Most revealing cable connection?

Cables
1

Assuming a full loom of a particular cable brand what connection would be best to test a different cable; power cable, usb or xlr interconnection, rca, speaker, etc?

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2

Ok, I’ll bite. From a person who doesn’t really know, I would argue that the most critical place comes out of your source component, as in the interconnect.

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3

thought it might be the power cable

4

A fun question that should produce some interesting replies.
My wild-ass guess would be, assuming that most of the cost of your power amp comes from the design and build of a first class power supply,

  1. speaker cables
  2. power cable to your line stage preamp.
  3. power cable to your front end components
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5

The last one you put in? :grinning:

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6

Rather unproductive speculation from my experience, every situation is different. On one component a power cord has made the most difference, on another the interconnect made more difference. Different amp/speaker interfaces are more or less affected by speaker cable differences.

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7

I’d have to agree and go with the “it depends” camp and the fact that the same cable can have more than one impact depending on the particular application.

Case in point. I tried one of the Chinese knockoff power cords initially on my PS Audio Juice Bar. The Juice Bar powers all my source components (Oppo 105D, PS Audio DS DAC Sr, Xfinity Gateway router/modem, set-top-box, and Samsung LCD TV). Picture quality remained the same but I felt the soundstage expanded – specifically it had more height.

I now have it just powering the DS DAC Sr for the last couple of days and my reaction so far is not as positive and is kind of “meh” actually.

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8

For me, all 3 cable types are important as each contributes
according to purpose in the improvement of sound quality…

Best wishes

9

Power cable to the PS Audio P20. It makes no sense as the 115 volts out of the wall is converted to DC and then to 115 VAC once again. But many of us have experienced this.

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10

My guess is that a better cable into a Regenerator works for the same reason it works with power amplifiers.

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11

seems to me quality signal via quality power cord to regenerator would be the most important cable

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12

That is probably true over here in the UK because it remains the case that the best type of cable is one that conducts electricity, and without a power cable you really are going to have some issues with sound quality.

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13

USB cables or Digital RCA cable. Digital swich cable, P20 power cable.

14

I have compared many cables and power cords in my system, and here is my conclusion based on my system:

The cable/cord made the most improvement:

  1. Shunyata Omega USB between the streamer and DAC
  2. AQ Dragon HC for the generator (lately Zenwave PSR- 11 too)
  3. Every other cable/cord made noticeable SQ difference, but to a lesser degree.

The components that were most sensitive to SQ changes from cable/cord:

  1. P15 generator
  2. DS MK2 DAC
  3. Every component made obvious SQ change from cable/cord change, but to a lesser degree.
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