low to read off of the graph.
I love it when members say stuff like “it is too low to read off the graph”. Just checked at this very moment: 8.5% in 0.1% out.
Astounding.
I’ve also auditioned the Niagara 5000 but I thought my system sounded better with it than my P15. I was outside of my return period for the P15, so I kept it. I do have a P20 on the way and I’m interested to see if I hear a difference. I think the Power Plants are great but my personal opinion is the cost to benefit ratio at retail prices are not worth it. I know others might feel different. I recently installed a dedicated 20 amp circuit and that made more of a sonic difference than I remember hearing when I added the Power Plant. I will admit that I’m basing that off my reaction a year ago when I got the P15, so there could be details that I’m forgetting.
My incoming THD with the dedicated circuit averages around 1.7% and previously without it was around 2%.
It all seems very system dependent as I had an IsoTek Evo, then a P3 Power Plant and now a Shunyata Venon and Delta NR cables. The P3 came in when I briefly had valve amplifiers, but with my current system the P3 seemed to make no difference. The Shunyata cables have noise reduction and cross contamination built in, so they work well on their own and would probably improve things for people using Power Plants, which I understand do not have cross contamination isolation on each socket.
With the Power Plant, my incoming THD was about 2% with no special circuits and ±0.5v.
My dealer largely switched from AudioQuest to Shunyata conditioners, I have no idea why, but still sell AudioQuest cables and the AQ 7000 conditioner.
Agreed it is probably system and power dependent. Outside of my streamer I have an all PS Audio system. I think the P20 will make a difference but I’m not sure it will be a $10K difference. I’ll find out in a week or so.
I have heard a system that had a p20 in it and then a Niagara 5000 and honestly they sounded pretty similar…both are great units.
While I still had a couple years ago a balanced-power popwerconditioner, I bought an AQ 7000… The only sound-quality difference I heard was that the system produced an electrical hum with the AQ… Even after I tried different cableing combinations, the hum was still there… AQ couldn’t offer any solutions so I returned it and ordered and received a P20… The noise disappeared instantly with the P20, and I’ve been loving the music ever since.
Just curious, was the hum the unit itself or some where in your system?
These readings are coming off a dedicated 20 amp line. Just FYI.
I recently tried AQ Niagara 5000. It was best sounding line conditioner I´ve heard so far ,but I quess not so good c19 AQ Thunder power cable to it ruined sound for me. Since I don´t have any other 20amp cords to try it´s hard to say for sure. But I had same time c15 Thunder,Tornado and Hurricane power cables ,so I get to try them against my Cerious cables and they were not even close as good to my taste,Hurricane still easily the best of them.I liked it sounded best on BHK preamp with good results.
I had no hum issues with Niagara 5000,just the sound was more like a wall in front of me instead of nice 3d layered image I have ,and lacked feeling of being real,though pure and clean it was. And it worked best with everything connected to it ,also BHK amp.
Never heard powerplants so no comparison,sorry. Still, after I sent it back I felt like I really should have heard it with better power cord to it…
I’ve read 20a Hurricane is the way to go.
Me too but sadly there was no such cable available.
'electrical hum means in the audio signal of the system.
I’ve got the Niagara 5000 with a tornado high power cord. Been running it for several years with no problems at all. The rest of the system its currently hooked up to is the PS audio suite with the BHK preamp and 300 mono blocks, and an Ayris G2.1. I’ve just ordered a hurricane power cord which should come within a couple of days. I’m very interested in any SQ changes with the 5000.
And I’ve just pulled the trigger on the P20. Can’t wait to see what that does with the AQ hurricane.
Now, what would you recommend for supporting the P20? I’ve herd of using 3 (?) Avalon Acoustics 36 mm Apex steel cones.
Can’t wait to hear the comparison! Enjoy the P20!
I have my P10 and P15 on VooDoo Cable Iso-Pods. Work really well.
Iso pads, 3 or 4?
