the best power cable for S60 ?
Can you describe what you mean by “best”? For my K30, “best” was biggest bang for the buck at my budget plus excellent synergy with the rest of my cable and power cord loom.
the best bang for the buck for 200$-300$
I don’t have an S60 so you may want to hear from those with hands-on experience. Generally speaking though, I think the following are excellent with digital components. I have two in my system, one powers my REF10 clock and the other powers the Farad Super3 that powers my EtherRegen.
I use a ASR magic cord on my S60 . Elevates performance . Although I have just ordered an Audio Envy power cord after having been very very impressed with Their interconnect .
Anthony
I use Hidiamond d4 power cable. I really really like them. They are very smooth and excellent in soundstage.
The best powercable I ever tried in my systemis Nordost Valhalla 2. There are many well known brands out there, but for me, Nordost is the best to my liking.
Nordost’s cables are excellent - especially when you have a full loom of them as Nordost recommends.
I had close to a Nordost loom at one time. I could not go all the way as my Spectral amp requires certain MIT speaker cables. I was fortunate as back when Roy Gregory worked for Nordost, a mutual friend had Roy reach out to me. Roy wanted to try a little experiment with audiophiles weren’t really sold on the idea that power cords were essential to bringing out the best performance from an audio system. He arranged to have their two least expensive power cords sent to me in sufficient quantities so that a local friend and I could use them throughout our systems, a loom at a time. Also included was their QBase power strip and a QX4 field generator. We had a few friends join us one weekend to do some comparisons together.
Their least expensive power cord was called the Magus back then. This evolved into the current Blue Heaven. I was using a mix of power cords then with a few priced higher than the Magus. It wasn’t difficult to become a believer in the loom theory after hearing what the Magus did in my system and in my friend’s system.
Also included was the Vishnu, which cost probably twice as much as the Magus. I first had this burning in on my AV system. I didn’t expect to see improved video so I was stunned by the level of improvement. I will never forget sitting down to watch one of my guilty pleasures, Supernatural, and being blown away by the improved color saturation.
I ultimately ended up purchasing a loom of Vishnu. Not too long after that they started closing out their v1 series so I moved up to Brahma. The improved current delivery from the Brahma had my speakers doing things I had not heard them do prior to that. Speed, control, and dynamics all improved as a result of my preamp and amp being able to better draw current as the demands of the music required it.
I ultimately moved to Shunyata as I found their cables delivered a bigger bang for the buck, but you really can’t go wrong with either.
I apologize for being so verbose these last few days. I lost a cherished pet on Saturday and have been trying to keep my mind occupied with other things.
4 Likes
I use stealth dream V10 digital for my CX. For EX dynamic design challenger. Awesome link.
From my experience with several cables, my K50 is less sensitive about cables than any of my other components.
I have tried on my K50 the following power cables:
- Graditech Voima 1 &2
- Ifi SupaNova
- Shunyata Sigma
- Nordost Valhalla 1
- Synergistic Research Atmosphere Euphoria
- Synergistic Research Galileo SX (this is bulky and heavy)
- Stealth Audio V12 UNI (on digital configuration)
- David Laboga GR AC Connect
Laboga cable and the “old” Valhalla 1 are the ones who really stand out and makes the K50 shine even more.
I also tested the Furutech Flux-50 NCF inline power filter with Valhalla but the sound got worse in terms of definition and soundstage.
I wish we had the ability to see user’s systems in their signature line on this forum. Without having a full picture of a system and its foundation, it’s really hard to know whether findings one reports might reasonably apply to another’s system. Have you posted your system online somewhere?
I found my K30 to be surprisingly sensitive to a cable swap. Likewise, I heard improvements from the EtherRegen that had me thinking it delivered a great bang for the buck. You and I are 180 degrees out of phase for some reason. That’s okay as we all hear things differently. It’s just that the engineer in me always wonders why.
1 Like
I concur with Kennyb123 my K50 is extremely sensitive to different power cords. I have only tried 5 different brands, but each one sounded very different to me.
I am using a Keces BP2400 balanced power regenerator before the K50. Maybe this is bringing some leveling to different power cables.
Anyway I found Laboga and Valhalla cables to sound much better on my K50.
I use HiDiamond p4 cables now after trying a few. I have NFC Furutech plugs on them. Not sure if they make a difference though.
I tried a generic power cable and Furutech dps before choosing my Hidiamond.
Been there done that with Valhalla2 power cables. Their certainly more open and have a wider soundstage than other equivalent power cables, but there’s couple of aspects to be aware of.
To me, one of the aims of a good power cord is to lower mains noise before it enters equipment and that’s not a V2 strong point.
The other aspect is cable shielding, and there are two camps of thought: best sounding with shielding or best without. Or pluses and minuses. (After years of experiencing both types I prefer shielding). The V2 is not shielded and radiates quite a distance. One has to step up to the Odin to get a Nordost shielded power cord/cable.
A highly recommend power cable is the IsoTek Ascension, and you get what you pay for, super low noise and improved performance bottom to top.
You made some excellent points. While I have never tried Valhalla v2, I did at one time have a full look of Nordost Brahma, which was one level below Valhalla v1. Switching to Shunyata Alpha HC brought a lowering of the noise floor that was quite astonishing to behold. The noise floor was even lower than what was achieved by having their Quantum QX4 in my system. The Alpha HC was more affordable too.
As far as your comments on shielding, I have no clue what Shunyata does as far as addressing that. What I like though is that they aim for the least possible harm to dynamic transient current delivery (DTCD). The number one job of a power cord is to deliver current to satisfy the demands of the music. Noise reduction techniques harm this ability, so there is a balancing act that is required if a power cord aims to provide noise reduction.
What I can say about Nordost though is that the reason I pursued a loom is that their cheapest power cord blew the doors off of some power cords that were well shielded as far as bringing the music to life.
Very happy with Puritan Audio Ultimate in combo with the purifier
Are you running an ultimate into the 156 from the wall and what cables are you running from your gear?
Ultimate all round, wall to purifier, purifier to components
1 Like
Nice, I’ve put a ground rod in for the groundmaster and then plan to get a 156. I’m interested to compare to my Isotek and then cables. Never ends!
1 Like